I read the Divergent triology within the same week, but it's taken me a while to get these reviews up. Hopefully I'll be back on track soon!
Context:
After stopping the simulation driving Dauntless members to kill Abnegation, Tris is on the run. She and her group find refuge at the Amity compound. Tris learns secrets about the factions she never dreamed of (Amity using peace serum, for instance) and before long finds herself in many a terrifying situation: among the factionless, where she discovers Tobias's mother is alive; among the Candor, where she confesses under truth serum to killing Will; and among the Erudite, where she has marched in to try and stop all the madness by sacrificing herself. Tris agonizes throughout on thoughts of bravery and selfishness vs selflessness. The novel concludes with a shocking death and an equally shocking revelation.
My thoughts:
Sooo Insurgent.
I spent a LOT of this book being irritated with Tris and Tobias. Needless, immature bickering! Agh! I guess it's to be expected from a couple of teenagers, but the ridiculousness was painfully transparent.
Things that were cool:
Ooh the serums. The governmental control plot thickens! Everyone is disillusioned thinking they actually have some choice in how they live their lives, but even the Amity are controlled by serum. Very interesting!
Evelyn being alive--holy plot twist!! Too bad she ends up being just as bad as Jeanine, though less annoying. Being a survivor of an abusive relationship earns you a few sympathy points.
Tris stabbing Eric--YESSS. I hate Eric.
Tris confessing to killing Will: Always going to cheer for character growth, but it was a really sad moment. Poor Christina! I feel for her, though girl could have probably not been so catty towards Tris. Will was being controlled and Tris didn't know what else to do (though: couldn't she have shot him in the foot?)
I love the development of Uriah, Marlene, and Lynn. I'm worried the movie is going to leave them out totally--Uriah had what amounts to a CAMEO, when he was so much more than that in the first book...where does this leave him and our other favorite Dauntless born initiates come the Insurgent movie? At any rate, I loved watching their character development--they really become more than secondary characters.
Peter and his weird allegiances: I don't like Peter in general, but one thing I DO like about his character is his obvious psychopathy. I think he truly suffers from a mental illness that renders him incapable of relating to other humans. He's interesting, if nothing else. He deals with humans strictly on a business like basis. Who owes who what? Terrifying, but interesting.
The Edith Prior factor: Hello cliffhanger, was wondering if you'd show up again! Nothing quite like finding out you were nothing more than guinea pigs in a little 'save the world' experiment and the Divergent that you're so scared of are truly your saviors. Hooray!
Things that were not so cool:
Tobias ignoring Tris's advice because he has mommy issues: this becomes a recurrent theme through the last two books and I really just want to punch him in the face. Your woman is the superhero protagonist, LISTEN TO HER. This annoyed me severely throughout the book. As much as I love a super strong female protagonist, I want to see some romance too, dang it. And I just did not get what I wanted. There is a fine balance to strike between angst and romance and so many of their moments fell on the angst side. It was emotionally exhausting.
Tris having to make the decision that results in the death of Marlene: it was good writing. It was really emotional and hard to read. But I was just really starting to like Marlene when this happened. It was truly terrible and disturbing to realize the kind of things the government could do. It actually made me think of the Imperius Curse a little bit.That kind of power in the wrong hands is just...unstoppable. I understand why Tris saved the kid instead of Marlene and whoever the mystery person was but UGH.
Tris turning herself in to Jeanine: Not cool Tris. NOT COOL. The one thematic thing I really like in this book is the fine line between bravery and stupidity, and the meaning of sacrifice--when is it appropriate, and when is it selfish foolishness? While Tris turning herself in set us up to explore those themes quite thoroughly, it's pretty obvious where Tris's action lies on the Spectrum of Sacrifice, and it's not on the end that her mom and dad were on.
Caleb's betrayal: I actually hate Caleb more than Peter. I don't care about your non-Divergence, she's still your sister, you incredible piece of crap.
Tris lying to Tobias AGAIN: I understand why she wanted to help Marcus, but GOD TRIS HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED TO JUST BE HONEST BY NOW LIKE PLEASE. The whole situation is snarled and crazy, and revenge thirsty Tori ends up killing Jeanine before Tris can get the information she wants anyway.
My rating: 3/5
I definitely liked this book less than Divergent. Tris's angst was almost insufferable at points, but there was some really creative dystopian government stuff that didn't feel like something I'd seen before. The idea of the factions being an experiment was interesting, and some of the moral issues raised thought provoking questions. Overall, I was just ready to get to the third book by the end, but I still enjoyed it.
No comments:
Post a Comment