Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

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. (-Synopsis from GoodReads)

Title: Insurgent (Divergent trilogy book #2)
Author: Veronica Roth
Publication Date: 2012
Publisher: Harper Teen
Number of Pages: 525
Where I Got It: Nook by Barnes and Noble
Dates I Read It: November 6-November 12, 2013
Number of Stars: 4/5
Read It For: Just for fun!


     I really liked Insurgent, despite being confused out of my mind for the majority of the book. I was so confused at the start of this book that I had to view Roth's blog post: But I Read Divergent A Year Ago! which was super helpful in reminding me how Divergent ended since it had actually been more than a year since I had read it. Once I read her blog post I had to start the book over and re-read the first 40 pages, this time with a little less confusion.

(two pages from my reading journal open to the Insurgent entry)

     The characters were still really awesome and we got to see a continuation of character development with our main cast in this book. I really liked the majority of the characters and I thought that they all fit into their roles perfectly. I was pretty pissed off at Tris at several points in the book, and especially at several of the choices that she made and a lot of her reasoning behind her actions and decisions. She is Dauntless after all, though, so I suppose I can't stay too mad at her for too long. I liked how we got to see the humanity of Tris in this book. She is a Dauntless girl in the middle of a factions war, and yet she still spends a great deal of the book feeling guilty about killing someone who was threatening her life. I appreciate Four for the role that he plays. He does a great job as the male lead. I do hope that we get some more from him in Allegiant. I want to know more about him, his back story and his inner thoughts and motivations. Even though I loved the main characters, one of the most annoying things about this book for me was the secondary characters. Roth included an enormous cast of characters in this book and I found it incredibly difficult to keep track of all of them. I wasn't sure who was good and who was evil and who I was supposed to root for and who I was supposed to thumb my nose at and who was born into what faction and who switched to what faction and why. Too much!
     The pacing of the book was excellent. This is a long book (525 pages) but it passed very quickly and I was genuinely surprised when it ended; I had thought I had at least 100 pages to go! I did read this book on my Nook so perhaps that helped quite a bit with my not realizing how long it was. Despite the actual length of the book, it flew by and I think that this was mainly due to all of the action that took place. It seemed that every time I sat down with the book there was a battle scene resulting in an emotionally heavy outcome. These books are dystopian done well and Roth continues the excellency of the world building. There did seem to be some redundancy of action to me which only added to my confusion at times. I feel like perhaps those extra scenes could have been left out. It was still a fabulous book that I thoroughly enjoyed and I would recommend.
     I viewed the second teaser trailer for the Divergent movie on YouTube last night while G was in the computer room and he watched it over my shoulder and he seemed really intrigued. I think it might have
gotten him thinking about reading the books before I drag him to the movie. The trailers look great so far and I highly approve of the casting for this movie. I can't wait for March!
     Oh, and I decided I'm pretty sure I would be in Amity, even though they do dress like Ronald McDonald.

4 out of 5 stars

Review: 1984 by G. Orwell

I wanted to read 1984 right after reading The Handmaid's Tale, which I did. I must say that I enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale much more than I did 1984. I was more impacted by The Handmaid's Tale. Maybe because it was told from a woman's point-of-view which made it more relateable to me, maybe it's because I didn't read 1984 pre-1984 so it didn't impact me as much as it could have, maybe I just preferred Handmaid. Whatever the reason, I did enjoy 1984 in and of itself.

The story is set in 1984 (dur) and is told from the point-of-view of Winston Smith who, like Offred, can remember what it was like before "The Great Change" happened.  Winston lives in Oceania where Big Brother is always watching him. Literally. Always. Oceania is ruled by a form of government known as Ingsoc (which sounded like a morbid kind of Communism) where all the members of "The Party" must always follow a set of rules which includes things like hating traitors and thought criminals who may be against Big Brother. Winston is himself a Thought Criminal: ruh-roh for Winston. On the first day that we meet Winston he begins writing in a diary (which is forbidden) about how much he hates Big Brother (which is super-duper-uber forbidden). Winston works for the Ministry of Truth in the Records Department which means that he spends his days re-writing the past and making every event that has happened thus far in history match up with what The Party wants it to be. Since Winston has memories that go back to his childhood and the time before, he knows what is going on with The Party and he loathes being a part of the cover-up. "And only yesterday, he reflected, it  had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it." Over the course of the book Winston meets another rebel named Julia whom he falls in love with. Together they seek out a secret underground of anti-party people called The Brotherhood. Thinking that he has discovered a link to The Brotherhood Winston and Julia place their trust and lives into the wrong hands. This misplace of trust leads Winston and Julia on a path of being arrested, tortured, forced to turn on those they love the most and brainwashing. There is no hope for a bleak future for the people of Oceania just monotony, rule by an invisible Big Brother, and an ever-changing past which the residents won't remember anyway.



Title: 1984
Author: George Orwell
Publicationn Date: 1948
Pages: 328
Publisher: Signet Classics
Where I Got It: Gift from a relative
Dates I Read It: November 11 - November 21, 2012
Number of Stars: 3/5

Plot:  4/5
What I Liked:
The plot seemed like something that could definitely happen in the future. I read somewhere recently that A. people are getting much dumber, so honestly it would only be a handful of people who would even notice that the world was becoming a robotic, brainwashed nation, the rest of us are on the couch watching Jersey Shore with our heads in the sand. And B. that by the year 2050 every single thing that we do in a day will be recorded on video camera. How long before the cameras start barking back orders to us? The plot was pretty slow to start with, but it was still bearable and you could tell that something big was brewing. It was compelling and I found myself wondering what would happen to Winston and Julia.
What I Didn't Like: I didn't like a section near the last-half of the book which is a selection from the Brotherhood Book. It was dry reading and boring and even Winston noted that there wasn't anything of any new importance in it. Other than that, it was a quick and enjoyable read with lots of action, especially towards the end of the novel.

Characters: 3/5
What I LikedThe characters were honestly written. Winston becomes a fully developed character over the course of the book. The characters were flawed, which gave them more credibility and made them more reliable. Winston is a character that you cheer for, you want him to win, and through him, you gain a hatred for Big Brother.
O'Brien is also well written, so well written and so believable  that I had to re-read the ending with him, just to be sure that what O'Brien was saying and what he was doing was really happening.
What I Didn't Like
I didn't like Julia. I'm sure that I was supposed to, but I didn't care for her at all. I resented her nativity. Julia was young enough that she couldn't remember a time before, so she accepted the Party for what it was, but she still didn't care for it. She had an air of indifference around her, especially when Winston was attempting to engage her in conversations about how it was before the Party took over, and how could she honestly NOT remember Oceania being at war with Eurasia just 4 years earlier?

Prose 4/5
What I Liked
For a classic, this was a very readable book. It flowed well, it was linear, and the story moved at a good pace. Orwell is a magnificent writer, and after reading 1984 I am now very interested in reading Animal Farm. Orwell is able to give a voice not just to his characters, but to their emotions as well. Much like the Party, I was able to tell what a character was feeling just by the way Orwell described a movement, or a behavior. Orwell is able to capture an exorbitant amount of thought, feeling, emotion, etc. with very few words.
What I Didn't Like
There wasn't a whole lot about the prose that I can say anything negative about. The only thing that slowed the flow of the book for me was the section that was from the Brotherhood book. I, personally, just got bogged down by it. Other than that though, I thought that the book was written flawlessly.

Memorable Quotes:
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."
"At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid."
"Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him with a wild hope."
"I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone ot be corrupt to the bones."
"No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred."
"She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to."
"The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing."
"Down with Big Brother"

Recommended For:
Science-Fiction/Fantasy Fans looking for something a little deeper
English Majors
College-bound students
High School Students

Final Thoughts:
While I enjoyed the book, it wasn't exactly what I thought that it was going to be. I enjoyed the story, I found value in the cautionary tale that warns us of an unforgiving future. Though the events didn't play out in the year 1984, they weren't too far off either. The possibility of a government that controls our every movement is just around the corner I believe. When that time does come, I do hope that we have renegades like Winston and Julia and The Brotherhood out there fighting against the powers that be.

Review: The Handmaid's Tale by M. Atwood

As you know now from reading the first post on my new platform here, the reason I decided to journey back to the blog world was on account of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This book had such an effect on me. Had I read this book at any time when there wasn't an important election taking place (I literally finished it the day that Obama was elected for a second term), an election that could shape women's rights and freedoms for years to come, I don't think that it would have gotten under my skin quite as much as it did. Having been written in 1986 and forecasting a future where women have absolutely no rights (they aren't allowed to read, Heaven forbid this ever happen), I thought that  the book was starting to come true. We had disgusting men who are not doctors who think that they know what's best for women's bodies- sounds a lot like the commanders!

Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead in the (near) future. We are lead to believe that this place was once Maine but ever since humans destroyed the world with too much pollution (that sounds familiar) women have become sterile and the population is dwindling. Somehow the population has to grow and so those in charge, The Commanders, begin a regime of oppression and male-dominance. First, all of the women's finances are taken from their control and given to the next male of kin, then people are fired from their jobs and the government takes over (all of this happening after a renegade group of "Christians" slaughter all leaders of the US government and tries to play it off as an Islamic Terrorist Attack ) Families are torn apart, women with viable ovaries are dragged into brainwashing camps where they must learn to be complacent and to live as the Old Testament states that they should. Spewing out Bible verses that only support their side of a situation, the commanders toss all females who can't have children into a dreaded place called The Colonies where the people spend their days cleaning up toxic waste. This situation seems pretty bleak to Offred (who is a piece of property named after her commander, a man named Fred, so in sum she becomes known only as the property Of Fred) who longs for her husband (who's most likely dead), a daughter that is used as leverage to get her to behave, and a best friend who committed a gender crime by being gay. Is there any way for Offred to escape this horrible situation?



Title:The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Publication Date: 1986
Pages: 311
Publisher: Anchor Books
Where I got it: Used at Goodwill
Dates I read it: November 4-9, 2012
Number of stars: 5/5

Plot: 4.5 
What I liked:
The story was engrossing to the max. Like Offred, the reader has many questions that they are yearning to get answered. The story moves along fast-paced despite the monotony and boredom of Offred's life. I liked the feminist spirit that Offred held onto despite the camp that she was subjected to and despite the life that she must now lead.
What I didn't like:
I didn't like a turn that it took around the late-middle of the book. I will be vague so as not to give anything away, but there is a time in the book when Offred is allowed to leave the house at night for an event, and it seemed out of place to me. The costumes that are required dress code at this event seemed odd and disproportionate to the rest of the story.
I obviously didn't like the male-dominance of the society, but that was the reaction that I was supposed to have.

Characters: 5
What I liked:
I liked all of the characters for the role that they played (that does not mean that I liked all of the characters). Each character fit perfectly into their own little niche and served the purpose that they were meant to. They were all fully formed and I felt like I understood the motives each had for doing what he/she did.
I liked Moira most of all. Moira is a feminist, free-spirited lesbian who does what she has to to survive and break free of the life that is being forced on her.
What I didn't like:
There wasn't a lot I didn't like about how the characters were written. Like I said they were fully formed and believable  I trusted the narrator, because her honesty was so raw she put herself in danger by revealing her thoughts and desire and I felt I had no reason to be suspect of her.

Prose: 4.5
What I liked:
The prose was difficult at times, but once I got a rhythm going, I found that I could keep it going. I felt like I came to a point where I understood Offred and I understood how she was narrating, but it did take some time.
I noticed as I was reading it, I was reading it in my mind in a voice that I didn't recognize (does that sound weird?). Usually I just read but with this, I felt it echo in my head in the way that I imagined Offred's voice probably sounded.
What I didn't like:
I struggled with the narrator's voice at several points in the book. She does not use quotation marks and the prose is often blunt. I found myself several times having to re-read a section to fully comprehend what was happening.

Pulled Quotes:
Don't let the bastards grind you down.
I am not your justification for existence.
I feel like the word shatter.

Recommended for:
-I know that this book was banned in many high schools, but that this could be a great book to read with an honors or an AP high school English class.
-English majors in connection with a Womens and Genders Study class
-Feminists
-People who will be here in the future

Final Thoughts:
To say that I was impressed by the magnitude of this book doesn't mean anything. If the government must step in and rule our lives, the first thing that needs to happen is that everyone must be required to read this book as a warning about how truly awful our futures could be if we don't shape up NOW!