Insurgent, Veronica Roth

The two month wait for this book was so worth it. When I read Divergent, I was completely floored by it, so part of me expected to be a little let down with a sequel. I thought maybe the romance would become the central focus, or it would get stale, maybe less disorganized.

Wrong.

The entire storyline is so flawlessly executed. There is just enough back story so that you know what’s going on, but plenty of room for speculation and prediction. Nothing you predict, however, will be correct. Even though the book follows an amazingly logical sequence, none of it is something I could have thought of myself (a serious testament to the author that I couldn’t predict ANY of the outcomes).

While Divergent is very much a sort of coming-of-age story centered around Tris finding her way in her faction, Insurgent is focused on the society she lives in instead. Once everything in the world falls apart a second time, how can they possibly pick themselves up again? Even though she’s not the main focus though, Tris grows in ways it’s impossible to describe without giving anything away. So I’ll keep it brief:

Tris is brilliantly flawed. She’s smart, brave, and selfless. But she’s also prone to recklessness, confrontational, and allows herself to be weakened by her own insecurities. This is my favorite part without a doubt. She’s all these wonderful amazing things I wish I could be myself (mostly brave), but she’s still just a girl trying to figure out how to deal with all the horror around her. She never, not even for one second, let’s anyone (including her love [the astoundingly sexy Four]) tell her how to think or what to do. Yet she gives all of herself in a way that I respect beyond words.

I’m putting this series right next to The Hunger Games on my shelf of amazing dystopian books that rip me apart, make me want to fight society, and want to be a better person. The writing is beautiful without getting cheesy, and the characters are so strong I wept for every character that died-not just the main ones.