*Spoiler Alert*  Don’t recommend reading my review if you plan to read the book.

I first read, Divergent, by Veronica Roth in late 2013 and totally enjoyed it. I actually read the trilogy back to back and finished them all within three days (I did the same with the Game of Thrones series…read them back to back and now am awaiting the 6th book with crazy giddiness).  This is my second time reading Divergent and I still enjoyed it, but this time around a couple of things stood out more. There is a lot about bravery. Not that I didn’t notice it before but it stood out as a different kind of bravery, like a sacrificial kind.  Her mother tells her to be brave.  So does her father and Four, and so does Will with his quote. It’s almost like they are telling her to sacrifice herself for others, not to be strong or keep fighting, but to give her life. She learns that her mother is Divergent and then her mother goes and sacrifices herself to the serum-operated Dauntless soldiers, to save Tris of course, but still, to the eyes of a teenager, that is a very strange message about being brave, and in a way, that part is sort of like a foreshadow of Tris’s own demise down the road.

What really makes this book is the tension buildup.  Each chapter leaves me wondering when Tris will break.  It is done so well that when she finally breaks down, I do too.