Insurgent (Divergent, #2)

by Veronica Roth

[ladygrey]

I like [b:Insurgent|11735983|Insurgent (Divergent, #2)|Veronica Roth|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325667729s/11735983.jpg|15524542] and I like [a:Veronica Roth|4039811|Veronica Roth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1363910238p2/4039811.jpg]. I like the world she's built because it's different and the isolation of factions allows Roth to be overt in talking about human dynamics without being obnoxious which I enjoy. I'm not a fan of her writing style. I'm burying it in this paragraph because I feel bad about it, but her writing is the simplest and the most rudimentary of almost all of the YA authors I read (HarperTeen is notorious in my mind for simplistic writing styles and gorgeous covers. And yet, I love reading their books). That being said, she is a bestselling author so I must be in the minority there. And after a while I settle into her blunt style and it only occasionally bothers me. And yet, even with that her characters are very well evoked. They all have a very particular sense of life and vibrancy to them that makes them very real, even when they're secondary or tertiary characters.

There's a lot of action in this book and a lot of consequences and it's pretty interesting. It's a very fast read, which sometimes is nice; especially with a 525pg book.

And I like that in this book (as opposed to [b:Divergent|8306857|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327873996s/8306857.jpg|13155899]) Tobias and Tris' relationship is really the core of the story and everything else that is happening sort of orbits around that. It doesn't soften an action packed book into a teenage romance, but it provides an emotional anchor in the midst of the chaos and anarchy that's as important to the reader as it is to the characters. I like how authentic Tobias is; his physicality and nonverbal actions evoke him and define him extraordinarily well. Better, I think, than a lot of female writers trying to portray a male character. There's something very natural and very male about him as opposed to what a woman thinks a man would be or wants him to be. Roth isn't the only author to effectively do this ([a:Eve Edwards|3392912|Eve Edwards|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1309255339p2/3392912.jpg] springs to mind) but I was struck by how well she did it.

I liked that there were different moments within their relationship that gave it a depth and a complexity that you don't find in most YA novels. There weren't a ton, but there were enough to take note of.

But there was a lot I didn't like about Tris in this book. She lies. At first she's just keeping secrets and the lies pour out of that which I understand. A lot of characters keep secrets out of loyalty or guilt or because they can't even speak the works to themselves so certainly they can't tell anyone else. But then, after her big, brave I-forced-myself-to-tell-you-the-truth moment she is a lying liar who lies.

And I get it, he's an ass who stops listening every time she disagrees with him.

What I wanted at the end was for him to say, "You've got to stop lying to me." And she replies, "You've got to start listening to me. Because I'm right. And you know me, there's no stopping me from whatever I'm hell bent on doing."

But what kind of a relationship do they really have when he dismisses her whenever she disagrees with him and she lies to him every other time they talk?

And then, then, at the end she calls him a liar! what?! You lied to him again and again and thought to yourself, "I'm lying straight to his face." You don't then get to give an impassioned speech about him trusting you. You've lost your right to be indignant.

That being said, a part of my criticism only goes to show how well developed her characters are because otherwise they wouldn't hold up to such scrutiny.

"You die, I die too." Tobias looks over his shoulder at me. "I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions."