Book: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Book Info: Published by HarperTeen; 314 pages; read on my Nook

Goodreads Summary: 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.

Here’s the thing.  I really liked Insurgent.  It was action-packed and Roth did a pretty good job of moving things along.

But.

There are still some things that are slightly confusing.  Like, how are they not at civil war?  With the way Divergent ended, you’d think they’d all be fighting amongst themselves.  But instead everyone is refusing to fight.  Seriously?  All of a sudden, no one wants to fight?  What on earth is that?

I’m still not sure what why being Divergent is so special.  It seemed like it was this rare thing in Divergent, but then we find out that there are a lot of Divergent amongst the factionless population.  And then we find out that Tris is rare among the Divergent because she leans towards 3 factions, instead of the standard 2 factions.  The factionless seemed like such a small population in Divergent, and all of a sudden, they’re a lot bigger?

I sense a lot of inconsistency.  She built up this entire world in Divergent, and pretty much ignored the “rules” of that world.  The ending was infuriating, because she wrote this really interesting world, only to have it be an experiment?  I thought that was really lame, and the “it was all a dream” ending is not acceptable.  It’s just not.  Seriously, what the point of creating this world, only to ignore and have it be an experiment?

I’ll still read the next book, because I really want to see how Roth explains the cliffhanger at the end.  I’m hoping Tris and Four work themselves out, because I just didn’t like Four in this book.  Tris was reckless and completely unlike the girl we met in Divergent, but I can understand her change in behavior.  I get that Four was abused, and it was horrible for him, but it got really tired by the end of the book.

That being said, I still really enjoyed, especially if I look over the inconsistencies.  Roth writes action scenes very well, and it was nice to see where the other factions are headquartered and what the people in each faction are like.

I give it a 4 out of 5.  I really liked it but there were some annoying inconsistencies.