Veronica Roth, author of the best seller “Divergent” series, opened her speech at La Salle on Tuesday, March 2nd by explaining how much of a failure she used to feel she was. A packed library full of around 140 intrigued Lasallians sat hanging onto every word as she took the room through a journey of her early life failures. Roth said that she had tried many things as a child and as she put it, “failed miserably at all of them.” However, the one constant she had in her life was writing.

Roth came to La Salle promoting the new movie based on her book “Allegiant”. The acclaimed novelist recently started touring around and La Salle was lucky enough to be one of the chosen schools.

Roth’s speech made a strong impression with many students. “[Hearing her speak] about the failures she has experienced in life resonated with not only me but my friends [as well] and left an impact on how I view my failures” sophomore Raeya Finkle said after attending the event.

After her presentation came to an end, The La Salle Falconer had the chance for a quick exclusive interview. Sitting relaxed on the center table in the small Mac lab room adjacent to the library, Veronica Roth was prepared to answer all the questions that were thrown at her.

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Writing had always been her passion, ever since she was young. Everyone remembers that seemingly unattainable dream from their youth; Roth’s dream just happened to be writing. However, like most parents her “mother always said to have a practical plan.” In fact, as she had explained before in her prior presentation, she felt quite a failure at everything and did not have much faith in her dream either.

With Roth’s second book, after her first try at writing a novel fell flat, she was quite “ready [to be in it] for the long haul, ready for another failure.” However, this upcoming book turned out to be the New York Times’ bestseller “Divergent” that she is now known and loved for.

She had absolutely no idea of the success and fame the book would attain, even after the being taken on by a publisher. She explained that believing one’s book is going to be a great seller is “the peak of delusion.”

When asking Roth about what the meaning of the Divergent series was, she said that she could be quite “wary of messages.” She went on to explain that most adults believe that teenagers need a message in all of their books, that they must be taught while reading, instead of just reading out of pleasure. However, Roth disagrees with that belief. She compares teenagers to “clay that has not hardened yet.” People often feel like they need to form it a certain way, but they need to go through life and decide what they want to believe.

Of course one of the reasons for her whole current book tour is publicizing the exciting release of Allegiant the movie. While she was at the set of the movie a lot for the first one, even making a cameo as a dauntless, she went to the sets less and less as the movies were made.

After the first movie, the filming was moved to Atlanta and she was working during the shooting so she became less a part of the production. While Roth confirms her love and appreciation for all those who worked to make her book a successful movie, she definitely prefers writing over making movies.

Roth had hinted earlier that she had been working on something new, and she soon revealed her nameless new story. A young adult fantasy set in space, this new book follows the adventures of a boy seeking to find his kidnapped brother. This book is set to come out sometime next year.

Roth started out quite worried about her school book tour. She felt that “some people did not want to be there [the speech]” because teenagers can often be very judgmental and even a bit scary. However, she felt it was important that she do these tours to teenager because she wants them to know that “young people’s struggles are real”. Often, she continued, adults think that teenager’s struggles aren’t real and are things they can just get over.

Roth pointed out that adults often have a very stereotypical mindset when it comes to teenagers, especially teenage girls. She seemed inspired when talking about this topic, and was excited to share her views. Girls are not all just “screaming One Direction fans”, she explains. It is not fair to always categorize teenagers into that stereotypical model. Rather, she encourages people to not look at teenagers as just an age, but get to know them as a person and treat them like you would another adult.

As Roth is not far removed from her high school years, she remembers her teenage self quite well. She spent most of her time focusing on school, working hard for good grades. She described herself as someone who thought she was a rebel, but never did anything wrong.

Roth remembers how teens could be mean and how sometimes you had to be mean first. Roth made clear that building walls around yourself and not letting people in is not the thing to do, saying that instead you should just make the most out of your experience.

Roth’s speech at La Salle reminded students that failure does happen, and according to her, it should only push you to do better. On a rough path from failing childhood sports and hobbies to crawling her way through several editors waiting for someone to take in Divergent, Veronica Roth is a shining example of chasing one’s dream and exceeding.