City News
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Review by Kaydence
Veronica Roth’s Insurgent is the second in the Divergent trilogy, a story set in the future where
Chicago is split up into five factions Dauntless, Abnegation, Amity, Erudite, and Candor.
Insurgent follows the events of Divergent. Erudite declared war on Abnegation so that Jeanine,
their leader, could gain all power, and the Dauntless were put under a serum to kill all the
people in abnegation. Beatrice(Tris), Four(Tobias), Caleb, Peter, and Marcus all stopped the
serum and fled to Amity. We pick up with them in Amity.
Along with other refugees they are all allowed to stay in Amity as long as they stay peaceful.
Shortly after they arrive people from Erudite and Dauntless come to take the refugees. After a
fight they realize they have to go back to the city. Marcus, Tobias’s abusive father, tells Tris that
the reason Jeanine wanted to destroy Abnegation was to steal information that Abnegation had
been given to keep from the city. Tris believes him but Tobias doesn’t.
On the train into the city they encounter some factionless, people who didn’t make it into a
faction, and they go with them to the factionless headquarters. When they get there Tris see’s
that Tobias’s “dead” mother is running the factionless. Evelyn wants to create a factionless
society. She wants Tobias to help her rally Dauntless to help them. They all then go to Candor
where other refugees have taken shelter. When they get their Tris and Tobias are arrested. The
leader of Candor saw footage of them in the control room, when the attack was happening, and
thought they were helping Erudite. They go to trial where they are put under Candor’s truth
serum. They are cleared of their charges but Tris reveals that she accidentally killed Will. This is
the first time Tobias and Christina hear about this. Will was Tris’s friend but was also Christina’s
love interest. Christina is mad at Tris.
Traitor Dauntless invades Candor to find Divergent, people who are able manipulate simulation.
Tris is captured but is able to escape with the help of other Dauntless. Tris goes to Marcus to
ask for help to get information that Erudite stole from Abnegation. Meanwhile, the Candor leader
feels having them stay there is dangerous to Candor and makes a deal with Jeanine to protect
Candor. Tris overhears this and they decide to go to Dauntless headquarters. There they assign
new leaders. Christina finally forgives Tris for Will.
Tobias and Tris form an alliance with Evelyn. Tris believes that Evelyn is using Tobias. Later
Erudite attacks again and says that they’re going to keep killing people one by one until a
Divergent gives themself up. Tris knows she has to be the one so she sneaks out and gives
herself up. There Jeanine is trying to create a simulation that actually affects a Divergent mind.
Tobias shows up to sacrifice himself and die with Tris.
Tris finds out that Caleb, her brother, has been helping Jeanine create weapons to manipulate
the Divergent. The experiments continue and Tobias tells Tris that he’s there to find out where
the control room was so that when the Dauntless and factionless invaded they knew where to
go. Tris continues to resist the simulations and tells Jeanine that she will never be able to
control her. Jeanine decides to keep doing the experiments on Tobias and to execute Tris the
next day. Peter, an old enemy of Tris's, comes to take her to her execution. He injects her with
what Jeanine thinks is death serum. Actually he switched out the serums and just injected her
with a paralysis serum. He takes her body a brings it to Tobias.
They get to Abnegation headquarters and meet up with the factionless. While they plan their
attack Tris and Marcus plan to get the information back. They get into Jeanine’s office but
another Dauntless already has shot Jeanine. Without her they can’t get past the security and
retrieve the information. Tris is considered a traitor because she tried to save Jeanine. Tobias
realizes what Tris was saying about the stolen information is true and gets it. The information is
a video with a woman talking about how their city is an experiment to fix human flaws and that
Divergent people were supposed to be created so that humans would be more complex and
possess all the traits an ideal person would have. She then reveals that she’ll be joining the
experiment as Edith Prior, Tris’s mom.
This second installment was a good addition to the series. It cleared things up from the last
book and added to the already amazing characters. It was an interesting story and was fun to
read. We got a better understanding of the war and different people’s perspectives on it.
The book had a good plot but I felt that it was really slow and was well written. There were times
when it was hard to keep reading.
Overall the book was pretty good and definitely cleared up some plot holes from the last book. I
give it a 7/10 for its good storyline. I recommend it to anyone who liked the first book.