Wednesday, September 12, 2012

CBRIV: Book#13: Divergent Book 2: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Pinky McLadybits




I finished this book quickly, though I was distracted while reading. I found myself feeling as though there was so much crammed into one book that it was giving me whiplash. That and the continued choices of our heroine, Tris, made this book alright but not as exciting as I found Divergent.

Tris and her boyfriend Four/Tobias are reeling from the simulation that had other Dauntless murdering Abnegation in cold blood. They are also searching for a place where they can be safe from the Candor faction and their leader. The leader that created and engaged the simulation that led to the killings.

Tris grows a lot in the first book. She starts as a meek girl on the outside with fire inside. Changing factions from Abnegation to Dauntless allows her to unlock the other parts of herself that she had been trying to hide for 16 years. Tris is also able to find out what it is like to love someone else and deal with a relationship. That's a lot of stuff to cover as quickly as the first book does. Of course, this means that Four and Tris will have An Obstacle in this book that threatens their relationship.

I'm not going to divulge what that obstacle is here. I found it to be cliched and sort of oddly done. Needless to say, I could have done without the whole Tris and Tobias relationship drama, but this is a Young Adult book and I should have expected it to happen. Tris also backtracks in several ways. She digresses from her Dauntless experiences, in my opinion, and loses some of the fire that she had. The fire is replaced with something even more uncontrollable, and it was a bit annoying to see over and over again. I understand that something can't happen and immediately be fixed, but it seemed like Tris knew what she shouldn't be doing but couldn't be bothered to remember who she had become.

While there is An Obstacle and some personal backsliding, Tris and Four are also dealing with the fallout from the breakdown of the only society that they have ever known, figuring how to save themselves and the people that they care for, and what to do if or when they succeed. I think that I will re-read the first book and this book when the third book is finally released next year, but I wouldn't rush you to read this one yet. There is so much going on that you will want some satisfaction concerning closure that isn't in this volume.

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