Kristin Gaffney | Echo
Veronica Roth is fast joining the ranks of Suzanne Collins and Stephenie Meyer. At age 22, Roth has developed a successful young adult series that has led to a movie deal for her novel "Divergent."
Roth is a Christian writer and is very vocal about her faith on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. She is a strong advocate of faith in God, and encourages Christians to tackle tough topics, especially ones that deal with a broken world.
In transit so I'm just linking like crazy: 'Divergent' At 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, (short preview!) http://t.co/EfEnbqzb4l via @MTV- Veronica Roth (@VeronicaRoth) August 22, 2013
"I want people to come away from my book with questions," Roth says on divergentfans.com, "Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers."
This approach is evident in "Divergent." The story explores the life of 16-year-old Beatrice Prior, or Tris, a girl living in a futuristic Chicago where people are sorted into five factions based on virtues of humanity: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peacefulness), Candor (honesty), Dauntless (bravery) and Erudite (intelligence). Tris discovers that she is a Divergent, someone who cannot be categorized into only one group, and has to hide that secret while facing her fears and dealing with imminent war between the factions.
Roth has struggled with anxiety her entire life, and wrote "Divergent" with the goal of exploring fear and its effects. The idea for the book came when she saw a billboard image of a person jumping off a building.
"I wondered why someone would do that," she told Publisher's Weekly. "At the time, I was also taking (the class) Intro to Psych and we were studying the treatment of phobias by repeated exposure to fears."
"Divergent" will hit theaters March 21, 2014, produced by Lionsgate. The book spends a good deal of time working through a metaphor of human virtues that Roth designed, a parallel to the Christian faith. There is no telling how much the movie will focus on Christian aspects. Shailene Woodley has been cast as Tris, the main character. Theo James will play Four, and Kate Winslet will appear as Jeanine Matthews.
