Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Insurgent...Insurgent. What can I say about Insurgent. I guess the first thing I can say is that this review will contain spoilers for Divergent and some spoilers about Insurgent, so read at your own risk.

I could also say that I thought the plot was pretty interesting and liked that we got to see more of the world. I got bored of all the training in Divergent, so I was happy we got none of that here. I also liked that the book started right where the first book ended. After the cliff-hanger, doing anything else would have been annoying, so I liked that it just went straight into things. I also liked that we got to see more from Tobias. Yes, he's a bit of a jerk here, but considering his upbringing I thought his harshness made sense. The best part was being able to see all of the factions. Overall, I liked it a lot better than Divergent.

The story is about Tris and her gang trying to take down Erudite. A bunch of things happen, sometimes serving no purpose at all, but things happen. In the end, we're introduced to a cliff-hanger and finally answer one of the questions I had back in Divergent.

Sadly, this book and series still doesn't make sense. I'm trying, I really am, but if you thought the world and the faction didn't make sense before, be prepared for it to not make any more sense here. I mean, at all. Amity likes to strum banjos and eat toast that makes you high happy, they also grow all the food, so they still serve their purpose. Candor, I don't understand the point of them other than being jerks. What's the point of having all of your secrets laid out in the open? What do they do? Lawyers? Why would you need one in this world? What is the point of them? What's the point in any of them?

Anyways. That isn't my biggest problem. My biggest problem in Insurgent is still the biggest problem I had in Divergent. Tris. She's a horrible human being, you guys. Just horrible! She's a Divergent, which apparently isn't all that special, but she's more special compared to all the other Divergents. This means that her mind isn't easy to control and instead of falling under one faction, she actually falls under more than one. She falls under Abnegation, her original faction, Erudite, and Dauntless.

This should make her selfless, smart, and brave. Only, she's selfish, stupid, and reckless. I never got the sense that she belonged with anyone other than Dauntless. So why is she a Divergent? She doesn't think and is on some mission to sacrifice herself so she can join her parents. I get that's she's hurt, I do, but she does this so many times without talking to anyone, but expects everyone to tell her the truth and plans. She's irrational. The sad thing is that everyone looks to her for advice, because apparently you can't think properly unless you're an Erudite. The factions...why must they make no sense? Why!

...*deep breaths deep breaths*...

I really disliked how she lashed out at others, even when she's in the wrong. There is a scene where Christina and Cara are talking about her, because she killed Will, and they're not happy about her. Instead of understanding their grief, she makes it all about her and how she's a victim. She's not. She killed Will and went straight for a head shot even though she let Eric and Peter live. Why didn't she shoot his hand or leg? You want to know why. It's a curse, it's the

Remove every couple, so Tris and Tobias look normal curse

In Book One, Will and Christina hook up and it's cute and loveable and you root for them. Then Tris kills Will, leaving Christina alone. Tris also watches both her parents die, even though both were incredibly interesting characters that I would have liked to seen more of, they die because they're protecting Tris. And when I say protecting, I mean getting out of the way so we don't see a healthy relationship.

In Book Two, Edward becomes a psycho making Myra leave him, even though both seemed so in love with each other. Uriah and Maureen hook up and in pretty much the next chapter she dies. Lynn loves Maureen, so she has to die as well. Even when it seems like Christina might have someone else, he dies after saying she's cute. Shauna and Zeke are the exception to this rule, instead of dying; Shauna becomes paralyzed and has to be on a wheelchair. I suppose Caleb and Susan might be an exception too, but we don't see enough of them for this couple curse to happen. Thank God for that, because I actually like those two together.

Thus, every couple that seems to become normal and cute must have someone die so that Tris and Tobias are last couple standing.

I expect more couples dying on each other in the next book. Caleb will probably die then, so Tris can be the only person in her family alive and allowing another couple to 'break' up.

Even though I enjoyed this book a lot better than Divergent, it still has a lot of the same problems. The world doesn't make sense, the need for factions in order to find peace seems okay at first until you find out what the factions do and then you wonder what is wrong with these people. Tris is still annoying and not a strong female character. When she betrays Tobias and goes with Marcus to Erudite headquarters, she lets Marcus hit Caleb and instead of getting angry at that she gets angry that Marcus did the same thing to Tobias. With the Caleb hitting, it's justified because he's a traitor, even though Tris is technically considered a traitor at this point too......

Why is it okay for her to betray everyone and not tell anyone the reason why, but it's wrong when Caleb does it? Caleb could have a great reason to do so, why don't you...hmm, I dunno. Talk to him instead of getting angry? That would be the logical and selfless thing to do, right? Right?
I just can't with Tris.

Anywho, the ending is interesting so I'll be reading the next book the series to see what happens next. I'm hoping the next book answers my questions and makes me understand this world. I also hope that no couple is harmed by the curse.

So I guess I should end the review here. Insurgent is better than Divergent, but it's still so so flawed.

3 stars out of 5

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

This book was the book to read last year. I got emails talking about how great it was, bloggers everywhere were singing its praises, and whenever I went to the store I saw this book a lot.

My expectations were high and for good reason. Divergent is an action packed face paced novel that will keep you reading and reading and reading. Sunday is the only day when I can actually sleep a few extra hours, so after I prayed Fajr I decided that I was going to sleep. Somehow, the book came up and well I didn't end up sleeping much after.

So there are a lot of good things about the book, but it's also doesn't really make a lot of sense. Let me explain. Divergence takes place in a notreally dystopian city, where people are separated by their beliefs on how the end war. You see, a long time ago, people decided that religion, race, nationalism, and politics were not the causes of war. Humans were the cause. In order to change this, they created five factions to eradicate war. Abnegation believed that selfishness was the reason. Amity believed that aggression was the cause. Candor thought it was duplicity. Dauntless said it was cowardice, and Erudite blamed ignorance.

And thus, the five factions were created, despite the fact that getting into groups like this will probably mean you're in for some discrimination of some kind or another. But whatever, they wanted to end war and end it they did. Oh, and to make this even better, each group only has a specific job. Dauntless are guards, Abnegations are in the government, Amity are farmers, Candor are lawyers, and Erudite are reporters and researchers. Again, not sure what the old citizens of Chicago were thinking when they thought up these rules, because it seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

If you’re wondering about the other jobs, the factionless peeps do those. We meet one in the book and he seems like a crazy hobo who is dirty and smells bad. At this point, you might find yourself wondering, “Why was Old Chicago so desperate to separate them like this and have lower people work for them? Doesn’t this mean that eventually there will be a revolt or factions will start fighting against each other? Why try to eradicate war, by presenting a problem that can cause it?”

Don’t worry. That’s part of the fun that is Divergent. There is one interesting factor that isn’t ever developed in this novel. The city, for some reason or another, is barricaded. The Dauntless guard these doors. From what? From who? I have no idea, but I’m really hoping its explained in the following novels.

Anyways, let’s get back to the book. Divergent starts off with sixteen year old Beatrice, our heroine, who has to decide which of these five factions she belongs to, to help her decide; she has to take a test. There’s only one problem, Beatrice belongs to more than one faction. People who are like this are called Divergent.

After we learn this and then see the ceremony, I started to wonder what was so great about being a Divergent. According to the rules, the test tells you which faction you belong to, but then you can choose whatever faction you want at the end. I don’t really see the purpose of the test, other than finding Divergents. This could very well be the case, but it’s never really explained either.

So Beatrice decides to go to Dauntless. Dauntless are a brave people. Brave in the sense that they are kind of psychotic and incredibly stupid. They jump down buildings, jump into moving trains, beat each other up, and get tattoos.

Seriously, Old Chicago, you really should have thought these things through.

I mean really, there are some huge flaws with every group. Dauntless are stupid. Amity spends their days smiling, hugging, and playing the banjo. Abnegation think of others before they think of themselves, which sounds nice, but it’s caused them to bottle up everything. I’m surprised there are not a few crazies in the group. Erudite are arrogant. And Candor are loud, brash, and don’t really care what others think.

As a whole, this doesn’t really matter because the story is about Beatrice’s, now named Tris, journey in becoming a Dauntless member. If she fails, she becomes a factionless. If she succeeds, then she’ll discover a new world that she never had in Abnegation and get to experience some good ol’ fashion YA loving.

Divergent is well written, but the world that Roth created has a lot of holes. Not that this is necessarily a problem, but since it’s a dystopia, I’m left wondering how something like this could ever happen. People may be stupid, but not stupid enough to do something like this. I kind of wish the genre was different. If it was fantasy, it would have been fine.

Also, I didn’t really care for Beatrice. She’s told that being a Divergent is dangerous, but does she listen? No. She continues to do things that will get her into trouble.

The last few chapters were great though and the story started to finally make sense and the arc about Al was really well done. (view spoiler)[ I also liked that we learned that Beatrice’s mom was a Divergent also. After we find out she dies, which sucks since it would have been nice to hear more about her. (hide spoiler)]

There are some good things and some bad, so I gave this three stars.

ps. (view spoiler)[ Was I the only one who was kind of troubled to see Beatrice kill Will? She doesn’t do the same thing to Eric and Peter, but Will, her friend and ally, she kills. When I read this I had two feelings about the situation. 1. Beatrice is a jerk. She could have shot his leg and continued running. 2. The moment there was another couple, they had to separate. Edward and Myra left together after he got stabbed in the eye, and once Christina and Will become an item, he has to die. Kind of sucks for the guys in these relationships, eh? (hide spoiler)]


2.5 stars out of 5