Book review: Insurgent

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. This is a sequel, so my review may have spoilers to the first book, which I reviewed here. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

One choice can transform you--or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves--and herself--while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable--and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

Insurgent was not as great as Divergent, for me.

I still liked it, and I read it quickly, but I definitely didn't get sucked in like I did with Divergent.

Insurgent develops a lot of the relationships we see in Divergent. Tris and Four grow and change now that they're outside of Dauntless. But the focus isn't just on them, which is good. This isn't a romance series, after all.

The relationships between the factions (and the factionless) are also developed much more in this book. And that is really cool -- to see what Amity, Candor and Erudite are like, since we've seen Dauntless and Abnegation. We get to see how they all work and learn more of the minor differences, like what colors they wear and how they style their hair and whatnot.

Tris also has to deal with everything that happened at the end of Divergent -- with her parents and Will, especially. We see Tris grow through her guilt and grief, and it's obvious she has changed, not simply moved on.

There is also a lot of action. But what I remember more about Insurgent is the development of Tris and the world she lives in.

Like the first book, this one makes you think a lot about where you'd be placed and how you'd react to what's happening. And whether you'd be a divergent, too -- and if that's even something you want to be.

Insurgent isn't a filler book. I didn't love it as much as the first one, but it is very good, develops the characters and advances the story.

And it got me psyched for the third book.

Has anyone else read Insurgent? It has a lot of awesome reviews on Goodreads. What did you think?