(If you haven't read book 1, there might be spoilers ahead.)
Title: Insurgent (Divergent Trilogy #2)
Author: Veronica Roth Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopia, Apocalyptic, Fantasy
Publisher: Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Summary/Synopsis: 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:
Plot:
Oh, what can I say, I've totally underestimated the Divergent Trilogy! While I was reading the synopsis of Divergent, I knew this was going to be a story with the end of the world epic feel to it. And now it has finally showed exactly how great this story are. I am not going to say what I said about Divergent was wrong, because I still feel Divergent is actually not that great, it's just that Insurgent changed my view on the whole trilogy. That being said, let's start reviewing.
Okay, the first thing that made Insurgent so great is that in this book, the stakes are higher, and it's more interesting and exciting than reading about Tris' initiation training. This time the stakes are on the factions, which is much bigger than worrying about whether Tris will make it through her initiation, which, by the way, I honestly don't care, not that I don't care about Tris, I just think making her factionless might actually be far more interesting, and her relationship with Tobias will be even more appealing with the whole 'betraying his faction to be with her thing', now that I said(typed?) it, I actually want that to happen :p Anyway, with the stakes now on factions, the story becomes way more epic and let's just say I love epic stories!
The second thing is that the plot twists are great! In Divergent I actually didn't realize what or when were the plot twists because they were not shocking at all, Insurgent gives me WAY better plot twists that are so shocking that my mouth actually opened into an O (and this time I was reading in my classroom, no need to tell you how that ended...). With the two big reveal about Tris' family, I am sure you are going to be shocked! Maybe even right out of your seat... I love good plot twists and this book delivers them very well.
The third thing is that the plot is actually more complex than Divergent. In Divergent we were left with many of the main mystery answered (TOO many, actually), so it feels kind of like a closure. This time, Veronica digs the seemingly solved or unquestioned moments from Divergent and elaborate them into the more complex plot of Insurgent. Long story short, readers are raised with questions and mystery that we didn't know it was even there before, maybe it's because Veronica hides them so well, anyway, LOVE it.
The only thing that I am not happy with is that the ending is too abrupt. In Divergent, we are left with a Tris monologue that gives the readers something to wait for (her life after what happened to the factions) but also gives a sort of closure, and I am actually cool with that. But this time, I think the book ends too abruptly, I am an either cliff-hanger or closure kind of girl, I can't settle at the middle and I kind of feel like that's what happened. On one hand, I think that the ending sentence actually meant something shocking will happen, but on the other hand, I think it was just the people's cries of outrage, so I am confused. I am not sure if that was Veronica's intent, but if she was hoping for a cliff-hanger ending, I think it needs more work. However, all in all, the plot of Insurgent is great, and no plot is actually perfect, you can always find something you don't like even if you absolutely loved the book (at least, it was like that for me), so I don't think that's really a great problem.
World-building:
I actually don't have much to say about the world-building, it's dystopia so as long as the living standards are not too high, I don't see anything that can't be written into the story, as long as it is being explained, I am able to accept almost all kinds dytopian worlds. So the world of Divergent is expanded in Insurgent, with us seeing the remaining two faction headquarters, Candor and Amity. We also get to know about the big mystery about the gate surrounding the world of Divergent and I am looking forward to seeing the world of Divergent further expands as the story goes on.
Characters:
The character developments in this book is as good as it was in Divergent. I think developing characters are actually Veronica's strength.
Tris was faced with guilt and grief when the book started. She killed Will and her parents sacrificed themselves to save her. In a way, she was looking for a way to sacrifice herself too, she thinks this can condemn the fact that she killed Will and honor her parents' sacrifices. My heart actually aches for her because of this. She is too strong/stubborn to admit any of these feelings to anyone, maybe not even yo herself, trying to throw her life away without really thinking things through. Good thing she finally figured out that she actually didn't want to die and faced her fears in the end. She was healed a little, somehow.
Another character that I really want to talk about, Peter! I actually have a strong love/hate feeling towards Peter. I hate that he insists on being so harsh to Tris, without really explaining why, love that he had such a different view on life than all the other characters. His life might actually be hard, with his unique view on life, and I actually want to know more about it. I hope Veronica doesn't kill off Peter though, his death won't serve much use on shaping Tris into a stronger heroine anyway and I would really hate for him to die. I want to see him realize that the way he sees life is actually wrong (at least, wrong in many ways, he might not be ALL wrong though) and watch him experience love, to see how he will react to it. I want to see him change for the better.
Conclusion:
This book, as I kept saying, is so much better than Divergent and it actually made me fall in LOVE with the trilogy, I hope the ending will be able to keep up with the good work in Insurgent. I also want to note that, I actually only realized now there are some sort of similarities between The Maze Runners Trilogy and this trilogy. Of course, the story goes in different directions, but if you read both Insurgent and The Maze Runner, you will see what I am talking about. (The Maze Runner Trilogy is actually really worth reading anyway, so go read it!) Okay, so overall, I will give this book a four star, I think the pace is still a little bit slow in the beginning and the ending kind of dragged the rating down a bit. Anyway, a 4-star read is actually really good, I don't think I should go around giving 5-stars all the time, and this actually haven't reached 5-stars in my heart yet anyway. I definitely recommend this to all of you YA readers, it's good!
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Rating: 4 stars! |
