Last school year, in the spring the summer reading novel was in the process of being chosen by the students, even though students picked the book there were some who relied on the popular film to help them start off the school year and slide by the first week school. As some readers and viewers had come to realize, relying on the movie won’t much benefit in any way, the novel and film are completely dissimilar.

Veronica Roth, author of Divergent had an interesting image while creating a world with five different factions of humans. Each faction is strikingly unalike from one another. The five factions represent selflessness, bravery, intelligence, honesty, and kindheartedness. Beatrice Pryor, protagonist is a part of the selflessness faction, Abnegation. But when she takes her aptitude test and her results come back inconclusive she is told that she is Divergent and could join any faction. During the Choosing Ceremony Beatrice chooses to join, Dauntless, a faction representing bravery

When hitting the big screen Neil Burger’s version of Divergent differs from the original book. There are some main differences noticed throughout the film. Some fans of the well-known novel may have been slightly shocked when some key points in the book were missing “I liked the book better because the movie left out very important characters didn’t really focus on the actual plot of the novel, they kind of just threw random parts in there,” sophomore Stephanie Unzueta.

Right after Beatrice had chosen her fate as Dauntless, her faction took off to the railroad tracks. In the novel as the new dauntless associates jumped off of the moving train some did not make it and had been dropped from the faction and became faction-less, which means they don’t have a certain purpose or belonging. They are homeless, and frowned upon. However, the movie shows all initiates who had jumped from the train made it safely off to the other side, nobody ended up faction-less. In the film there is certainly more division between the factions than there is. In the novel the factions appear to live very different lives and do not interact with one another much at all.

Some of the fights scenes were also tamed quite a bit in a few ways, especially Beatrice’s horrifying near death experience including both Al, who she thought was her friend and Peter. In the film there was just pushing shoving and of course strong resistance, while in the novel Peter puts his hands on Beatrice and makes remarks about her body and suggests rape along with murder, also in the film Peter adds a slight sense of humor to the storyline. Unlike in the movie, Peter was a monster, a liar and a cheater who threw other initiates under the bus to increase his chances of moving on in training. Though some of these qualities show in both the novel and the film, Peter is much more of an instigator in the book.

Even though the big screen production racked in $56 million just on opening night alone, most readers and viewers prefer the novel over the movie due to missing events and lack of detail. “I enjoyed the book better than the movie because it went in depth with the story. It gave you an insight on everything. The movie didn’t really keep the same plot line,” Sophomore Jana Gaustchy