*Warning: Review Contains Spoilers for Divergent*


In the aftermath of the attack on the Abnegation compound Tris and the others retreat to Amity for safe haven. They know they cannot stay forever but they need a place to calculate their next move. When Erudite members with Dauntless guards arrive everything goes downhill and the group is forced to retreat and scatter. Tris and Tobias take the train toward the city but are greeted by a familiar face: Edward and a group of factionless are already aboard. The two are brought to a factionless’ compound and taken before the factionless leader. They learn that the Dauntless have divided between those loyal to the Erudite and those who are not. The factionless are strong enough to uprise now and they want help from the Dauntless. However, new information serves to drive a rift between Tris and Tobias and everyone must make a decision. Tris is being eaten away by her guilt of having killed Will and the deaths of her parents. Tobias continues to keep things from her and they begin to not trust each other. Marcus is hiding a secret that could change everything. Tris must make a choice between doing what’s right and the people she loves but one choice can destroy you.

Divergent was good; not spectacular, not amazing, not even great, just good. Insurgent surpassed its predecessor in almost every way. It continued the tradition of being fast-paced and page-turning. It’s a fairly quick read for being over 500 pages long. It was full of action and plot twists and it made the characters even deeper than the previous book had.
The Good:
Tris struggles with her emotional and mental stability throughout much of the book. She cannot come to terms with the fact that she killed one of her best friends and that her family is gone. The story elaborates on her psychological deterioration and the writing does an outstanding job of conveying her instability. It is probably my favorite part of the book, watching her struggle to understand who she is and what she has become. The way she copes with the deaths almost makes up for how unnecessary they seemed in the first book…almost.

Like I said the book is fast paced and full of action so it is again pretty gender neutral. It keeps the reader guessing literally until the very last page. The story does a very good job of portraying the grayness of real life while still giving a distinction between which sides you should be rooting for.
The Bad:

I still have a tough time dealing with the rushed feeling of the ending of Divergent. All of the deaths in Divergent were necessary if this book was always planned to be what it became but they all occurred in ridiculous situations. Insurgent is not filled with these questionable choices of character deaths and actually seems to have taken death very seriously for this one.

The scenes between Tobias and Tris seem forced to me. While the fact that women can turn even the strongest of men to quivering puddles is true; the interaction between the two just comes off as uncomfortable. It doesn’t detract from the story and is probably more realistic than most stories (as far as realism can go in a dystopian YA novel) but I didn’t enjoy how it was written.

My biggest problem with Insurgent was probably the sometimes shoddy dialogue. At times the dialogue was highly believable, backed up by strong descriptions that explained how everything was being spoken. At other times the dialogue came across as forced and unrealistic. In a book this long there are bound to be sections where the writing isn’t as good as it probably could be. I’ve noticed paragraphs in books by many great authors where the writing is questionable. Because the story was so good it is easy to get over minor issues like this.

One more thing I didn’t like was the unnecessary explanation as to why the book was called Insurgent. This goes along the lines of the forced dialogue but it just felt really awkward and out of place.

Final Verdict
I think I’ve pretty much said my piece. Insurgent is a sequel done right. It took everything in the first novel and made it better. While my review for the first novel was not extremely positive this book was a great book.

I recommend this book to the same people I recommended Divergent. I give it a higher recommendation this time because I really did enjoy Insurgent much better than its predecessor. Also people who enjoyed Divergent will obviously enjoy this book.

Favorite Quotation:
We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.