Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Book:  Insurgent

Author:  Veronica Roth

Publisher:  Katherine Tegan Books

Date:  May 2012

Source:  purchased very quickly on my Nook

Grade:  A+

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.

MY REVIEW

Initial reaction

::stunned silence::  Did she seriously just end the book there???  I am having flashbacks of Catching Fire here?  Can Hermione’s time turner take me forward in time to the next installment??

Title and cover

I am really digging these one word titles and the symbol superimposed on the background of Chicago.  It lends an air of mystery and is a little futuristic.  It also seems a bit imposing and sort of sums up the whole atmosphere of the series.

The plot

Just like the first book, Insurgent is a non-stop powerhouse of a book.  The plot picks up exactly where it left off in Divergent….seriously, like almost mid-sentence.  This book rolls at a super-fast pace as well.  There were some real shocks in this one that I totally did not see coming and a few others that I started to suspect somewhere in the plot.  These books have that fast-paced action movie feel.  In fact, if Hollywood doesn’t snap up the rights to these books and turn them into some sort of blockbuster starring Will Smith, they are dumb!

The characters

The characters continue to be richly developed.  I don’t know how she manages to create such complex characters and still keep up the action movie plot, but apparently, Veronica Roth is a genius.  I grew to love Tris and Four/Tobias even more in this book and characters that I thought were more simple and easy to understand end up having more facets than I thought.  There were big surprises with Caleb and with Peter which just made the characters even more interesting. 

The final grade

This is another A+ book for me.  It has everything that I want in a book:  great characters, an action-packed plot, twists and turns and mystery, a bit of romance and heartache and it makes me think about the nature of the human experience.  What more could one want in a book?  If you haven’t read this series yet, don’t wait any longer!