Insurgent

Tris has survived a brutal attack on her former home and family.  But she has paid a terrible price.  Wracked by grief and guilt, she becomes ever more reckless as she struggles to accept her new future.
Yet if Tris wants to uncover the truth about her world, she must be stronger than ever...because more shocking choices and sacrifices lie ahead.

Veronica Roth's Insurgent was easy to read, but it is so cheesy in places.  Roth's dialogue could definitely benefit from some reworking, as the melodramatic exclamations always distract me to a point where I have to read them out loud in a silly voice. 

The follow up to Divergent has plot twists you could see a mile  away.  In spite of this I still enjoyed reading Insurgent.  Maybe this is due to  there being actual danger; this isn't an everyone lives type of series, with Roth killing off characters as fast as she's introducing them.

Protagonist Tris is hard to like, but isn't that the point?  Isn't she supposed to be the anti-YA heroine?  Her flawed, non-perfect, personality was the reason I enjoyed Divergent.  The problem here is that she has descended in Saba levels of guilt over her actions in the first book.  There is a lot of moaning, and having recently read Rebel Heart I'm a little sick of it.  Yes you killed Will.  You had to.  Get over it.  I have.  However, Roth manages to save Tris in the final half of Insurgent, proving that her protagonist isn't a complete drip when she calls Four out on his ever changing views of her. 

The ending was great, pushing the narrative in a different direction for the third, and final, book in the trilogy.  What lies beyond the fractions?  We will all have to wait until November to find out.

Just a note: I despise the U.K cover artwork.  I know, I know, someone probably worked really hard on them.  However, to my eyes, it's a pointless design that has nothing to do with the story and it results in a cheap aesthetic.  While the American covers aren't the most amazing pieces of design in the world either (if I ever get a book published, my dream is to have Joey Hi-Fi design my cover...) at least they are better than shadows and random leaves on fire.

Divergent

This is the blurb on the back of my copy:

One choice decides your friends.

One choice defines your beliefs.

One choice determines your loyalties - forever.

One choice can transform you.

Bit vague, huh?  For those wanting a bit more info, here's the blurb from waterstones.com:

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.

 

 

It has been a week since I finished reading Divergent.  I tried to hold off writing a review straight away as I instantly came away thinking that not a lot happened story-wise.  However, if this had been true, I wouldn't have felt so compelled to keep on reading Veronica Roth's dystopian YA novel.  While Divergent could never be compared to the works of speculation fiction genius Margaret Atwood ( but then I wasn't looking for another Onyx and Crake, I was looking for a end of holiday read), it had a good momentum and interesting characters.  The first in a planned trilogy, it suffers slightly from having to build a world, so very different to our own, with so many rules, but is a great introduction nonetheless.

What stood out for me, and what was ultimately gratifying, was that Tris wasn't a typical YA narrator.  She wasn't perfect, or helpless and she wasn't unaware of her stunning beauty, waiting for a boy to notice this and save her from the big bad evil world.  Tris has plenty of major flaws, her pride and selfishness to name only two, and I liked how Roth explored this young girl's desire to do not only the right thing, but what was also in her best interests.  Of course there was the obligatory romance, but I'll let it slide as it wasn't love at first sight.  Roth aptly decided that this romance, and the feelings of her two characters, would be shown through their actions rather than just told through their exclamations and thoughts of all conquering love.

I've already ordered Insurgent from the library and I'm hoping that now all the introductions are out of the way, and the characters have been established, that there will be a stronger storyline in place and that the series reaches its full potential. 

 

Happy New Year!

So, I'm back!  Naughty me as I didn't post anything for the last half of December, but I have a goodish reason...Firstly, the week prior to Christmas, I was round my boyfriend's house and things worked out that I didn't manage to get any computer access while I was there and then for the past 11 days I've been on holiday.  Hence all my time had to be used going on roller coasters, being a sorcerer of the Magic Kingdom and exploring The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. 

Some book things were accomplished...eventually.  Just before I went I read Poppy Z. Brite's vampire tale, Lost Souls, and while away I did manage to read Mockingbird, Chuck Wendig's superb - if slightly inferior -sequel to Blackbirds, which I will get around to reviewing sometime this week or next. Also, as part of my MIB:Alien Attack winnings, I got a copy of Veronica Roth's Divergent after seeing the sequel, Insurgent, on so many 'I want to read this book in 2013' lists and a copy of Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry.

So did everyone else have a good time over the holidays?  And did you receive any of the books that were on your Top Ten Tuesday list?  I hope you did, and that you have a prosperous reading year in 2013!





















P.S....while looking for Community season 3 DVDs and failing, I found something else...