Divergent, the popular young adult book which spun off into movie adaptations starring Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller, is returning for two new novels 15 years after the first book was release.
Written by US author Veronica Roth, the Divergent series took place in post-apocalyptic Chicago where society is divided into five clearly marked factions. The story was told in a trilogy of novels written – titled Divergent, Insurgent and Allegiant – between 2011 and 2013.
Speaking at BookCon in New York on Saturday (18 April), Roth announced that the franchise will be returning for a two-book series, the first instalment of which would be titled The Sixth Faction.
While the original Divergent series saw heroine Tris moved to the Dauntless faction after it is revealed that she contains traits from all the factions – making her Divergent – these new books will imagine “an alternate universe of Divergent where Tris chooses a different faction”.
Speaking to USA Today, Roth shared that the books were “not a prequel, not a sequel, not a spinoff, not a different POV”. She told the publication: “I think the question of ‘who is Tris without Dauntless’ is an interesting one.”
The Divergent books were one of many dystopian YA series to come in the wake of The Hunger Games series. The stories have since been revived by Roth in a collection of short stories and epilogue followed in 2014 and 2018 respectively.
Like Suzanne Collins’ series, the Divergent books were also given a big screen adaptation in 2014’s Divergent, 2015’s Insurgent and 2016’s Allegiant, which was split into two parts. Woodley played Tris, while Theo James, Teller, Zoë Kravitz and Ansel Elgort also starred in the franchise.
While the first two films were box office hits, the third and fourth instalments, like the books they were based on, were less well received both critically and commercially.
Roth’s comments that The Sixth Faction is not a sequel separates it from The Hunger Games series, whose prequel books have spun off into their own successful films. The latest instalment, Sunrise on the Reaping, is due for release later this year starring Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, Ralph Fiennes and Glenn Close.
Roth added that The Sixth Faction, the first instalment of which will be released on 6 October, could be read as a standalone novel, although it would give new insight to fans of the original series.
“For existing fans, I’m excited for them to see how the old and the new fold together,” she said. “You’d think that certain things wouldn’t happen because she makes a different faction choice, but she does find her way to the same people. Seeing how that happens is a really fun part of it.”
