I totally paused!

Title: Insurgent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Harper Teen
Genre: YA Dystopia
Pages: 525
How I Read It: Kindle edition purchased by me.

Synopsis: 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.

“New York Times” bestselling author Veronica Roth’s much-anticipated second book of the dystopian “Divergent” series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.

*Synopsis taken from Goodreads

My Review: When we last saw Tris, she was doing what she could to stop the attack by her chosen faction on the one she left behind, master minded by another faction entirely.  This novel picks up pretty much where the last one ended – there’s a war going on and someone needs to make sense of it in order to stop it.  Since most of the adults who would normally figure that all out were killed in the attack, it somewhat falls to Tris and her friends to sort it all out.

I was really conflicted about Tris in this one.  On the one hand, I get that she’s just sixteen.  But on the other, either behave like a child and sideline yourself, or get your head in the game – you can’t have both!  She makes one decision after another that just seem ridiculous.  And so much of the trouble she gets herself into could simply be avoided if she had only trusted a couple of people and told them what she was thinking.  Instead, she is hell bent on destroying herself and seems unwilling to acknowledge that she could take the whole world down with her.

Since this is a YA novel, I have a hard time knowing if the root of this complaint is because I’m out of the target age range, but I felt like a lot of the plot points were predictable.  I really dislike that in a book, so I do wish more thought had gone into making less obvious plot and character decisions.  I’m willing to admit that it all may make more sense down the line when the next book comes out, but I seem to remember having a similar thought about the first one, so I really hope for improvement going forward.

That all being said, the book ended on an interesting point and I’m absolutely intrigued about what’s going to come next.  I’m actually far less interested in what will ultimately happen to Tris, yet have an immense curiosity about what happens next in her world.

Read this book if: This is a decent follow up to the first book, so I would definitely recommend continuing the series.

My Rating: 3.5/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: YA Dystopia
Pages: 487
How I Read It: Hard copy from the library

Synopsis: In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.

My Review: Divergent is a much talked about book in many circles these days, one I was a little reluctant to read but put it on my library hold list nonetheless.   There is a lot of great YA dystopian fiction out there right now, so I tend to ask myself if I should really pick a new series up or not, because being on trend doesn’t necessarily mean it’s actually a good book.  While I wouldn’t classify this as my favorite in the genre, it’s still a solid book and I was quite entertained while reading it.

We get to meet Beatrice basically on the day of her aptitude test, the first step to shaping the rest of her life.  She is conflicted about what faction she’ll choose from the start, hoping the test will help make it more clear to her, which sadly doesn’t happen.  To me, it’s her first harsh lesson of many to come – even if you think something might help you make a decision, you really need to be prepared to make it on your own.

After making her decision, Beatrice changes her name to Tris, which is an excellent idea because Beatrice is a rather old fashioned name.  It really signifies that she is making a decision to leave her old life behind, as painful as that can be.  One of her main struggles throughout the book is simply trying to figure out where she belongs, if she made the right choice, and what all of that really means to her.  When you live in a world where your life is determined by picking one of five virtues, it can be a struggle trying to fit within the virtue you ended up picking.  Humans are multifaceted, and that’s something that is shown on various levels throughout the book.

One thing that I had a problem with while reading this is something that Tris herself seems to have issue with as well: people keep telling her she’s strong, and she doesn’t see it.  I didn’t feel like we saw it as the audience either.  It seemed like we were supposed to believe it because people keep saying it, so I wish we could have actually seen a bit more of this instead of just hearing it.  I normally don’t enjoy books from multiple character perspectives, but in some ways that would have helped this one for me, to really get inside some of the other characters heads to see what made Tris stronger than them.

True to the genre, the body count is relatively high in this one, and we leave the end not knowing what even happens with several of our characters.  Since this is a series, we’ll undoubtedly see more of them in the future, and I’m curious to see where they are all headed.  The future doesn’t look quite as bleak in this world as it does in some others, and I feel a glimmer of hope that obstacles will be overcome and good things will happen in the end.  I’ve got the next book on hold now, so hopefully I’ll get to read it soon.

Read this book if: If you like other YA dystopia, I think you’ll enjoy this.  To me, it’s a bit of The Hunger Games crossed with Delirium, in a rather good way.

My Rating: 3.5/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!