Title: Insurgent
Author: Veronica Roth
Published May 1st 2012 by HarperTeen
Source: Purchased
Goodreads summary:
One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.
Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.
Review:
After reading Divergent, I felt like I started foaming at the mouth with want every time the word Insurgent was mentioned. That’s probably a bit creepy, but I friggin’ LOVED Divergent and was beyond excited to continue reading a new favorite series. The day Insurgent came out found me walk-jogging into the nearest bookstore to buy my own copy.
We catch up with Tris nearly immediately after her would-be initiation day and the battle that took place there. To be perfectly honest, I am both glad and and disappointed that I couldn’t make time to reread Divergent beforehand, so I wasn’t bothered by any reported continuity errors, but I found myself struggling to recall the exact events that are referred to throughout Insurgent.
My reading of Insurgent was a somewhat confused one. Tris, Tobias (Four), and others that they travel with move around a lot. My feelings… and essentially ratings then started to fluctuate wildly.
After less than ideal circumstances, Tris and Four are now together. But their relationship no longer feels like a healthy one. It seems they argue as much as they do anything else and Four starts pulling one of my least favorite behaviors, occasionally adopting an “I know best” attitude. Fortunately, it’s not a constant thing for him, so it only irritated me and didn’t make me hate him.
Tris becomes a character who starts to feel a bit flat to me as well. Her Divergence and aptitude for other factions seems like an excuse to make her a little too much of the hero. Certain scenes have other characters turning to Tris for advice because she had an aptitude for Erudite, so despite her age, lack of training or experience in that faction, lack of insider knowledge, and lack of seniority even within her own faction, clearly she’s the best one to make a plan. It felt like a stretch.
The long slog through the middle of the novel moving from faction to faction had me somewhat bored.
The difference between those scenes and the action is marked. Because adventure and action is where Veronica Roth’s writing really shines. Those were the scenes that had me wide-eyed, frantically turning to the next page. Those were the scenes that had me completely in their thrall and pulled Insurgent’s rating up for me.
And that ending… hoo boy. What a cliffhanger. Let’s just say that I can’t wait for the next novel.
Overall rating: 3.5/5. Not as much of a WOW as Divergent, but a decent follow-up.
