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A review by ihateprozac
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
2.0
I'd put this novel down for a few months, but forced myself to pick it up again today, for the sake of a) finishing what I've started, and b) making progress toward my 2013 Goodreads reading challenge, since I failed miserably at my 2012 challenge. It was not an enjoyable experience. Usually I find myself powering through the last third of a book, practically salivating as the author reveals the answers to the big mystery. Instead, I was forcing myself to finish each page, constantly looking at the little progress marker at the bottom of the Kindle screen, begging for the story to be over already.
Given that I'm such a geek for dystopian fiction, this series should have me on the edge of my seat, ravenously devouring each book and eagerly anticipating the next. Instead, reading this series feels like a chore. I don't like Tris. I find her to be boring, irrational and generally devoid of any likable characteristics. I don't enjoy her relationship with Tobias either, finding it lacks chemistry and excitement. I don't find the faction system disturbing enough, nor the government oppressive enough for a dystopian novel. I don't even really care that much about the 'big secret' the government is trying to hide.
That being said, I'm glad we finally found out what the goddamn secret was. I'd suspected from early on in Divergent that the mystery would revolve around what exists on the outside of the fence. I suspected that perhaps the government were lying about the outside a la Aeon Flux, using fear to keep their citizens contained. I suspected that something bad may have initially happened in the world outside, but that it had since been resolved, and yet the government decided to keep everyone safe in their little box.
As I worked my way through Insurgent, I began to suspect that we were looking at a situation a little more like James Dashner's [b:The Maze Runner|6186357|The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1)|James Dashner|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1308971563s/6186357.jpg|6366642], or M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. I figured that either the city was part of some experiment by a larger organisation like Dashner's W.I.C.K.E.D, or perhaps people had sealed themselves into the city and created their own 'perfect' society, a la The Village. Turns out it's a bit of both!
Although reading these novels hasn't been a pleasant experience thus far, I will continue to read them and finish the series. I'm excited to see how people react to the news of how their society came to be. I imagine that some of our favourite characters will frustrate us, as they reject the news and refuse to leave the city with Tris and co. And I'm intrigued to see what the world is actually like outside the fence. I imagine that it's still a pile of shit, because I don't imagine the author would write an ending where the world had somehow become perfect and didn't need saving, and instead everyone focused on these escapees of an experiment nobody knew existed.
So assuming that the world is still a pile of crap outside the fence, I'm interested to see what year it is, and what exactly caused the chaos. In Edith Prior's video, she mentioned three things that piqued my interest:
1) That the citizens would be cut off from the water supply in the outside world
2) That the citizens would be cut off from the technology in the outside world
3) That an oppressive government was only part of the problem
This has me thinking that a tyrannical government tried to subdue the population with some sort of compliance-inducing serum, not unlike the one used in the bread at Amity. Said serum then backfired and actually caused the population to become more angry and violent, much like how the Reavers were created in Serenity. The government then decided to lock a portion of the population in a controlled environment completely cut off from the outside world, in the hopes that they would naturally develop an immunity to the disease. And we've seen this happen with our group of Divergents and the way their brains have formed, who aren't too dissimilar to Thomas and the Gladers from Dashner's Maze Runner series.
Overall: I'm happy to finally learn the big mystery of this series, but it wasn't an enjoyable ride getting there. There are much more compelling young adult dystopian novels out there, and I'd recommend James Dashner's
[b:The Maze Runner|6186357|The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1)|James Dashner|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1308971563s/6186357.jpg|6366642] and Beth Revis' [b:Across the Universe|8235178|Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)|Beth Revis|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348085121s/8235178.jpg|13082532] before suggesting this series. This book had all the right elements to draw me in, but it just fell flat. I'll finish the series for the sake of finishing the series, nothing more.
Given that I'm such a geek for dystopian fiction, this series should have me on the edge of my seat, ravenously devouring each book and eagerly anticipating the next. Instead, reading this series feels like a chore. I don't like Tris. I find her to be boring, irrational and generally devoid of any likable characteristics. I don't enjoy her relationship with Tobias either, finding it lacks chemistry and excitement. I don't find the faction system disturbing enough, nor the government oppressive enough for a dystopian novel. I don't even really care that much about the 'big secret' the government is trying to hide.
That being said, I'm glad we finally found out what the goddamn secret was. I'd suspected from early on in Divergent that the mystery would revolve around what exists on the outside of the fence. I suspected that perhaps the government were lying about the outside a la Aeon Flux, using fear to keep their citizens contained. I suspected that something bad may have initially happened in the world outside, but that it had since been resolved, and yet the government decided to keep everyone safe in their little box.
As I worked my way through Insurgent, I began to suspect that we were looking at a situation a little more like James Dashner's [b:The Maze Runner|6186357|The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1)|James Dashner|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1308971563s/6186357.jpg|6366642], or M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. I figured that either the city was part of some experiment by a larger organisation like Dashner's W.I.C.K.E.D, or perhaps people had sealed themselves into the city and created their own 'perfect' society, a la The Village. Turns out it's a bit of both!
Although reading these novels hasn't been a pleasant experience thus far, I will continue to read them and finish the series. I'm excited to see how people react to the news of how their society came to be. I imagine that some of our favourite characters will frustrate us, as they reject the news and refuse to leave the city with Tris and co. And I'm intrigued to see what the world is actually like outside the fence. I imagine that it's still a pile of shit, because I don't imagine the author would write an ending where the world had somehow become perfect and didn't need saving, and instead everyone focused on these escapees of an experiment nobody knew existed.
So assuming that the world is still a pile of crap outside the fence, I'm interested to see what year it is, and what exactly caused the chaos. In Edith Prior's video, she mentioned three things that piqued my interest:
1) That the citizens would be cut off from the water supply in the outside world
2) That the citizens would be cut off from the technology in the outside world
3) That an oppressive government was only part of the problem
This has me thinking that a tyrannical government tried to subdue the population with some sort of compliance-inducing serum, not unlike the one used in the bread at Amity. Said serum then backfired and actually caused the population to become more angry and violent, much like how the Reavers were created in Serenity. The government then decided to lock a portion of the population in a controlled environment completely cut off from the outside world, in the hopes that they would naturally develop an immunity to the disease. And we've seen this happen with our group of Divergents and the way their brains have formed, who aren't too dissimilar to Thomas and the Gladers from Dashner's Maze Runner series.
Overall: I'm happy to finally learn the big mystery of this series, but it wasn't an enjoyable ride getting there. There are much more compelling young adult dystopian novels out there, and I'd recommend James Dashner's
[b:The Maze Runner|6186357|The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1)|James Dashner|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1308971563s/6186357.jpg|6366642] and Beth Revis' [b:Across the Universe|8235178|Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)|Beth Revis|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348085121s/8235178.jpg|13082532] before suggesting this series. This book had all the right elements to draw me in, but it just fell flat. I'll finish the series for the sake of finishing the series, nothing more.