Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Reviewed by Meygan 

The Divergent series by Veronica Roth is set in a world where people are divided up by personality into one of five groups:  Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite, Amity, or Candor. People who do not fit easily into any category are called Divergents.  As the second book opens, Beatrice (now known as Tris), Tobias, Marcus, Peter, and Caleb are on a train that is making its way to Amity. The Dauntless have just killed the Abnegation; Erudite’s leader, Jeanine, is trying to take control of all factions; and it is up to Tris and her group to protect everyone. In Amity, they will be protected and have food and shelter, but it won’t be enough. Tris can’t remain in Amity knowing that Jeanine is still ruling the Erudite. After all, Tris is Dauntless and hiding in the background as a war breaks out is not in her blood. 

Tris hates Marcus, Tobias’ abusive father, but she knows that he has answers. Why is Jeanine so adamant about killing the Divergent? Why were the Dauntless put under a stimulation to kill the Abnegation? What exactly is Jeanine hiding from everyone? The Dauntless, including Tobias, are dedicated to killing Jeanine and the rest of the Erudite. However, Tris knows that Jeanine must be kept alive in order to answer the questions at stake. As much as Tris despises Marcus and loves Tobias, she knows that taking Marcus’ advice instead of following Dauntless will help her obtain the answers she needs. It is a race between Tris and the Dauntless to get to Jeanine, but who will get to her first?

In order for Insurgent to make sense, one must read Divergent first. This is a series and I would strongly recommend that the books be read in order. In my recent review of Divergent, I went on and on about how wonderful and action packed it was. However, I did have a disclaimer in my review because I have been warned by several people that the series tends to dwindle. Insurgent didn’t have nearly as much action as I anticipated. Also, I didn’t admire Tris in Insurgent as much as I did in Divergent.  

Now, I didn’t hate Insurgent, even though my review may sound otherwise. There were pros to this book. I liked that I got a better view of Amity, as there wasn’t much coverage about Amity in Divergent. But when comparing it to Divergent standards, I couldn’t believe that Insurgent came from the same series. The action doesn’t heat up until about page 300. Trust me, when you are reading a 525 page novel, you expect the action to begin by at least page 150-200-ish. Also, where is that deep, true, I-can’t-get-enough-of-you love between Tris and Tobias? I don’t particularly care for romances, but I do enjoy a good love story as long as it is not the premise of the book or movie. In other words, I read Insurgent because I wanted to know what happens to the characters and even though Insurgent fell short, I would still give it two and a half stars.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Reviewed by Meygan

After the future “war” takes place, the people who are left are divided up into factions. There is Amity, those who believe in happiness and peace; Candor, an honest and trustworthy group; Erudite, the most intelligent group, who believe in brains over brawn; Dauntless, for those who are risk takers and brave; and Abnegation, the selfless who take care of others before themselves, including those who are factionless. Because they are sixteen years old, Beatrice  and her brother Caleb will soon have to decide what faction they will join. 

 Even though everyone must take a “test” for faction suggestions, everyone has free will. However, once a decision is made then that is the final answer. There is no going back. Those who do not wish to reside in their faction choice will become factionless, basically homeless. Also, every faction believes “Faction before blood” meaning that if someone chooses to leave their family and enter into another faction, then that faction is their new family. Caleb is selfless and goes above and beyond to take care of others. Beatrice is not selfless and yearns for something different, a more exciting life. This is why Beatrice feels that Caleb was made for Abnegation but she is not. 

The day has arrived for Beatrice to take her test. The test is a simulation that places Beatrice in certain scenarios to see how she would react. Her actions will determine the faction she is best suited for. However, when the simulation is over, the test administrator, Tori, tells Beatrice that she is suited for Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless. She tells Beatrice that because she is suited for all three factions, she is Divergent but to never, ever let anyone know that information. Beatrice is full of question (What it means to be Divergent is one of the questions), but Tori won’t answer anything else and she puts Beatrice’s test results as Abnegation.  

On the day of the ceremony, Beatrice must make a decision. She has always admired those who are dauntless—fearless, robust, and full of life. However, leaving Abnegation means that she no longer gets to be with her family. Can she handle the guilt of leaving behind her family for a new life? Is she brave enough for Dauntless? Should she make a choice to pursue a different kind of happiness, a happiness that doesn’t only revolve around her family? These are the questions that enter her mind as she is about to make the most important decision of her life.  

I mentioned to a co-worker that I hadn’t read Divergent yet. It had been on my “To Read” list for quite some time, but it became one of those books that kept getting shoved to the side. The tone of her voice when she asked, “You haven’t read Divergent yet?” made me realize I needed to read it NOW. Plus, we tend to like some of the same books so I knew that I could trust her insight. I love this book! I can’t think of one thing that I didn’t care for. I found the characters, the plot, the descriptions, the setting, and the dialogue to be fascinating. Yes, this is not the first dystopian novel to exist, but I thought it was so well written that I didn’t feel as if I were reading a rip-off of The Hunger Games or another piece of dystopian literature. 

However, I have been warned that the series becomes shoddier by each book and I have had several people (including patrons) tell me that the last book is almost unbearable. I believe that is why I was so reluctant to begin this series. It’s kind of like when a friend warns you about someone that you like but shouldn’t and even though you know the relationship will end badly, you just have to find out for yourself. Oh well. At least this reader is prepared for the expected heartache.

Pam Neal's Book Talk: Divergent

Interview by Kristin

Pam Neal is our young adult librarian extraordinaire.  Pam is known for her ability to match people, especially teens, to books.  This is the first of several blogs devoted to the popular world of young adult literature.  For the uninitiated, here’s a quick blurb on Divergent:

The world has changed.  After a catastrophic war, the surviving leaders made a decision to restructure society.  All individuals were placed into factions, societal groups which put their talents to the best use.  The Abnegation are the Selfless—they live a plain lifestyle and are also trusted to govern the entire society.  The Erudite are the Intelligent—those who seek knowledge to support the betterment of the world.  The Candor are the Honest—seeing everything in black and white, seeking openness to promote a perfect society.  The Amity are the Peaceful—working together and farming to feed the population.  The Dauntless are the Brave—the protectors of the city.  In this society all 16 year olds are given an aptitude test on a certain day of the year, and then choose their faction in a ceremony the next day.  Most stay with the faction they were born into, but some feel the call of another group.  There is a training period for all initiates and they must pass through the challenges before they are full-fledged members of their faction.  If they fail, they live factionless on the outskirts of society, a fate almost worse than death.

Abnegation-born Beatrice (Tris) is 16 years old, and it’s time for her choice of a lifetime.

Kristin:  Thank you for talking to me about Divergent.  I know Divergent is such a popular book right now and that your teen group has really liked it.

Pam:  All of my teen groups have read it.  From tweens all the way up.  That’s why when I took the kids to the movie, there were 59 of them.

Kristin:  You are a brave woman.

Pam:  Well I had other parents!  It’s good to make the comparisons between the books and the movies.  And when you take kids to the movies that have read these books, they’re going to let you know if they don’t like something.

Kristin:  What makes this one special and why is it worth reading?

Pam:  I liked it and I think my kids liked it because it’s dystopian and in this world in the future you have to live in these factions.  You have to live within that faction and you cannot go outside of that realm, or you become “Divergent”.  Divergents threaten the system because they don’t want you have to have a mind of your own.  The faction aspect made this one a lot different.  Now there was some violence, but not nearly what you had in some of the others.  So I think the concept of the factions kind of set it apart.  Of course all these  future dystopians are so negative.  I mean, it’s a negative world!

Kristin:  It seems like founders of the society were trying to set it up as a utopia, but obviously it didn’t work.

Pam:  Right, and so it’s everything just negative, negative, negative in their world.  And I liked the relationships between the kids.

Kristin:  How do you think that your teens related to the “faction before blood” thing?  Is that part of striking out and finding their own identities?

Pam:  I think they had a hard time with the factions at first.  Before all of them read the books, we took the faction quiz to see what faction they would be in.  I gave that to every one of my kids, and of course most of them would find out that they’re not clear cut in a faction, that they are divergent.  When the factions start unraveling, I think they kind of expected that.  But the concept was interesting to them because I don’t think they’d ever thought of that before.  I’d never thought of that before, “Hmmm, let’s put us into a category.”  Because I’ve never fallen into a category!  So I thought the categories were interesting.  Abnegation the selfless, Erudite the intelligent, Dauntless the brave-- Dauntless really caught their attention-- then Amity, the peaceful, which is, if you look at it, the hippies of the sixties.  And Candor, everything’s black or white.  I like the way that in the movie they dressed everybody according to their faction.

Kristin:  And that was described in the book.

Pam:  I liked the way they did that.  I thought it was neat and the kids thought it was too.

Kristin:  So obviously we don’t want to give too much away, but Beatrice, or Tris, and her brother Caleb were both born into Abnegation, and it’s pretty obvious early on that Tris is drawn to Dauntless.

Pam:  It’s really funny when kids read the books—I’m older, but I was never drawn to Dauntless.  There would be no way I would be Dauntless, absolutely none.  Watching some of these kids read it, I would see which way they were drawn to certain things.  Of course I know they painted Dauntless (so that readers would) to be drawn to Dauntless.  I was never drawn to Dauntless, but Tris is, and her brother is drawn to Erudite.  I thought it was interesting how the parents came from different factions too.  I think Four is a very interesting character.

Kristin:  And of course he’s very attractive, in print and in the movie.

Pam:  Yes, I thought the two of them together did an excellent job.

Kristin:  Once you know a little bit more about where he came from, it makes sense that they’d have that attraction to each other.

Kristin:  Will the teens read the rest of the trilogy, Insurgent and Allegiant, in book club?

Pam:  We’ll go to the movies, but this series takes a big turn.  Insurgent—very popular.  Allegiant—very controversial, especially for a young adult series.  I thought Insurgent took Divergent to another level and I enjoyed it.  Then you hit Allegiant which really hits the controversial level.  I liked Divergent better than The Hunger Games because I liked Tris’ character.  I liked Divergent also because it just keeps moving.  Mainly though, I like Tris and Four.

Kristin:  So the characters?

Pam:  I thought it was very character driven.  I was a little bit disappointed in the movie because they didn’t develop the other characters as well.  They left out Uriah, who was one of my favorite characters.  But he’ll have to be in the second movie.  I think Veronica Roth hits Tris’s growing stage.  Tris grows from this little girl, very cowardly in a way, to what she wants to be and I think she does a very good job at that.

Kristin:  Right, because she’s really been groomed to be selfless and only allowed to look in the mirror once every six months. I liked that they carried that over to the movie.

Pam:  I do too.  I liked Katniss in the Hunger Games, but Katniss, to me, she was always right there, always fearless.

Kristin:  She was more of a born leader and was already going out there to provide for her family so it wasn’t as much of a change.

Pam:  But for Tris there was a huge change.  And I think that the kids like that.  I think it’s one of the very few books that I’ve done with all the groups.  It never ceases to amaze me: 43, 44 years I’ve been a librarian with teenagers, boy if they don’t like something, they don’t like it, and they tell you.

Kristin:  It’s good that you’ve got them talking to you.  What other series would you recommend?

Pam:  The Giver by Lois Lowry.  The Giver set the stage for a lot of these dystopians.  It won the Newbery prize.  I did The Giver with kids, and I did A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle because that sets the stage for a lot of these dystopians also.  See, the kids today don’t realize that The Hunger Games was not the first dystopian.  You had Brave New World and you had 1984.  You had quite a few.

Kristin:  It’s all new to them, it’s their generation.

Pam:  The movie I’m interested to see next is The Fault in our Stars by John Green.  Oh, I love that book.  So I’ve decided to alter my whole summer to have a John Green summer.  Except for my tweens—they want to do Neal Shusterman’s Unwind.  Unwind is phenomenal.  And you talk about bringing up a lot of questions!  I just loved The Fault in our Stars.

Kristin:  That should be a good movie though.  I think the writing was very good.

Pam:  Being a librarian for as long as I have, that’s probably one of the best books I’ve read for kids.  I’m glad young adult literature is huge now.  It’s at its peak because lots of adults are reading it.

Kristin:  It is appealing because they tend to be shorter, and they get to the point faster.

Pam:  And they are building good characters that you can identify with.  So it’s really good.  Legend by Marie Lu is another series. The books are Legend, Prodigy, and Champion.  Those characters are good.  Another good one is The Maze Runner by James Dashner.  I did that with my tweens.  The Maze Runner is a modern day Lord of the Flies.  It is excellent—it’ll grab you.

Kristin:  Thank you for talking to me today—it’s always enjoyable to hear you talk about books.

YA books too good to miss!

Teen books aren’t just for teens anymore!  There have been a number of YA and children’s books which have attracted an adult audience:  Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and the gritty, realistic books by Ellen Hopkins. Teen Librarian Pam Neal joined the Nevermore Book to talk about some new teen books too good to miss:

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare is the first in the “Mortal Instruments” series.  Clary is an average teenager living an average life until the night she witnesses an apparent murder except that the victim disappears.  She soon discovers that she’s seeing people no one else does, and that there’s a “Shadow World” all around us.  This new urban fantasy series has fans panting for the next installment; a movie is in the works.

Themes in fiction often follow real world events.  In the last few years, the news has been dominated by the rise and fall of governments as well as questions about the relationship between government and the governed so it’s not surprising that books in which people question the status quo are filling the best seller lists.  Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins has been the most successful so far, but here are two up and comers:

Divergent by Veronica Roth is set in a future society where people are divided up into factions.  At age 16, each person has to chose a faction and competes for the right to join that faction; the catch is that the person also remains there for the rest of his or her life—even if it means leaving your family behind forever.  As Beatrice struggles to find where she belongs, she also discovers that the “perfect society” may not be quite so perfect.

Can you imagine a world where love would be considered a disease?  Lauren Oliver does just that in Delirium.  Lena is perfectly content to undergo the operation that will cure her of deliria (love), and to have her occupation and husband chosen for her.  Then she meets a young man named Alex and her world will never be the same.  Oliver has won praise not just for her imaginative world, but for her lyrical writing.

Just in case futuristic societies are not your cup of tea, there’s If I Stay by Gayle Forman about a young girl who suddenly becomes aware she is watching the aftermath of a horrific car accident—and she is one of the victims.  While her body remains in a coma, Mia considers her options and remembers her life with her family while she tries to decide if she wants to live or die.

Another member of Nevermore wanted to recommend some “children’s books” which adults love too.  Goodnight, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian tells the story of a young Londoner evacuated to the English countryside in the days before World War II.  Willie is a shy child, abused by his mother who is at first bewildered and overwhelmed by his new situation.  As he gradually bonds with his new guardian, Mr. Tom, he begins to blossom and Mr. Tom grows to love his charge.  After Willie is sent back to London, Mr. Tom becomes increasingly concerned when he doesn’t hear from the child.  Magorian does a wonderful job of portraying the relationship between a gruff old man and a frightened child as well as depicting England in the late 1930s.

There are a number of other wonderful children’s/YA books out there and we’ll spotlight some in future posts.  In the meantime, just ask Pam for other recommendations!