Review: Insurgent

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Genre: YA

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Goodreads Says: 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.
I want to start off by saying that I liked this book, but not as much as the first and I often found myself frustrated.

Reading Insurgent was like reading Matrix meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets (insert hormones here).

Warning: This might be a bit spoilerish so skim.

Trish is dealing with the death of her parents, the death of one of her best friends, and the very real war between the factions that will soon be at their front step. Like Divergent, I found that there really wasn’t anything overly special about the book. It was nice story telling. Many complained about the holes in the plot and I had mentioned in my review of Divergent that I was sure these holes would be filled in Insurgent. For the most part they were.

What I didn’t like:

I got a bit tired of Tris wanting to feel up on Four. We get it Tris. You LIKE him. A LOT. You LOVE him. A LOT. It was just a bit much. Tris wishing she was pressed even closer to Four was a bit much in the most random moments and awkward moments (like when people are shooting at them).
For most of the book we have Four stressing how messed up Tris is and how she puts herself in danger needlessly. Personally, I felt as if Veronica Roth wanted to convince me that Tris was mentally unstable. Ok, I felt like Veronica Roth wanted to force feed me the fact that Tris was mentally unstable. I didn’t feel as if she was. Sorry, I didn’t. I felt that she was dealing with losing her entire family, struggling with being a Divergent and what that meant, and finally that she was simply acting like someone who was in a war. Four felt that she would put herself in danger to help others but isn’t that in her nature because she is Abnegation? Why was that so hard to understand? Why was she mentally unstable because she was selfless? You spent the first book telling us what it meant to be an Abnegation member and as a Divergent she is partial to those qualities and the moment she acts upon it she’s chastised for it? Again, she is allowed to be off when it came to dealing with the death of her parents because she really hasn’t been able to.

What I did like:

For the most part I liked how the story unfolded. I liked those moments of tenderness that were shared between Tris and Four. I liked when Tris told Four off at the end. I liked that Tris admitted to not being able to keep it together because she felt this great loss for her parents. I like how different Tris is.

The ending wasn’t as big of a twist as some have been squeeing about. BTW, a few things happened in the ending and neither of it was squee worthy. The cliffhanger was an awkward cliffhanger that didn’t make much sense and will leave you asking a bunch more questions based on what was revealed as fact.