Divergent / Insurgent (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2013; vuoden 2012 painos)

What an excellent follow-up to Divergent-- full of action, excitement, betrayals, manic plot twists, and crazy combat scenes. Tris really starts to develop as a bad ass character in Insurgent. I found myself shouting "What?!?" out loud many times while reading, especially at the end, and I cannot wait to get my hands on the finale. ( )

Insurgent picks up right where Divergent left off, so you may want to reread the last couple of chapters of the latter before you start the former. I didn't (as I'd listened to Divergent on audiobook and I was too lazy to go back and listen again), and it took me a bit of time to catch up and reorient myself.

I found the beginning of Insurgent to be a little slow, before the action started to kick in. Once that happened, though, it was a fun ride right through to the end. I kept getting frustrated with Tris' decisions about things, but I had to remind myself that she's only 16, and has just been through hell and survived, and now she's fighting a war against adults who all want to use her for something. That's a lot of stress for anyone; one has to forgive a teenager for maybe not making the best decisions.

This got four, instead of five stars from me because of a consistency issue I noted close to the end of the book. I won't say here what it was, so as not to spoil, but it did jump out at me. The author does note on her blog that she's aware of errors and inconsistencies (even from the first book to the second, which I didn't catch -- see above), and explains how it happens. I'm very impressed that she chose to publicly address the issue, and it does make me more sympathetic.

Definitely read this if you liked Divergent. Note that there's one more book coming, and this second book definitely ends with a cliffhanger. ( )

Okay, so I know I implied I won't be continuing the series, but I watched the Allegiant movie last night.

So frustrated with Roth's underdevelopment of characters that I don't even want to talk about it. STOP NAME DROPPING (with little to no information about their personalities and a chance to feel connected) AND EXPECT US TO FEEL SOMETHING WHEN YOU KILL OFF THOSE CHARACTERS! That's all I have to say for the time being. Thankfully I still enjoyed the dystopian theme and the overall idea of the book - otherwise it probably would have earned only one star. And finally, it would be nice if Tris could actually be the strong individual Roth (sometimes) paints her to be, because I'm really getting sick of this Twilight-ish relationship between her and Edwar- I mean Tobias. Really? If you want to be strong, then stop this mind warp of, "Oh, does he love me, but he's hiding something from me," kind of crap. Thank God it's only a trilogy. Unfortunately I feel like I have invested too much time into it and will still end up reading the last book in the series... ( )

I WON'T SAY ANYTHING UNTIL YOU FINISH IT ASH, SO HURRY UP PLEASE!!

Buddy-read with my bestie ɑƨħŵɑɡ ( )