Insurgent by Veronica Roth

UK copy to the left and US copy to the right - couldn't resist showing both covers.

War looms in sixteen-year-old Tris’s dark dystopian world as disputes between the factions grow. Tris must now fight against all odds to discover the truth that can save her and the people she loves. Sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge – and the choices she makes will have devastating and unexpected consequences.

Here is my rather short but embarrassingly gushy review of Divergent from last year.  I know some reviewers, mostly State-side I think, complained that Divergent was a set-up, a framework novel, setting the scene for the rest of the story to take place in subsequent books.   Show me a single first book in a series that doesn’t do that and I’ll make you a cake.

Insurgent takes us further into the lives of Tris and Four and the small group that go on the run with them after big reveal in Divergent. We see how it affects them, but also the other factions and we spend a bit of time away from the Dauntless and come to understand the other factions better.  Interestingly, although Tris’s character develops more emotionally, she still chooses to see things in black and white, preferring to not see the situation they find themselves in in shades of grey.  Having said that, Tris is still one of my favourite heroines.  She’s smart, sweet, messed up and she screws up.  She’s also brave, caring and selfless, proving that you can be all these things, thereby breaking the mould Society deemed to choose for you and by breaking it, Tris proves wholeheartedly that she is a true Divergent.

I apologise if I’m being oblique, but I’m doing my best not to give spoilers for either book.  And gaah, it’s difficult and driving me insane because I’m sitting here, moving my hands around, trying to find phrases that will appeal and yet not give away too much.  And it’s difficult, it really is.

As in Divergent, there is a movie quality to Insurgent.  You read it (or have it read to you, as Mark did for a few chapters to spoil me as my head hurt badly and my eyes were doing funny things) and you can see the action take place in your mind’s eye.  Ms Roth has become a dab hand at scene setting and world building, whilst effortlessly twisting and turning her characters and readers to her will.  We find some answers to the questions we were left with at the end of Divergent, but as is her wont, we are offered a smorgasbord of more questions and choices handed to her characters.

In the end this is what both Divergent and Insurgent is all about – choices.  When faced with options and choices larger than life, what will you choose?

Like most of the other reviews out there, I’ll warn you about the ending now.  It’s a big one and I actually regret having had to read Insurgent because I would have loved to have read books 2 and 3 in sequence, one after the other.  That’s the kind of reader I am.  However, if you can stand the anticipation, you’re far stronger than I am.  We’re talking about a girl who can’t wait to open Xmas or birthday presents and may or may not sneak into a dark room under the light of a watchful moon to shamelessly touch presents.  I have control issues. 

Insurgent delivers in spades – it just all depends on if you can roll with the punches…and then wait a full year for the third book in the sequence.  Good luck!

My Favourite Books is: Team Dauntless.

Dauntless Knife Fighting Skills

In a run-up to the release for Veronica Roth's Insurgent (sequel to Divergent) I sat and thought how MFB could do something different to celebrate the book's release.  We've had people come up with some great things but because I like weaponry and grew up handling guns and things, I thought we could do something about weapons that are used in Divergent.  And because guns aren't really allowed in the UK I had to cast a wider net.

I spoke to Mark and he in turn spoke to his tutor Dave Rawlings of the Boar's Tooth Fightschool who was more than happy to throw Mark around on a Sunday afternoon, to show us some of the skills Tris would have learned during her training as she became Dauntless.

We hope you guys like the video and the music is of course from one of my favourite movies of all time, The Crow.

25th April:      Mary @ The Sweet Bookshelf

                             Casey @ Dark Readers

26th April:      Raimy @  Read a Raptor

                             Laura @ Sister Spooky Book Fan Girl

27th April:      Liz @ My Favourite Books

28th April:      Jayde @ Ink Scratchers

                             Hannah @  Hannah Mariska

29th April:     Andrew @ The Pewter Wolf

30th April:     Keith @ Books and Writers

Divergent by Veronica Roth

She turns to the future in a world that’s falling apart.

For sixteen-year-old Tris, the world changes in a heartbeat when she is forced to make a terrible choice. Turning her back on her family, Tris ventures out, alone, determined to find out where she truly belongs. Shocked by the brutality of her new life, Tris can trust no one. And yet she is drawn to a boy who seems to both threaten and protect her. The hardest choices may yet lie ahead…. A debut novel that will leave you breathless.

I am loathe to be another person banging their drum about Divergent and how good it is.  I read Divergent some months ago, because Zoe Marriott could not shut up about it.  She won a copy directly from Veronica Roth and the copy was annotated with these tiny yellow stickys in which Veronica had given glimpses about things like music she listened to whilst she wrote certain scenes etc. I discreetly asked Zoe for her copy and she in turn told Lynsey Newton to pass it on to me to read and it was eventually sent to me with a sticker that said this:

I mean, how on earth could I resist?

And I subsequently read the book in one sitting, cover to cover and adored it. I loved it so much that I started handselling it to everyone I spoke with.  But do you think I could sit down and write a review about it?  It was hard.  It hurt my brain.  So instead I continued to handsell it on Twitter and to my SCBWI friends and to their kids.

This book is superb.  It deals, in quite an adult fashion, with an incredibly difficult choice at a very young age.  How do you choose somewhere to spend the rest of your life? I mean, you are still growing up and don't have all the tools to make this overwhelming decision.  Here, I remembered what it felt like being 15 and having to decide which subjects I wanted to take for the rest of my school career that will ultimately guide me to what I will study when going to university.  It blew my mind.  And it certainly blew Tris's mind as she stood there, having to wait and decide which of the factions she will be going for.  Even though the choice was limited to Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent) they seemed far too many choices and yet, equally, far too few.

I am sure most of you know which choice Tris makes but it makes for interesting reading to see her fulfil that choice, the repercussions and the consequences, the lies and the subterfuge that takes place surrounding her choice.

And of course, from this, the whole story hinges on Tris becoming part of her group, figuring out the hierachy of this world and learning about the untruths about the various factions they are told for a variety of reasons.

If, for any reason, you've been looking at Divergent and thought: too much hype, not my thing, girl protagonist, nothing is as good as Hunger Games, I urge you with all my heart to re-look at Divergent and to give it a go.  The writing is superb, as is the world Ms. Roth has created.  Tris is an amazing character and grows so much in Divergent.  Yes, there is a bit of a love interest, and Four is a great match for Tris.  He is a real boy, a strong and independent young man and you can see why Tris falls for him.  And before you put up your hand and say: "eeew, kissing" - I'm happy to say, there is more action, more tooling up with weapons and doing crazy stunts, than there is kissing or staring at each other in a loving fashion.

I feel that I've not done Divergent the justice it deserves with this write-up.  My heart still swells too much thinking about it and I know I want to re-read it soon.  I'm linking to a few others here as I want to give you a taste of what others thought about it.  Here is Zoe Marriott's review which I loved because, as a published writer, she has the opportunity to see the mechanics behind the story and yet, it did not put her off and she loves it.  And this review is from The Booksmugglers whose opinions I value highly and then finally, a review from My words Ate Me (who may just have the coolest blog name EVER!) and who I don't know from a bar of soap, but would like to.

Divergent is one of those books that makes you think.  You read it, put it down and pick it up again.  The good news is that the second book in the series is called INSURGENT and that it is out soonish, but that is all we know right now.  *bites knuckles* Am looking forward to reading the second book very soon indeed.