Divergent by Veronica Roth 487 pages

Alert to fans of Hunger Games: This first novel by Veronica Roth is pretty impressive. Set in a futuristic Chicago (!!), society is divided into five factions that embody a virtue: honesty, selflessness, peaceful, intelligence and bravery. The year one reaches 16, he or she chooses which faction to pledge to. Beatrice, reluctantly turns her back on her parent's factionAbnegation (selflessness), and chooses Dauntless (brave) when she learns that she is Divergent (a rare breed that has strengths in more than one faction. Her brother surprises her and their parents by choosing Erudite (intelligence). She must survive a rigorous training / testing phase to be accepted. She survives a lot of hits during training and afterwards. She is attracted to one of the two trainers, Four. My intro does not do this book justice. It has the quick dramatic action, tests of courage and strong characters as The Hunger Game. I sure hope that a sequel is in the works.