Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Tris and Tobias stopped the simulation. But in the aftermath of it's destruction it becomes very clear that it was only the tip of the iceberg. Dauntless is split down the middle, Abnegation is almost gone, the Euridite are far from finished with their experiments, and it's only getting worse. In a society tearing at the seams Tris struggles to find the truth when she can hardly face the facts herself. She doesn't know who to trust, and now Tobias isn't trusting her instincts either. Will they be able to save themselves before it's too late, or will the truth behind everything destroy them all?

Insurgent is book two in the Divergent trilogy by Roth that revolves around a futuristic society set in Chicago. 

I'm just going to jump right in today and say that there was a lot I didn't like about this book. I can say I got a better grasp of the characters in this one than the previous book (I almost had a semi emotional moment at one point, almost). However I still never quite understood what it was that kept Tris and Tobias together. The love they talk about having between them in the first book doesn't seem strong enough to fit the descriptions in this novel, and to make matters worse both of them travel through the story in a permanent state of non-communication. There is a lot of emphasis on Tris and Tobias not really knowing each other. To which I'm thinking, 'No you don't! There was no real mental development in your relationship to begin with!". I'm not going to say that having flawed characters is bad. Quite the contrary, it's good for the characters to be many faceted and realistic. Though I'm not going to say that it is a horrible flaw to have two of the main characters be annoying as heck, I wouldn't say it is the greatest asset either. I had a hard time getting into the book and getting through it because of this.

I would say the same thing I said about the first one. I really liked the setting, the tone, the world that was created. That was all done very well. Plot was interesting and kept me pulled in once it got going, however I feel like the big reveal at the end was puffed up more than was actually warranted. From a storytelling point of view, it might have been wiser to spend less time building it up and rather just take us by surprise at the end. Leaving clues is good. It's never wise to trick a reader. But it isn't good to get expectations high only to disappoint. 

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on it because there has been so much hype about the stories that I just expected more from it. I do intend to finish the series, but I feel I will remain one of the few with the unpopular opinion that the series wasn't the most amazing thing I've ever read, though neither was it the worst.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

I rate this YA novel 4 out of 5

All Beatrice has ever known is the simple selfless existence of her faction, Abnegation. Now at sixteen though, it is time for her to take the aptitude test that all of them must take and ultimately choose which faction she will live with forever: Abnegation (the selfless). Erudite (the intelligent), Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), or Dauntless (the brave). But her life is turned dangerously upside down with the confusing results her test reveals, and the faction she chooses becomes more important that ever. She must hide herself, though no one will tell her why. This is easier said than done when she find herself thrown into a highly dangerous and competitive initiation for the faction she chose. As she figures out more and more both about herself and her new faction, the safe and controlled world she has always known and understood begins to unravel around her and a daunting threat rises over the horizon, coming down on them all.

Taking place in a futuristic dystopian Chicago, Divergent is a novel that is hard to stop reading. I read it in a 15 hours, taking a break to sleep in between. Dystopian YA novels have been a popular theme lately, and I don't think I even need to elaborate for you to know which I'm speaking of. This genre is one I have especially loved to read. For some reason though it took me a long time to finally decide to pick this one up, despite all the good things I had been hearing about it for months. Even now after reading it, I'm not sure what it was that made this one so enthralling. But there it is. The books revolves around a seemingly simple theme but one that is delved into and given a complexity I didn't expect. The world that Tris becomes a part of is a strange twilit one, where so much happens and it never seems to slow down.

Interestingly, I didn't form very strong attachments to the characters. The plot was great, and I really wanted to know what was going to happen next with everyone (hence the obsessive reading speed), but this wasn't one of those stories that has pulled my emotional heartstrings...yet. I know there are still two more books in the series, so I guess I will have to see how that progresses.

I also don't know what to make of the character Four. I don't feel like I really understand his character yet. There feels like there are some contradictions to his personality that I haven't worked out yet. Tris does seem to question it as well, calling him out on his back and forth behavior, but it isn't really gone into. Hopefully that will be explored more later.

One insignificant qualm I had was the lack of description with getting tattoos in the story. There was no end to describing the physical pain Tris went through, so I feel like leaving out how it felt to get tattoos, at the very least for the first one, is a little bit of a plot hole. Getting a tattoo is a very intense and interesting experience, one that can also be emotional. Tris gets three, and I feel like that is significant enough to give some description too

All in all though, I very much look forward to reading the next book and would definitely recommend this as a great read.