Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My New BFF - Veronica Roth

Disclaimer: The blog post below has not been endorsed by Veronica Roth, her agent or publisher
Veronica Roth, right, and I during the Dark Days Tour, July 2012

My new best friend and I have done a lot together lately. We've gone running together.  She joined me at the park one day. We worked side-by-side doing laundry and dishes. I went to her Dark Days Tour and she came with me to get my hair done.  She even helped me cut coupons one day. Veronica doesn't know it yet, but we are best friends.

Ok, so we are not really BFF's, but if I could chose an author that I'd like to be best friends with right now, it would be Veronica Roth, author of Divergent and the recently released, Insurgent.   For the past week, I have taken my book with me everywhere or I've been listening to her book in my iPhone. My favorite young adult books are ones that have a little bit of everything: adventure, romance, mystery, friendship, supernatural, coming of age, and action.  When I find one that has those qualities and is clean (no sex, foul language, drug abuse, etc), it is a keeper for me.  Insurgent was one of those books for me.

My Book Review for:
Insurgent by Veronica Roth


My Star Rating: 4/5

My Content Rating: PG-13 (Violence, Kissy Moments)

My SummaryBeatrice Prior (Tris) lives in a society consisting of five factions: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).  Tris is Divergent, meaning she doesn't levitate to just one faction, but three of them.  She left her family's faction, the Abnegation, to join the Dauntless where she found friends to relate with and a boy she cares for.  Unfortunately, the factions who supposedly hold society together are falling apart and war is looming all around.

Tris is haunted by her parents' selfless death to save her and the horrible memory of choosing to kill her friend, Will, whose mind had been overtaken by the simulation serum.  As the old Dauntless and Erudite wage war on the remaining factions, Tris has to chose which side she will join.  She must choose to support her friends and love, Four, to join with the Factionless by overtaking the Erudite OR she must chose to fight against them to save the Erudite information that holds secrets her parents tried to reveal before they died.

My Opinion:  This book really did have it all.  The action kept my attention throughout all 525 pages.  My heart ached and fluttered along with Tris the whole way. The romance was still there, although I missed the sweet, quiet moments from the first book that didn't surface because both Four and Tris had a hard time trusting and confiding in each other.  There were many moments where I wanted to shake both of them and yell, "JUST TELL EACH OTHER YOUR PLANS AND WHAT YOU ARE THINKING!" Unfortunately, since they are real people, , and make mistakes, they kept each other in the dark.

I'm glad that Roth didn't let Tris get over Will's death quickly.  She is a strong and brave character, but like her divergence shows, she has a selfless side that wouldn't let her get past it so easily.  I feel like I understood her need for self-sacrifice as she tried to overcome her hardships and discover more about her true character. 

Throughout the book, I kept wondering if we would find out more about the outside world and how the Five Factioned Society came to be.  I won't ruin it for everyone, but it made me happy to find out more at the end.  I'm a little disappointed that I'm going to have to wait more than a year to get the rest of the story. Darn you, Veronica!  Since we're friends now, maybe she'll give me the inside scoop.


2 comments:

  1. Oh, golly, I've GOT to read this book. Must do that soon! I'm jealous that you got to meet Veronica. I'm glad you are imaginary BFF's with her. That would make for a fun day. And I understand the whole clean book thing. I've decided to take a stand and not read books with questionable stuff in it, especially sex. I don't mind the swearing if it's used sparingly. But on every page it is just distracting, and in my opinion, poor writing. Bam! Loves to you from me, girl!

    ReplyDelete