56. Divergent - Veronica Roth

First in a new series
Katherine Tegen Books (Harper Collins) 2011
HC $17.99
for:  Young Adults
487 pgs.
Rating:  4

First Line/s:  There is one mirror in my house.  It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs.   Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair.

Setting: Chicago, somewhere in the future.
OSS:  Beatrice Prior has come to the vital point in every 16-year-old's life, when they must choose one of society's five factions  in which to spend the remainder of their days.

Dauntless (the brave), Candor (the truthful), Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful/happy), and the Erudite (the smart).  Beatrice has been born and raised as an Abnegation.  She loves her family - her parents and her brother, Caleb.  But when the time comes to choose the faction in which she best fits, it's more than difficult.  Because if she chooses anything other than Abnegation she will have to leave her family, her home, everything she knows.....forever.

In a story that intertwines a somewhat recognizable dystopia with rethinking the parameters of war and peace, we watch the initiation of Beatrice (who renames herself "Tris") into a new and exciting faction, where she finds new friends, new foes, (a boyfriend, of course), and a life that she could have never imagined.

I read this in one day....staying up late.  Tris is a great character, brave, smart, loving....and really, quite real.  I was quite drawn to her.  You had your stereotypical nasty peers, lots of action and adventure, and the requisite layers of bad guy vs. good guy. It's left so that you know there will be sequels.