Laura’s Review of Insurgent (Divergent #2) by Veronica Roth

If you like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Matched by Ally Condie you will love this series!!!!

Basic Summary:  Once choice can transform you, or destroy you

Every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying ot save those she loves, and herself, while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

“Sometimes.’ He says, sliding his arm across my shoulders. ‘People just want to be happy, even if it’s not real”

What I Love About This Book:  Okay, this is a total break from that wonderful smuttiness that goes along with 99% of the books I read.  But before I fell in love with the world of dirty romances, I was into dystopian books and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this trilogy.  Insurgent is a reread for me because Allegiant just came out and I read Insurgent over a year ago and I didn’t remember anything just like the last few chapters, so I needed a refresher. 

                This book starts almost immediately after Divergent ends, leaving Tris and Caleb to deal with the death of both their parents, and the rest of the dystopian society to deal with the attack of Dauntless faction that was headed up by the Erudite and their leader Jeanine.  Basically they are left to pick up the pieces a broken world, and life as they know it no longer exists, leaving the future very uncertain.  This entire book is basically a search for information that Marcus, Four’s (Tobias) father knows.  The information was once trusted to be guarded by the Abnegation (Tris’ old faction) and because of this most of this has faction has been killed. 

                What I like about dystopian books is the complete breakdown of a sort of authoritarian society.  Unlike The Hunger Games where there is one ruling government over 12 districts, there are 5 factions with no one overall ruling structure.  Each faction is completely split from each other, having their own governmental structures within.  It kind of falls into the divide and conquer strategy where each faction kind of contributes a whole a society in some sort of way, but not one factions represents the whole entire city as a whole.  The Hunger Games structure was pretty big and took up what was left America in the future, whereas this book takes place in what is left of Chicago so their society is the size of a city and much smaller.  The factions although are separate from one another, there is communication and transportation from faction to another.  The Amity are the agricultural faction, who create and farm food for the whole city, the Eurdite are the information nerds if you will of the city, and depend on the Amity for their food, and Dauntless for security and policing.  Candor is sort of the lawyers of city, constantly seeking the truth in situations; again depend on Amity for their food.  Unlike the Hunger Games there is dependence on one another yet separate governments all the same.

              

 I also like these books because very much like Katniss, Tris is almost on her own for most of this series.  In the first book though she more of a support system, and kind of found a home within the Dauntless faction, but in Insurgent it’s almost her against the world.  There is very much a separation between her and Four in this book which was kind of depressing, but makes you read on to see if things can be salvaged between the two.  I love Four and I love their relationship and in the beginning of this book you get lots of juicy scenes with them together, which is what I wanted so much of in Divergent.  Yet as you go further into the book there is a breakdown of communication between the two and you want to scream at both of them to get their shit together and start talking!!!!!  To me it’s what makes this book a page turner, it wasn’t just their situations it was also their relationship.  I needed to get to the end because I NEEDED to know what happened to them!!!! (I’m not gonna tell you how things end between them).

                When I was reading this book, it was kind of amazing to me how a lot of the characters felt like this total breakdown of what they know as a society is just temporary and eventually things will go back to “normal”.  They don’t get that what they knew no longer exists and will never again, and I was like HELLO how stupid can you be?  But then I realized when something huge happens that rocks your entire country all you do is crave the normality that existed because there was a security in that, even if your life sucked, and you were miserable.  There is still a security in an everyday routine, rather than random chaos and not knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s hard to see a better alternative, when all you know is the way you and generations past have lived; the alternative is chaotic in a lot of ways and very scary.  Dystopian books can teach you a lot about your own society, and make you look at how this could possibly be the future for our own country, but then you have to almost remind yourself that this fiction, and none of this could happen…or could it? That’s what I loved about The Hunger Games, and Divergent, the complete head screw it gives you!!

“My mouth goes dry.  No factions?  A world in which no one knows who they are or where they fit? I can’t even fathom it.  I imagine only chaos and isolation.”

Cons:  I felt that the writing was a little too simple for me, but I do realize these are young adult books so the writing equates to that.  I’m sure if I was younger reading this book I probably wouldn’t feel that way.  It’s just that sometimes I felt like the sentences were totally fragmented and it frustrated me, but I get it, I’m a 32 year old reading a book that is more of a teenager level.

“Sometimes I feel like I am collecting the lessons each faction has to team me, and storing them in my kind like a guidebook for moving through the world.  There is always something to learn, always something that is important to understand.”

Overall:  This book is filled to the brim with action, every corner Tris turns, people are getting shot, punched, stabbed, whipped, and god only knows what else.  There were a few lulls in the book, just so I could get my bearings again and then BAM!!! I felt like it was very much Tris against the world, even at points Tris against Tobias.  While reading this book there were times where I was breathing hard, almost wanting to cry or scream and I love books that aren’t just reading they are a full body experience, and this book delivers that 100%!!!!  The ending of this book is just a HUGE bomb, and everything you know from the first two books just doesn’t seem to matter by the end of this book and I can’t wait to start Allegiant!!!