Book Review: Insurgent

Insurgent, the second book in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, was as intriguing and engrossing as the first book. It continued the action nicely and didn't merely feel like filler, which sometimes happens when an author tries to pull out a story into three separate installments. So far, I'm deeply impressed with Roth's ability to build a believable world and people it with interesting characters in dire dilemmas.

The first book established that Beatrice Prior is a Divergent individual, meaning she doesn't easily fall into the categories of factions in her futuristic society. Being Divergent is dangerous, however, and it seems like everyone (especially the Erudite faction, under the control of Jeanine) wants to find them and either use their uniqueness to glean information or kill them.

The second book picks up after a failed simulation where the Erudite attempted to use the Dauntless in order to wipe out the Abnegation faction. Tris and Tobias are fleeing the city toward the Amity headquarters in hopes of finding safety there. They regroup, but are quickly forced to flee and return to the city, where they take up with the Factionless, who are eager to rise up against the Erudite and create a society free of the divisions into various factions.

Tris is dealing with internal guilt over killing a good friend during the simulation, simmering beneath the surface, but fails to inform Tobias of this. Tobias is holding his own secrets as he meets with the Factionless and decides to help them in their goals. When Tris sides with Tobias' cruel father in an attempt to return and access some secret information which Jeanine is holding, she risks losing everything - her relationship with Tobias, her only remaining family member (a brother who betrayed her to Jeanine), and her very life.

These books really cause the reader to think about the various parts of our personalities. There are so many ways in which human nature wars against itself and causes great destruction in its wake. Tris' world is bound to crumble. It is just a matter of time and the determination of how it will fall. At the end of book two, the reader is hooked for the third installment with the revelation of the secret information and news of what lies outside the walls and how they arrived at the point they are now in to begin with. I, for one, am eager to listen to the third installment, as soon as it becomes available from either of the two closest libraries to me.