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Thursday, February 6, 2014

Book Review: Insurgent

Title: Insurgent

Author: Veronica Roth

Genre: Dystopian 

Page Count: 525

Publication Date: May 1st, 2012 (first published on January 1st, 2012)

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Awards: Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award (RT Award) for Young Adult Protagonist (2011), Goodreads Choice for Best Young Adult Fantasy and Best Goodreads Author (2012)
                                                                            Source


*WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

     Insurgent by Veronica Roth is the sequel to Divergent and continues the events of the previous book. In this sequel, Tris must piece together why Jeanine Matthews put together the simulation and must prevent her from attempting to do it again. Tris is willing to do anything or sacrifice anything to stop Jeanine even if it means losing the ones she loves. 
   This novel was action-packed and filled with events I did not see coming at all. The beginning of the novel was a bit slow, but once it picked up I could not turn the pages fast enough. This book had a lot of foreshadowing which made me keep wondering what was going to happen next. It also put me into deep thought over the shocking events that unraveled. Even through the grim situations that occurred, Veronica Roth still found a way to weave some humor into the dialogue. Readers get to learn more about the characters, factions, and even the factionless.  
     First off, we get to see new traits in the characters we already know and love and some we hate. Tris starts out in a very guilty state after murdering one of her best friends, who was under the simulation, and seeing both of her parents die. While everything around her changes, Tris too tries to change her appearance in order to fit in with her always-changing society by cutting her hair. She also comes upon the realization that her Dauntless initiation made her much braver than she thought. While trying to help save the factions from each other, Tris becomes reckless and puts herself into life threatening situations even though she thinks that she is being brave and dauntless which makes her boyfriend, Tobias, very annoyed. This leads her to become more Dauntless than she is  Divergent. Also, Tris finds that she has a way of always getting what she wants during her encounter with Jeanine Matthews. During the whole chaos of the war between the factions, Tris and Tobias's relationship significantly grows. They have a lot of romantic scenes, but they also have some pretty heated arguments which turn into distrust between each other. Tobias is very protective over Tris and treats her like a china doll which could sometimes make her angry. He is also very hard to persuade into doing things that he doesn't want to do. Tobias is for the most part fearless and only cowers to his abusive father, Marcus. He must deal with his fear of Marcus throughout the story. Marcus is a very skeptical person. He is one of the only ones who knows information about the Abnegation and is unwilling to share it with others. He can be an excellent liar and very manipulative which cause many people to dislike him. 
     The main antagonist of the story is Jeanine Matthews, along with the Erudite faction. Erudite is an evil faction who is out for control over Chicago. In order to get this control, Jeanine Matthews, the leader of Erudite, tries to capture all of the Divergents, which mainly include Tris and Tobias. Jeanine is very clever and can make simulations and weapons to get control over the Divergents along with their factions. She is very cruel and will kill anyone who gets in her way. She also manages to get many Dauntless soldiers to join her and her band of villains. 
     Secondly, we get to learn more about the factions. Us readers see how much each faction contributes to its society. We realize that Chicago will be unable to survive without each of the factions, mainly including Erudite and Amity. The Amity supply all of the food for the city and Erudite provides all of the knowledge and the manufacturing and improvement of weapons. The necessity of each faction creates a struggle for the characters later on.
    Thirdly, we learn more about the factionless. There are far more factionless people than I had ever imagined. In the first book, I thought the factionless were like our modern day homeless people that lived on the streets but they are not at all. The factionless are more like a community and have their own form of government. They live off of the food and supplies that the Abnegation give them as an act of selflessness. 
    Overall, this book was very enjoyable! I liked reading about all of the characters and their crazy, messed up world that they live in. The story ended on a cliffhanger so I am very anxious to read the next book Allegiant.

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