Book Review: Insurgent, Veronica Roth

Reading Level:    YA

Hardcover:         525 Pages 

Publisher:          HarperTeen 5/1/12

Parasols:            4

Insurgent starts off right after Divergent ends. So we a thrown back into the battle ASAP. Tris and Four have managed to take some of the Abnegation faction and bring them to a somewhat safer faction of Amity.  But they know that their time there is limited. Erudites and Dauntless are teaming up to eradicate those in the "know".

Tris has lost her family and only has her beloved brother and Tobias (Four's real name) to keep her sane. With Tobias' father with them, things are strained all around.  Tris doesn't trust Tobias' dad and she really has no reason to. He's definitely not father of the year.  But he knows something and it's something big.

Throughout this journey Tris becomes even stronger than she ever imagined she could be, but she needs to be. There are people out there who would have no problem killing her in a heartbeat.  She manages to alienate Tobias with her secrets and has to work all the harder to get him to trust her again.  But her trust is shattered when the one person she thought she could rely on during this mess turns out that he's been helping out the other side and her whole world falls apart around her. With her friends and her faction, she has to take back what was taken away.

I love Tris. At times I felt like she had a God complex and that could be annoying. I understand how she had a tough time telling anyone that she killed Will when he was under the influence of the simulation. And she knew that when the news came out that she did kill him, she would be vilified. Keeping it all close to the chest. But her actions alienates the one who loves her. Four tries to understand Tris and is the first to declare his love for her, but she is unable to respond in kind. She goes on to make all sorts of problems when Four has his own problems as well.  He finds out that his mother has been ousted from Abnegation by his father because of a marital indiscretion. She is now for all intents and purposes head of the factionless. And they need them to fight this war.

At times this book felt more science fiction-y than dystopian. I have thoughts as to how this will end, but Veronica Roth could completely surprise us and take it into a very different direction. The one thing that I found very hard was the person who turned on Tris.  It was heartbreaking and may have even caused a few tears. You never want to be in that situation where the person you love is the one who is bent on destroying you. 

With information that the government does not want to get out to the masses, Tris does everything she can to get that information. No one is talking. Marcus knows, but he's not talking. This is where the bulk of the action takes place. Tris is willing to walk into the front door the enemy and do what she can to get to what she needs. But it comes down to Four to help Tris make the decisions that she is to rash to make.

I really inhaled this book in a day via my nook and literally had my breath held during some really intense moments. I love Tris and Four and hope that they are stronger now with the way the second installment ended. We'll have to wait a year for the third, but in that time, I can revisit these characters again and see little bits of information that perhaps I've missed.