In Divergent (HarperCollins, 2011), first novelist Veronica Roth imagines a dystopian Chicago and a society in which individuals must choose one of five factions to live in when they turn 16: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, or Erudite. But the situation is complicated for narrator Beatrice Prior, who grew up in the selfless Abnegation community. Her aptitude tests indicate that she does not fit neatly into any category. She is "divergent"—a label that puts her life in danger. Beatrice must keep her test results secret even as she chooses Dauntless, reputedly the most perilous of the factions, and becomes "Tris." Here Roth talks about her own struggle to "be good," society's tendency to label people, and the importance of choice. Do you see parallels between present-day society and Tris's world? I do. The most obvious is our inclination to categorize people. You hear a lot about high school cliques, but adults form them, too. When I was a teenager, I tried to be as good as possible, to prove my worth to the people around me. What I've realized is you can't be perfect, and maybe it's our motivations to be so that we need to look at. Trying to be good carries its own incredible weight....What's more important than this need to self-improve? The inspiration for the novel and the factions were based on my views about human nature, and that virtue as an end in itself may not really be a good thing. Of the five factions, Abnegation seems the most concerned with virtue—or maybe piety. One of the teen readers I talked to compared the Abnegation faction to the Puritans. That was something I thought of when I was choosing the characters' names. Yes, they're the most concerned with virtue. Selflessness can be harmful, in that it asks you to ignore your individuality. Tris's parents seem to have different reactions after Tris's Choosing Ceremony. Her parents epitomize two tendencies I've noticed, one is protective—her father realizes Tris and her brother Caleb don't know everything and he wants to make their decisions for them—and the other tendency is more trusting, as is Tris's mother. She will let her daughter make mistakes, her own mistakes.... [The moment in the book] When the teen's mother lets it slip that she thinks Tris's father is being selfish is an important moment for Tris. You also touch on the interplay between faith and doubt, when you mention that Tris's family is one of the few religious families in Abnegation. Her parents are religious, but I think Tris goes through a spiritual crisis that corresponds with her other life changes. I think spiritual questions are natural, but we avoid them in young adult books because we don't want to be pushy or preachy. I don't want to be either of those, but I don't think it would be as truthful a book if my character didn't struggle with those issues. You seem to suggest that the key to forgiveness is to think of people outside those boxes we create for them, to see them as multidimensional. I struggle with what forgiveness means, and it's only natural that it would bleed into my characters. In the book [the theme of forgiveness] becomes more important once things begin happening to Tris and she has the option of retaliating, or responding in a way her [Abnegation] parents would have. Was it difficult to begin the book, to set the stage? It was very difficult. I actually wrote 30 pages a couple of years ago. I was trying to create Tris's world—it's hard to write an entire city! The reason this version worked, I think, was because I had a better idea of who the character was that was telling the story. I thought, "Just write Tris and allow the world to unfold only insofar as she knows it." That scene early on when the factionless man confronts Beatrice/Tris on the eve of her Choosing Ceremony is haunting. That scene was conspicuously absent from the first draft. One of my writing partners said, "What is the consequence if they fail their initiation ceremony?" And I said, "It's a fate worse than death for them. They'd become factionless." It was a very insightful question. How did you come up with the concept of factions? When I was approaching this whole concept, I was thinking about the kind of utopia that I would try to create, but then it turned into a dystopian society. I thought about which virtues I would choose. These were the five, and I think the last one I came up with was candor. I had trouble figuring out [the Candor] until I wrote their manifesto. I feel like I've had friends that would belong in that group, people who tell it like it is. They're difficult, but awesome to have around! One of the major themes of the book is choice: At 16 do you know who you are? And yet, in the society of Divergent, there's no turning back. At 16, you're so set on figuring out who you are, and you want to make decisions or assessments that tell you who you are. You're almost an adult and you have responsibilities, but you're still a little unsure. To pick a trajectory of what path your life goes down—if you restrict yourself too much, you won't become all that you could be. Listen to Veronica Roth introduce and read from Divergent TeachingBooks.net resources on this Interview »»»   Jennifer M. Brown is the children's editor for Shelf Awareness, a daily enewsletter for the publishing trade. She recently launched the website Twenty by Jenny, which recommends titles to help parents build their child's library one book at a time.

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