Books like Divergent
What should you read after Veronica Roth’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Veronica Roth
- 2011
- Young adult dystopia
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Divergent
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchThe Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The book that made room for Divergent, and still the sharpest of them: a girl volunteers, is trained, and is watched. Better written, angrier, just as fast.
- An initiation you can fail
- Short chapters, constant motion
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Kills children on the page
Great matchThe Maze Runner
James Dashner
Teenagers inside a walled space, ranked by job, tested by something that kills them at night. Divergent's structure with the romance stripped out.
- An initiation you can fail
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Chicago in ruins
- Barely any character work
Best for the sorting questionThe Giver
Lois Lowry
The quiet original: a community that assigns everyone a role at twelve, and one boy who is given the job of knowing what it costs.
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Choosing between family and self
- No action, no romance
Great matchRed Queen
Victoria Aveyard
A girl hiding a power she should not have, inside a system that would execute her for it. Tris's secret, turned into a palace thriller.
- A secret that would get her killed
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Court romance dominates
Great matchLegend
Marie Lu
Two fifteen-year-olds on opposite sides of a stratified republic, alternating chapters, both of them wrong about each other. Tight and quick.
- Short chapters, constant motion
- Choosing between family and self
- Slighter worldbuilding
Great matchDelirium
Lauren Oliver
A society that cures love at eighteen and a girl who falls in love just before her appointment. The choose-yourself-or-your-family plot at full volume.
- Choosing between family and self
- A slow burn with her instructor
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Romance is the whole engine
Great matchMatched
Ally Condie
Your partner, your job and your death date are all assigned, and the system glitches once. The gentlest book on this list and the most purely about sorting.
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Choosing between family and self
- Very little action
Worth a look — with a warningThe Selection
Kiera Cass
Competition, caste and a girl out of her depth among rivals — but the prize is a prince, and nobody is going to die in the process.
- An initiation you can fail
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Essentially a reality show
Great matchThe 5th Wave
Rick Yancey
Recruits trained by an authority that is lying to them, and a heroine who works it out alone. The Dauntless-training instinct, weaponised.
- An initiation you can fail
- A secret that would get her killed
- Alien invasion premise
Best for the trainingEnder's Game
Orson Scott Card
The serious version of initiation: a child pushed through escalating simulations by adults with a use for him. Tris's fear landscapes, forty years earlier.
- Fear simulations to walk through
- An initiation you can fail
- A slow burn with her instructor
- Cold and cerebral
Worth a look — with a warningThe Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
Where this genre came from: people sorted by function into castes with uniforms, told by someone who remembers choosing otherwise.
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Choosing between family and self
- Adult literary fiction
Great matchUglies
Scott Westerfeld
An operation at sixteen makes everyone beautiful and something else besides. Same age, same ceremony, same girl who declines it.
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Choosing between family and self
- 2005 slang has aged
Great matchThe Darkest Minds
Alexandra Bracken
Children with abilities, camps that sort them by threat level, and a girl concealing what she can do. Divergent's secret with a road-trip attached.
- A secret that would get her killed
- Sorted into a faction at sixteen
- Short chapters, constant motion
- Sequels sprawl
What should you read after Divergent?
Divergent by Veronica Roth works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins — the book that made room for Divergent, and still the sharpest of them: a girl volunteers, is trained, and is watched. Better written, angrier, just as fast.
If what stayed with you was an initiation you can fail, read The Maze Runner by James Dashner instead: teenagers inside a walled space, ranked by job, tested by something that kills them at night. Divergent's structure with the romance stripped out. The Giver by Lois Lowry is the other strong option — the quiet original: a community that assigns everyone a role at twelve, and one boy who is given the job of knowing what it costs.
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