This upcoming summer, to fulfill Joliet Township High School’s summer reading requirement, students will be reading, Divergent. This book has recently been made into a movie, therefor,e many students will just take a trip to the theatre or stay on the couch and watch Divergent on Netflix. The number of students that will actually read the book will be very low.

The school should have chosen a book that has not been or is not being made into a movie. Not many students will get to have their own image of the book but will have the director’s image. Therefore it defeats the purpose of the book because students will read the book seeing the director’s image the entire time they read the book.

According to Madi Dobbs, freshman at Joliet West, “I will not read the book because it’s much easier to just watch the movie. It also decreases the amount of time I have to waste reading the book rather than improving my social skills and being with all of my friends.”

Not only are students agreeing with the fact that the book will not get read, so are teachers. “I believe the book should have never been an option for the students to choose because students were going to pick that one any way, to take the easy way out and just watch the movie,” stated a Joliet West English teacher.

The number of students that took part in the poll to decide the summer reading book was 1331 out of 4500 total freshman sophomore and junior students from Central and West campuses. Therefore, not all of the students had a part in the decision. 33% of students voted meaning that the other percent of students did not participate in the poll and therefore not all students necessarily want to read Divergent. Out of the five choices of books, only 40% of the votes went to Divergent. Brian Conant, English Curriculum Director, stated, “Our goal was to choose a fun book for the students to enjoy reading. We also made it their choice so there was a better chance at students reading the book.”

Whether students read the book or watch the movie it is up to them. But students need to remember that reading a book is much more in depth than watching a movie.