Music, big crowds, excitement, and lots of noise; this will be a summer full of music and fun! Cincinnati has a variety of exhila-

rating concerts coming this summer 2012.Drake is an artist

who is taking over the hip-hop/rap in-dustry. He is current-ly on his Club Para-dise tour. He will be at Riverbend Music Center on June 6th. Tickets range from the low price of $35 to $115. The tour features tons of rap artists, including J. Cole, Waka Flocka Flame, Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, and French Montana. Many stu-dents at West are ex-cited to see the Club Paradise Tour.

“Drake is great and I can’t wait,” junior Eric Ellis said. “I’ve been to two Drake concerts.”

Vans Warped Tour will come to Riverbend Mu-sic Center on July 31. This tour is a combinati0n of bands that will make you scream from excitement. Tickets are on sale for $44.90. Vans Warped Tour will include performances by Taking Back Sunday, All Time Low, New Found Glory, T Mills, Breathe Carolina, We the Kings and many other bands. There

is a band to fit a variety of tastes and several students have their favorites.

“All of the bands I like are going to be there,” junior Michaela Knuf said. “I’m most excited for T Mills.”

The World Choir Games will be taking place in the United States for the very first time. It is a festi-val of choirs. The world’s best vocal-ists will be at the U.S. Bank Arena and Procter and Gamble Hall from July 4 through 14. The Games in-clude a variety of ceremonies and concerts. Prices vary depending on what event you at-tend, these prices can be found on

ticketmaster.com Our very own Lakota West Cham-ber Choir will be attending and performing in this event. The choir members are thrilled to be a part of these games.

“Chamber Choir is our only choir in it,” sopho-more Ryan Sandy said. “Basically, someone from the World Choir Games asked Chamber Choir to be in it.”

The Under the Influence of Music Tour is headed our way; headliners Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller will

Olivia LenoirStaff Reporter

Veronica Roth breaks onto the New York Times-bestseller scene

with her debut novel Diver-gent - the first installment of a trilogy - reminiscent of The Hunger Games in its dystopi-an style. From the moment my eyes first feasted on the dra-matic yet compelling tagline, “One choice can transform

you,” I was hooked.Set in a futuristic Chicago, Divergent follows

15-year-old Beatrice, who must decide her destiny upon turning sixteen. Society is divided into six ‘factions’, or groups. each emphasizing a different lifestyle and set of values. The Amity faction values happiness (read: your basic bunch of hippies), the Erudite faction bases their lives of knowledge and learning (book nerds), Candor is obsessed with hon-esty (“Thou shalt not lie!”), Dauntless hates a coward (think Evel Knievel), and to members of the Abnega-tion faction (do-gooder, community-service types), the biggest crime one could commit is egotism.

Beatrice must, in a dramatized ceremony, drop her blood into a bowl representing the faction of her choice. She, along with her fellow fifteen-year-olds, takes a simulated aptitude test to determine the fac-

tion her personality is best suited to. That’s where the drama begins. When the results are revealed, Beatrice is stunned to learn that hers was inconclu-sive. In other words, Beatrice’s results indicate that she does not clearly belong to any one faction. She is deemed Divergent, putting her in elite company. Divergence is extremely rare – and extremely dan-gerous.

Given this information, Beatrice is forced to make a choice as to which faction to commit to. Once her decision is made, there’s no going back on it. The question is, will Beatrice stay with her family in Ab-negation, the faction she was born to, or will she abandon them forever in favor of a completely new life?

Divergent reveals the answer in an enthrallingly candid style. Roth also details the aftermath of Bea-trice’s tough decision. And as if Divergent wasn’t al-ready interesting enough, Roth threw in a side-plot romance that is a weirdly excellent blend of Nicholas Sparks meets Harry Potter. Add in a healthy dose of bad guys –which Divergent has no shortage of – and you’ve got a recipe for a real page-turner.

The characters in Divergent were remarkably re-latable and real. I found myself able to empathize with characters frequently, and they felt like real people to me. The dystopian setting of the plot was unique and set it apart, and its plot twists will keep

readers guessing at every turn. All in all, I found Di-vergent to be a very good novel. It’s very versatile in that it mixes the best of a variety of genres: adventure, fantasy, thriller, romance and even sci-fi books. In my opinion, Divergent deserves a genre all to itself.

Apparently, so does Summit En-tertainment – the same firm behind the Twilight flicks - which has picked up the right to produce a movie version of Divergent. Although the film version, directed by Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher, won’t premiere for several more years, fans have al-ready begun casting the main characters. But luck-ily, they won’t have to wait for the movie’s release to get their Divergent fix – the next novel in the series, Insurgent, hit bookstores May 1. I, for one, will be anxiously waiting to get my hands on a copy.

Divergent decidedly delightful

be at Riverbend Music Center on July 26 at 5:30pm. Tickets range in prices from $20 to $75. The tour also features performances by Kendrick La-mar, Chiddy Bang, Schoolboy Q, and Chevy Woods. Fans of Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa have been wait-ing for this concert for a very long time.

“I’ve liked Mac Miller for like ever, since his Kids album came out,” junior Danielle Chamberlain said. “I’ve liked Wiz for two years.”

Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw will be at the Paul Brown Stadium on July 1 for the Brothers of the Sun Tour. Tickets for Tour 2012 are on sale for $42.57 to $285.10. Students from West have high hopes for this concert.

“I’m too excited,” junior Maddie Mitchell said. “It’s going to be the best concert of the year!”

Take a group of friends, or even your family, and go enjoy these summer concerts. These concerts will surely leave you with a smile on your face and tons of lyrics stuck in your head.