Title: Insurgent
Author: Veronica Roth
Series: Divergent #2
Published: 1 May 2012
Length: 525 pages
Warnings: violence
13+
Source: Publisher
for review
Other info: I
totally loved book one Divergent (review here)
Summary : Tris
has survived a brutal attack on her former home and family. But she has paid a
terrible price. Wracked by grief and guilt, she becomes ever more reckless as
she struggles to accept her new future. Yet if Tris wants to uncover the truth
about her world, she must be stronger than ever ecause more shocking choices
and sacrifices lie ahead.
Review: Ever
since I finished Divergent, I wanted to know what would happen next. I also
hoped that book two would be just as good as book one, something that happens
less often than not. Luckily, with Divergent/Insurgent, I was not disappointed.
You definitely have to have read Divergent-it jumps straight
into the action with very little flashbacking to the events of the previous
novel. Which is good, but when it’s been a year since you’ve read book one, it
takes a little time to get used to it.
There is so much packed into the 525 pages that it’s
surprising that it’s surprising It’s not longer. There isn’t a moment in the
whole novel when Tris is not on the run, about to be executed, being forced to
do something she’d rather not, and generally trying to stay alive. Everything
happens in such quick succession, there just isn’t a convenient place to stop.
Not even the end.
I’m glad we get to see more of Candor and Amity, the
factions that Tris didn’t have aptitude for, because they wee fairly overlook
in Divergent. In Insurgent, they get their fair share of coverage which sets us
up nicely for what we might be getting
in book three.
There’s a huge amount of characters in this, a few new,
mostly recurring and most in different
lights to what we had in book one. Some
of them were a little hard to keep up with, especially with similar names. It’s
also a little confusing with Tris going back and forth between factions in
various states of captivity. However, it was easy though to fill in gaps.
Once again, the writing is great. It details everything and
gives all the characters their own personality, their secrets, and strengths
and weaknesses.
The thing that got me most was the way that Veronica managed
to make me feel for all the characters when they die. Especially the minor
ones. General thought processes: somebody major dies-good for them. Somebody
we’ve seen for a couple of pages dies-NO NO NO WHY. And considering I don’t
normally care about character deaths, that’s saying something.
And the ending. What a cliffhanger. And now we have to wait
another year or so for the third and final book. Damn. 
Overall:Strength
5 tea. It’s difficult to top Divergent. Insurgent did. 