Insurgent By Veronica Roth

Cover Rating: 3/5 Stars
Overall Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

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.

I read Insurgent in the dreaded reading slump which, as with The Golden Lily, reduced my enjoyment of it. I had huge expectations for Insurgent after my love of Divergent and although I liked it I don't think it got there. Insurgent followed straight on from Divergent, the factions are in tatters after Erudite destroyed most of Abnegation. They are all taking sides and none are necessarily the right ones. Everything anyone has ever know has changed and it is beyond fixing. The factions are all looking after themselves and slowly self-destructing. Can Amity, the peaceful, remain peaceful? Can what's left of Abnegation stay selfless? With everything crumbling nothing and no one is safe.

The characters all changed a great deal in Insurgent and not necessarily for the better. I really liked Tris in the first book but in the second I feel that she became a lot less likable. She goes into a kind of depression and although it makes her character more realistic, it's not all that fun to read about. As you get further into the book and she snaps out of it a bit more she climbs higher on my likability scale. Apart from the slight glitch at the beginning I still love that she's as brave and free as she was originally. In the first I loved Four/Tobias and in this one I still do. At some points I couldn't tell whether his protectiveness was annoying or sweet but that didn't matter. What matters is that he is a strong character and not one of those drop dead gorgeous air heads like some young adult novels have - though he is gorgeous. The most annoying thing about him was the fact they stopped calling him Four and started calling him Tobias. Decide on a name!! There were some characters I grew to hate because of their cowardice but I can't go much into that without spoilers.

Overall Insurgent is fast paced and totally shocking. The ending made the book for me, it was so unexpected. I don't think it was as good as the first but it didn't disappoint too much either. I am looking forward to the third book but mostly I just want to see the title. The first two rhyme so I'm torn between emergent, resurgent and convergent. All would work I think. Unless killer cleaning products come into the story I don't think it will be called detergent but you never know.

My Favorite Quotes:
“Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.”
“It reminds me why I chose Dauntless in the first place: not because they are perfect, but because they are alive. Because they are free.” 
“No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.” 
“Got that gun?” Peter says to Tobias. 
“No,” says Tobias, “I figured I would shoot the bullets out of my nostrils, so I left it upstairs.”


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