DIVERGENT (Veronica Roth) - March 24/14

I had previously vowed not to read anymore YA dystopian trilogies, but the library had a brand new copy sitting right there, so... Anyway, for most of the first half - actually more like two-thirds - I was cursing my decision to start this, as Roth packs the book with one tedious training scenario after another. If you condensed all the training scenes the book would be a novella. Anyway, I wasn't, as a result, too invested in any of this but the book takes a very sharp turn about two-thirds in, as Tris and Four, being Divergent, don't succumb to the zombie-like status of their fellow Dauntless, which kicks off a very exciting stretch in which Tris is forced to basically quash the entire revolution by herself. Lots of extremely entertaining stuff here and a handful of surprising deaths - BOTH of Tris' parents! - so I found myself racing through the last ten or so chapters in just a few hours. I was sure I wasn't going to read any followups, but now I'm pretty curious to see where the series goes. *** out of ****