Saturday, October 11, 2014

A Book Review of Insurgent by Veronica Roth



Find it on Amazon!

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.

New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian Divergent series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.

Series: Divergent (Book 2)
Genre: YA Dystopian
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books; 1st edition (May 1, 2012)
Page Count: 544 pages

What I liked: There was a lot of mystery in this book. Lots of deep plots and high tension. I like the twist with Amity and the reason behind the factions. The realism of Tris dealing with grief was very in depth. When Erudite captures her at one point (trying to keep this spoiler free so I'm not telling you why ;) ), it is very intense and creepy. The studies about her brain are intriguing. I like the arch with her and Christina, and a line between them really touched my heart. The book left off in an intriguing place.

What I didn't like: I didn't see Tris grow very much. She just seemed to stagnate and became kind of whiny. I didn't like her always throwing herself into situations in almost a suicidal way. This author claims to love God, then why didn't she have Tris seek God or any help for healing? She had an opportunity for it to happen when some Amity were worshiping God, but no Tris just wallowed in her misery with no hope.

She diverged from Tobias so he wasn't there much for her. Additionally, there was a brief homosexual reference in it, I thought unnecessary. It didn't help the plot. It just seemed to be injected there for no reason. Concerning writing, Roth bunched up some of her paragraphs and put actions of another character on the same dialogue line as another so I got confused a few times.

Content Cautions: There is of course some action, but not too much gore. What bothered me most was the swearing. H*** was used several times.

In Comparison to the Film: I actually enjoyed the film far better than the movie. The plot was altered to a degree, but in doing so they fixed so many problems I had with the book and added so many amazing elements to it. I really enjoyed the movie. It is one of the few cases where I can say it's better than the book. You can check out my full review of the movie on Geeks Under Grace.

In conclusion, I was unfortunately disappointed with this novel. I hope the movie mends some of these things.



About the Author: 
Veronica Roth is from a Chicago suburb. She studied creative writing at Northwestern University, and wrote DIVERGENT (Katherine Tegen Books, May 2011) and INSURGENT (May 2012). The third and final book in The Divergent Trilogy, ALLEGIANT, will come out on October 22, 2013. In the meantime she will spend endless hours browsing Wikipedia in her pajamas as she eats corn flakes. (Or some other kind of bland breakfast cereal.)
You can find her on FacebookTwitterGoodreads and her blog!

Check out the review for Divergent!


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4 comments:

  1. With the homosexual reference thing, I'm getting suspicious that authors are being pressured to put these in. (There's one in the third book too.) A lot of times, the authors throw them in willy-nilly with minor characters and something about it feels off. (Also, it seems like half the homosexuals are dead within the book the situation came up in.) I'm not sure if they think they need to do it for diversity or if the publishers are pushing for it.

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    1. What's also interesting is it sometimes seems like this kind of thing doesn't come up in the first book of the series. (I'm guessing either the author is worried about sales if the situation comes up in the first book, or maybe there's some suggestion they've been given.)

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