City News

“One choice can transform you.” This is the quote you will see on the cover of the most recent book I read, “Insurgent”, by Veronica Roth. Insurgent is the second book in the “Divergent” Trilogy and it details the events after Tris, with the aid of Tobias and her parents, shut down the Erudite attack simulation on the Abnegation leaders. These events included attacking Erudie with an army of factionless, witnessing the deaths of her close friends, killing Jeanine Matthews, and killing a Dauntless leader who has always hated her and Tobias, Eric.

The reason I chose to read Insurgent in the first place is because I was deeply intrigued after reading “Divergent” and was very curious to read about what would become of Tris, Tobias, and their companions. The characters I read about in “Insurgent” and learned more about were Uriah, Lynn, and Caleb. These characters were present in “Divergent” but were never elaborated upon, so by reading “Insurgent”, I was able to better understand how these characters felt, acted, and grew in the book. This is another reason why I loved the book.

Other reasons why I loved the novel were because it effectively detailed the hardships of Tobias and Tris’s relationship and how they overcame these obstacles and still managed to be a couple. After reading these parts of the book, I got a deeper understanding of the perseverance and grit of both characters especially

after all the battles they had to fight and how they never met eye to eye in most situations.

Overall, reading about the characters, in general, left me intrigued and fascinated.

Some aspects that I didn’t like about the book was how slow it started and the lack of anger Tris felt Erudite leader, Jeanine Matthews. At the beginning of the book, I expected a lot of action and fighting between Tris and her army of Dauntless against Jeanine Matthews. However, this was not the case because right after the attack simulation, Tris and Tobias took a train to take refuge in Amity headquarters alongside the rest of the simulation survivors. After this, most of the book included lots of planning between the factionless and Tris to launch an effective attack against the Erudite. These parts also included lots of arguments between Tris and Tobias, which were interesting to read about at first, but as most of them continued and new arguments arose,

the book quickly became boring.

Another aspect that I did not like about the book was Tris’s lack of anger towards Jeanine Matthews. I don’t get why she was so patient in launching an attack against Jeanine and the Erudite. After all, Jeanine created a simulation which led to the

death of many of her friends, both her parents and one of her best friend’s boyfriend, Will. Also, Tris almost lost her life when she was put in a large tank to drown to death by Jeanine. Another reason which should have fueled Tris’s anger towards Jeanine is when she put her boyfriend, Tobias, under a simulation in which she had to fight Tobias and almost got killed a second time. Lastly, Eric was instructed, by Jeanine, to execute any “useless” Divergent, which included a 10 year-old boy. Tris witnessed Eric shoot the boy in the back of the head without hesitation, all because of an order Jeanine made Eric execute. This should have been the last straw for Tris, but obviously this was not the case. I felt that this book is ok for teens to read because it does not involve too much violence and it is not too hard, nor easy, to read.

Overall, I would rate “Insurgent” ⅘ stars because it is a great book overall, but the fact that it was a little slow from the beginning to the middle of the novel was what I disliked.