“This was a pretty great book. At the end of Divergent, though I wrote a pretty positive review about it, I was a little iffy about the rating, and I thought that even if Tris had some interesting qualities that Katniss didn't have in The Hunger Games, it couldn't top The Hunger Games.
After reading Insurgent, I think that this trilogy--depending on how the third one goes--could beat The Hunger Games trilogy for me. I'm not necessarily saying Insurgent is way better than Divergent, or even better at all, but whereas Divergent had a lot of similarities to The Hunger Games, Insurgent split off and made the trilogy its own. At first when I was reading the 'revelation' at the end, I felt like it was a little anti-climactic, but then I grew to appreciate it and recognize what Veronica Roth was doing--not settling for a Hunger Games-esque fight for government power, but something much more. Fighting for the goodness of all of humanity.
Spoiler alert. At first I was surprised--not positively or negatively, just surprised--by the amount of deaths in the book. I was surprised that characters like Eric and Jeanine died, both the major villains of the series. Then I grew to respect Veronica Roth more for being willing to end a plot that we knew could only work out one way anyway--with Jeanine dying. Rather than dragging out this simple struggle for government control into three books, she effectively ended it (well, not ended, but ended the Erudite threat) in two, leaving the third book open for...anything.
I'm really looking forward to the third book, and I'm curious to see how she ends it. It seems like with the revelation at the end, this could go on to four books, but I'm glad it's staying at three. If the third one lives up to its potential, it could definitely beat Mockingjay for me.”
Benjamin Drake wrote this review Wednesday, January 9, 2013.
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