Divergent had so much hype around it that it was easy for me to forget that not all YA novels are created equal. The story itself cannot be to blame, as it is intriguing enough to pull the reader in in the first place, but the author seems to forget to build a world around a genre that is about, well, about worlds. 
 Would Brave New World, Chrysalids, or Hunger Games have worked if we did not get a chance to seem the government and the world through the eyes of the character? A dystopian novel is based on the world the character lives in. A world that occasionally may start off a good place but is often revealed to be truly terrible. 
 Divergent seems to miss the point of a dystopian novel altogether and instead creates a YA romance with some dystopian themes that are never quite fleshed out. Other reviews have made lists of all the questions that are created but never answered, but the three that bothered me the most where: 
 (I've tried to keep it spoiler free, but there are a few things that may be spoiler-y still, so be warned) 
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 Why where the factions created? - Why would we knowingly break into groups? Why do you have to choose one for life? Is it not normal for people to be more than ONE attribute? Tris is both Selfless and brave, and that makes her a radical divergent, but it seems amiss that only a small number the population are very good (not amazing, since Tris herself admits she's not amazing at being selfless) at more than one thing. 
 Where is the government/evil in this story? - though we do find a ultimate evil near the end of the book, for the most part Divergent reads more like a coming of age school story then a dystopian novel. The government itself is fine, run by the ever selfless abnegation faction. This is where the story becomes cliche. The smart (Erudite) faction manipulates/tricks the brave (Dauntless) faction into a war. For no apparent reason. The reason that is finally given is that one single member of the Erudite faction wants more control. Your left to make assumptions about if all the other Erudite side with her, if all the leaders (whom you never meet) of Dauntless are evil to, why Candor (the truthful faction) doesn't see the deception from the beginning. The biggest flaw I saw was why the Erudite would waste their time on a war when they could simply have manipulated the abnegation into believing that the Erudite having more power was for the good of all people and with the abnegation being ever so selfless would see the error of their ways and relent. It simply amazes me that all the Erudite go along with this plan despite the fact they are supposed to be geniuses. 
 Lastly, how come Tris never gets fully fleshed out? - you spend a whole book in this characters head, but all I know is that she likes a guy for no apparent reason, misses her family and really misses looking in a mirror. Her fears that she is supposed to learn to face are unrelated to the actual fears she has. Like her fear of being alone (she is almost never alone in the book, and generally when she is terrible things happen) her fear of failure, her fear of the destruction of abnegation, her fear of commitment (she never fully commits to anything, maybe I'm agnation, maybe I'm dauntless, maybe I'm in love, maybe I'm not, maybe are my friends, maybe they're not...) these fears are far more valid then the continual one of control that seems to come up. It feels too much like the author was trying to create a type of character, but was not fully aware of the character she had already written. 
 The last big problem I have with this book is its ability to introduce important topics, and then ignore them completely. Such as with suicide, it gets introduced in a jarring way and then never really talked about again. The character is mourned for 5 minutes and then Tris all but forgets they exist. This would have been an incredible theme if the author had explored it. It could even have mirrored events of today and current feelings surrounding suicide. Instead it is haphazardly brushed aside so that Tris can have a romance she's not even sure she wants. 
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 Despite all these flaws, the book is still enjoyable. Just never look too closely at the world or the characters and you may even end up liking it. 
 -L