Book Review: Insurgent

Insurgent
by Veronica Roth
525 pages
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Book
Publication Date: May 1, 2012
Source: Purchased
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Once 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 intiation 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 chose, 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.

After the whiz bang awesomeness that was Divergent Veronica Roth had an awful lot to measure up to in her sophomore novel Insurgent. And I'll be honest this book sorta kinda fell into the sophomore slump for me. Okay, under normal circumstances this would be an absolutely fantastic sequel but guys, this is the sequel to Divergent we're talking about. This thing had a LOT to live up to. And it just sort of... fell short. That isn't to say that it's not totally great because it is, but it does have it's flaws.

I'm keeping this review spoiler free so if anyone who is reading this hasn't read Insurgent yet you may proceed safely. :D

Veronica Roth churned out a real page-turner with Insurgent just like she did with Divergent. I read this book in 2 days flat. I could've read it a lot faster but some of that time was spent driving in a car and motion sickness is not something I like to endure even for the greatest books. The pacing of Insurgent is a bit spotty at parts (Tris in the Erudite compound anyone?) but overall I found it super hard to put down.

The plot of Insurgent was kind of all over the place. The characters were jumping from location to location and it was a bit hard to follow. The story definitely didn't have as much of a here to there element as Divergent did with Tris going through initiation. Because of this it almost felt like filler between Divergent and Book #3. However a lot of important things did occur and there were some crazy (CRAZY!) reveals. Gasping, oh my gosh I never saw that coming reveals. Good stuff. So despite it's filler nature Insurgent definitely still had a lot going for it. Plus I loved getting to learn more about all of the factions not just Dauntless and Abnegation. My one tiff with the plot is that the big reveal at the end was sort of... stereotypical? I can't say much without giving it away but let's just say that I expected something a little more unexpected from Veronica Roth. :/

So Insurgent was a total page turner and the plot had some great moments but unfortunately one of the characters ended up falling short and that was Tris. She really took a nose dive in Insurgent and when the main character of a novel takes a nose dive the whole novel ends up taking a nose dive too. Sad but true. :/ I mean I understand that Tris was in a bad place after Divergent because of the fact that she had just shot and killed Will and her parents had died but she stayed in a sort of static "I feel sorry for myself" place throughout almost all of Insurgent and the worst part was, she didn't tell anyone why she was being such a downer. Tobias/Four kept asking her what was wrong and she would be like "Oh nothing..." and then just start moping again and I all I could think was COME ON GIRL! TELL HIM WHAT IS WRONG! YOU CAN TRUST HIM!!! Gahhh it drove me bananas. Plus I felt like Veronica Roth wrote it as if I should be feeling sorry for Tris when really I just felt like I needed to knock some sense into her. And did I mention that she goes all suicidal on us ala Bella Swan in Twilight? Yeah, I was pissed. Fortunately Veronica Roth does pull Tris out of this awful character rut and by the end of Insurgent she is a much stronger character and more developed character. I just wish she didn't have to go to such a low to get there. The good news is Tobias/Four, even with the double name confusion, was still pretty awesome and his and Tris' relationship felt a lot less creepy when they weren't being presented as teacher and student like in Divergent so thank God for that! 


Insurgent was a strong sophomore novel. It wasn't quite up to the same level as Divergent but it was still an extremely enjoyable dystopian read. On top of that I am definitely eager for book #3! I give Insurgent gets 5 out of 5 ice cream cones. 

Julia :)