One choice can change your life.

I think I may have stumbled upon something good with this one. No, I'm not the first to realize it seeing as this series is coming to the big screen at the end of the year and is already well known in the Young Adult community, but better late than never.

Divergent by Veroinca Roth is the first book in a trilogy centering on our young hero Beatrice. The story tells of a society broken up into factions that are designated based on personality traits. You have Candor who are truthful, Erudite who are intelligent, Dauntless who value courage above all, Abnegation who are selfless to no end and Amity who are friendly and peaceful. Upon a person's 16th birthday they take an aptitude test that classifies them into one of these categories but ultimately they get to choose where they want to go and make their new lives. The underlying message to this book is that one choice can change everything.

Once a faction has been chosen, the child becomes an initiate and must go through trials and training to learn the way of life of their new home. If they do not make the cut, they become factionless and are slated to a life of poverty on the streets with no identity. Each faction runs a portion of society based on their values and supposedly this keeps things under control and peaceful.

Beatrice struggles with her choice after she's made it and is constantly wondering if she made the right one or if her true intentions will give her away as a fake. When a manufactured revolution breaks out among two factions, Beatrice will rely on all aspects of her personality regardless of what category she is boxed into in order to save the citizens of all factions. In her quest for self discovery she finds love, friendship and a courage she never knew she had.

You may be reading this and thinking it sounds a lot like the Hunger Games Trilogy and I'm not going to lie to you there are a lot of overlapping  similarities. They are both post modern societies with governmental unrest, with a young girl as the main character who is proving to everyone and most importantly herself that she is strong enough to handle anything. I loved the Hunger Games trilogy so I really enjoyed the first book in this one. I think if you can mentally separate the two and not compare you will enjoy it as well.

Also with reading this book you will be ahead of the trend when it comes back into popular culture with force when the movie is released. Reading it now will put you ahead of the curve and you will be able to delve into book two, Insurgent, to kill time waiting for the movie to come out.

The third and final book in the series is still unnamed and does not release until October of 2013 so you can build a little suspense and make the conclusion that much sweeter by reading them now.