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

#FridayReads 11/1/13

This past week has been so busy and so crazy I did not get a whole lot of reading done. Monday we had a workday at school and despite having good intentions I got absolutely NOTHING done at school and came home and zoned out in front of the tube instead. Tuesday a friend of mine had to be out of her apartment that afternoon so after work a few of us met at her place, packed her up, and got her moved into her new house. Wednesday I came home and crashed for a while then made dinner then ate dinner then crashed again. Thursday was Halloween! G left school/work early to com cerebrate with me so we ate mummy hot dogs and cupcakes and candy and watched Hocus Pocus and handed out candy. Today I was beat from Halloween and so I came home, crashed, got Chick-Fil-A, watched a little TV and started this blog post. Despite all of the activity of my week, I'm slowly working my way through The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. So far (I'm on page 220) I'm liking it only okay. There is something about the writing style that isn't gripping me and the story is only so-so so far. I am hoping that it will pick up the pace soon. I'm hoping to finish that one up this weekend and then finally get on to Insurgent so that I can stop being the only person in American that hasn't read Allegiant yet. How's this for cray-cray: I was conferencing with a parent at my school the other day and towards the end of the meeting she apologized and said that she was in a rush because she wanted to go buy and start reading Allegiant before her kids got home from soccer practice! I'm hoping to finish up ..Coldtown and review that this weekend and then get started on finishing the Divergent trilogy!
Happy Friday! What are you reading this weekend?

8 days 'til Yallfest!

#FridayReads 10/24/13

I rushed home from work today and finished up Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell which I LOVED!! I finished it about a half hour ago and I've been outlining my review which I hope to have up sometime this weekend. I loved this book so much, guys! I feel really bad for the next book that has to follow Fangirl. I am so in love with Rainbow Rowell now, it's not even cute! AND I am going to Yallfest next month and guess who is going to be there!!!???? RAINBOW ROWELL!!!!!!! SQUEeeEEEeeeeeeeEAL!
Last weekend I went to Barnes and Noble and bought Fangirl (which, I LOVED!!!) and The Coldest Girl In Coldtown which I suppose I will start tonight or tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day that G and I are going to the Renaissance Festival though, so maybe it will have to wait until Sunday. Which should give me a little more time to come down from my Fangirl high (did I mention how much I loved that book?). I've also decided that I am never going to make my way to the top of my library's Insurgent list which means that I will never get to Allegiant which means that in all of the numerous BookTubes and blogs I consume over the week, one will undoubtedly spoil me so I will just buy the e-book (which is pretty good right now at only $6.99 on the Nook) and I plan to start that one after Coldtown. Coldtown will be a good one for Halloween though, so I may let that one drag out and get to Insurgent in November.
GAH! So many books and so little time!!!

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