Insurgent

Insurgent was published in March of 2015 by author Veronica Roth, and it is the second book in the Divergent series. Divergent, Insurgent, and even the third book, Allegiance, were popular enough to receive their own respective movies. This isn’t a review of the series though, just Insurgent. The book starts right from where the predecessor ends, with little transition and offering little information that was already covered in the first book. Because of this, information from the first book must be understood to give an accurate analysis of the second book. I will first go over a brief synopsis of the first book and all the relevant details before explaining the plot of the book’s two parts.

The Divergent series’s main protagonist is Tris, whom I will refer to often. In the first book, she left her family in Abnegation faction to instead live as a Dauntless, as her world is divided into five factions, which represent ideologies. During her life as a Dauntless initiate, she realizes that she will seldom see her parents, and begins to question how much she really knows them. Tris’s feelings amplify when her mother visits her on Visiting Day, because her mother seems strangely different from her usual Abnegation self. Fast forward to the final turning point of the first book, Tris’s mother sacrifices herself to save Tris’s life and continue her progression to destroy the simulation file. This ends up being an essential reason for Tris’s success, but also builds to the massive inner conflict that she has during the first part of Insurgent. I have seen some people criticize the book for not resolving the inner conflict she gained in the first book, and instead saving it for the next. I personally do not mind, and very much enjoyed the first book.

I am not writing a review for the first book though, so let me continue by analyzing the first part of the second book. The first parts dwells majorly in two of Tris’s inner conflicts: killing one of her best friends, Will, and the death of her mother. While she’s travelling from faction to faction to gain info, she’s also engaging in reckless acts of selflessness, because she has stopped prioritizing her own life after tension between her friends and all the weight put on her shoulders from the last book.To overly summarize things, her final act of recklessness was to sacrifice herself to Erudite headquarters in exchange for the lives of her friends, being controlled by Erudite simulation. Her inner conflict was finally resolved when she was seconds away from dying, which made her realize her will to live because of how real it all felt. I personally did not enjoy the way the author made this happen. Before staring at the eyes of death, Tris revealed no sign of ever wanted to live in her inner dialogue. This made her revelation feel unnatural and slightly forced by the author. I would have preferred if, instead, she slowly began to recover from her unhealthy mindset from small actions, with her near-death being the cherry on top, finally changing her mindset in the heat of the moment. Regardless of how it happened, this concludes the first part of the book, and the part of Tris’s life that she couldn’t overcome.

Once she escapes Erudite headquarters, Tris goes with her boyfriend to recover in the homes of the factionless. I mention her boyfriend, Tobias, because the second part of Insurgent mainly focuses on Tris’s betrayal to him. To understand why she betrayed him, the events in between must first be understood. Once Tris is near recovery, the loyal Dauntless form new leaders and then conspire with the factionless. The goal they develop is to destroy all of the data stored at Erudite headquarters to render them powerless. Tris is secretly against this plan because she discovered that the Erudite have information stored that her mother was trying to find before she died, so she wants to preserve the data that will otherwise be destroyed by Dauntless. She has no proper way to convince the Dauntless that the information is too important to destroy, though, so she then conspires with her only option, Tobias’s father, who also knows the importance of the information. Tobias and his father, Marcus, are on very poor terms, so she does not trust Tobias enough to ask for his help. Instead, she gathers a friend and a few Erudite traitors to assist her and Marcus. To summarize that entire mission, Tris’s insurgency fails, up until Tobias uses his Dauntless authority to probe the security details of the data from a capable Erudite. I really enjoy the theme in this part of the book for two reasons. First: Tris’s insurgent mission allows for her to better understand her mother, and because next-to fully recovered from her mother’s death. Second: Tobias decided to put his trust in Tris even after she betrayed him to work with his father, because of the bond they had built beforehand.

The story ends directly after Tobias broadcasts the knowledge of the outside world to the public, leaving us on a cliff-hanger. I personally don’t mind that, because I have already started reading the next book, but others may not share my opinions. Now, I honestly enjoyed this book, and although I criticized the first part, I will still rate this book four out of five stars. There were no points during this book where I was uninterested, and I enjoyed the massive amount of personal conflict, both with Tris and Tobias, and Tris with herself. That being said, this book had little plot that related directly to the ultimate goal, which I consider to be resolving whatever conflict is in the outside world. Instead this book mostly focuses on the preparation and build-up for the third book’s main plot. For that reason, I would not rate this book anymore than four stars, as it feels more like a transition that a main event. Regardless, the transition was smooth and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.