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Recent Reads, Twitter Style

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Here are a few of my recent reads, reviewed in short blurbs (not quite 140 or less, but close!)

Where We Belong by Emily Giffin: I really, really liked this one. For me, this was a return to form for Giffin after the slightly disappointing Heart of the Matter. Marian wasn’t the most likable protagonist, but the characters were deep, the relationships were spectacularly built, and the characters of Kirby and Conrad were amazing. It felt like a real world was created within this novel.

Spark (Sky Chasers #2) by Amy Kathleen Ryan: I loved Glow, the first book in this trilogy, and admired its careful handling of religion and its ability to shift between the three main characters’ points of view. Ryan accomplished a similar feat here, as the voices of Seth, Waverly, and Kieran are all distinct and the reader can somehow sympathize with all three, even as they all act in morally ambivalent ways. While this wasn’t as compelling as Glow, it was a decent middle book in a trilogy.

Real Mermaids Don’t Hold Their Breath by Helene Boudreau: I adored Real Mermaids Don’t Wear Toe Rings, and Boudreau delivered a solid sequel. This is a book that I would have loved in middle school. Jade is an endearing character: she’s literally a fish out of water, and her common worries (should she tell her best friend her secret, does her crush (and her first kiss!!!) really like her) are mixed with more….”interesting” concerns, such as: how can she find her Mom, who is in the process of transitioning from mermaid back to human? Boudreau writes winning dialogue and creates utterly real characters.

The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner: This wasn’t my favorite of Weiner’s. While I usually love stories about Hollywood, especially about newcomers and outsiders in show business, the characters in this book felt slightly flat for me and the ending almost seemed like it just…ended, a bit too simply.

30 Day Shred: All You Ever Wanted to Know*

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CASTLE

* Lest you worry: this is a review of the workout DVD, and because I was asked repeatedly to talk about what I was doing, I thought I’d share my experiences with anyone who might be interested.

Twenty days ago (technically, 21 days ago), I embarked on something I’ve tried to do before and failed mercilessly at multiple times: Jillian Michaels’s 30 Day Shred. If you don’t know who Jillian is, she’s well known for being one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser and has earned a reputation for being, how to say, tough.

That’s one of the nicer words I can think of for her. At least, it was back in the earlier days. Now, I think I kind of love this woman for that very reason.

A friend convinced me to join in with her to do the workout video. As I mentioned before, I’ve failed at doing this numerous times. Usually, I get to day 2 or 3 and say I’m not strong enough, I’m a failure, I’m way too out of shape, [insert other excuse of choice here for why I quit]. But I thought, well, I can try again. I mean, I’ve failed before and I’ve come to accept that as part of how things roll.

Before I explain a whole lot more, here are some things you should know about me. If the average US woman is a size 14, I am slightly larger than that. Over the last couple of years I’ve really changed a lot of my habits in terms of eating and fitness, and as a result, I’ve lost something like 50 pounds (it’s hard to say precisely since I am something like 70 or 80 pounds lower than my highest weight in 2008). I eat fairly healthfully, meaning lots of fruits and vegetables, very little white meat, no red meat at all, little processed food, and I gave up drinking all forms of pop (though I do like a natural pop once in a while and do not tell myself no on it). I talked about how I incorporated a treadmill desk into my routine, and I made a habit of walking on it most days for at least a mile (usually at a 20-25 minute/mile pace). I don’t have any health issues, aside from a pair of weak ankles from injuries way back in the day. The short version: I’m a healthy but shapely lady.

The 30 Day Shred is set up in three different levels, each building upon one another, and each level lasts for 10 days. Each level consists of three circuits, and each circuit is made up of three different sets of work outs. You do 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of abs in each of the circuits, for a grand total of working out roughly 25 minutes. This includes a warmup, which is essential, and a cool down that I found pretty worthless. Jillian leads the work outs, but she has 2 girls who help her out throughout, one who does modifications to the moves and one who does advanced modifications to the moves (my advice is to ignore her — though she cheats more than once and so that might help with your own self esteem). To do the workout, you should have a pair of hand weights, but they are not essential to the video if you do not have them. I began with 2 pound weights.

Level 1 of Shred looks like this:

  • Warm up: arm crosses, windmills, jumping jacks, hip circles, knee circles, jumping jacks.
  • Circuit one strength (3 minutes): 30 seconds of push ups, 1 minute of squat and press and repeat
  • Circuit one cardio (2 minutes): 30 seconds of jumping jacks, 30 seconds of jump rope, and repeat
  • Circuit one abs (1 minute): 30 seconds crunches, 30 seconds reverse crunches
  • Circuit two strength (3 minutes): 30 seconds dumbell row, 1 minute static lunge with bicept curl, and repeat
  • Circuit two cardio (2 minutes): 30 seconds butt kicks, 30 seconds punches (my favorite!) and repeat
  • Circuit two abs (1 minute): side crunches
  • Circuit three strength (3 minutes): 30 seconds chest flies, 1 minute anterior raises and side lunges, and repeat
  • Circuit three cardio (2 minutes):  30 seconds of each of the previous cardio moves
  • Circuit three abs (1 minute): bicycle crunches

If you want to actually see what it looks like, the video is on youtube, but obviously, I don’t recommend using that as your video (legalities, etc., and really, the thing is $7 on Amazon so just spend the cash).

So while it sounds unintimidating (because come on: jumping jacks, anyone can do those!), I’ll be honest: I did not make it through the entire work out on the first day. I quit at the start of circuit three, feeling like I was going to keel over on the floor and never get up again. I felt awful physically because everything hurt and awful emotionally and mentally because I could not get through the first level. I took it at that, got mad at myself, and put it away for the day. My thinking was that I at least DID a work out, which is more than I was doing before. Even if it sucked.

And then I spent the next day in horrific pain, hardly able to walk, and absolutely dreading day 2 of the work out (which is the same thing). I worried I’d be completely defeated again, unable to get through the workout, and then I’d give in to one of those excuses and quit all together. When I say I could hardly walk, I mean I could hardly walk. I won’t tell you how ugly it was trying to move around the house, let alone getting in and out of chairs. Everything hurt. Every. Thing.

I started day two though, and after talking with a friend about how she modified some of the moves, I decided that rather than feel completely defeated by the things I could not do during the circuits, I was going to make modifications on them and be okay with it. I could not do a pushup for the life of me. Not even a modified one (you know, knees on the ground, only lifting some of your weight). I decided to do wall pushups instead. It’s still an exercise with resistance, but it wasn’t going to require quite as much of me and would make me feel like I was doing something even if it wasn’t quite what they were doing on the video.

Day 2, I got through the entire level. I was absolutely dead at the end, but rather than let myself get defeated by something like being unable to do a modified pushup, I just did something I could do. Same went during the first circuit of cardio: although I could do all the jumping jacks and could do the jump rope, I had a very hard time doing them in conjunction with one another. Like, my muscles couldn’t coordinate them right. So rather than be frustrated, I substituted the jogging in place for the jump rope. Much better. Day 2 was still ugly, and the resulting feeling the day after of pain, pain, and more pain didn’t go away. The worst pain on that day was in my quads, followed by intense knee pain. Just so you know where we’re standing at now.

But something clicked about day 3 for me. I think it was the fact that I knew I was in so much pain that quitting would feel like I was in pain for nothing and the fact that I’d given myself permission to tackle things as I needed to tackle them, but day 3, I got through the whole work out. And I even did a couple of pushups on the floor without the wall (not all of them, just a couple!). But that was more than the day before. I also made sure to wear good shoes while working out which helped significantly with the knee and quad pain in subsequent days.

After day 3, the work out got easier for me. It didn’t ever get easy through the next few days of the first level, but I felt immediate differences in my endurance and in the ability I had to get through the things I failed spectacularly on in the first days. Let me repeat this and make it very clear: I was in a lot of pain. This is not an easy work out. A good friend of mine who is a runner said that she prefers running three miles to doing 20 minutes of Shred because it is easier. So contextualize that.

The physical changes though were near immediate for me. I knew going in that I wouldn’t lose much, if any, weight during the program (despite the claims on the box, I have a hard time believing anyone could actually lose 20 pounds on this). But I weighed myself, and then I took measurements on day 2 of the program. I measured my upper arms, my chest, my waist, my hips, and my upper thigh.

At the end of day 5 of the circuit — three days after my initial measuring — I had lost an inch in my arms, one in my chest, half an inch in my waist, one in my hips, and half an inch in my thigh. Not too shabby. For me, taking those measurements was incredibly motivational. I felt my clothes fitting a little bit better, too. But it was at the end of day 10, which is the final day in level 1, where I found myself actually somewhat eager for level 2. I’d lost two inches in my arms, one in my chest, one and a half in my waist, three in my hips (!!) and an inch and a half in my thigh. I had to buy new pants. It was pretty fantastic.

More than that, though, I felt great. I could get through the entire level without dying (it still hurt like hell, but I made it through). My endurance had definitely increased throughout, and I could do all of the pushups (modified on the floor) by the end. Maybe most exciting for me was how awesome my skin looked. I’ve always had less-than-amazing skin, but my skin had a really nice glow to it and was very clear and bright. Talk about a huge ego boost.

I took a day off to rest between levels, and then when I started level 2, I found myself back where I was with level 1: I could hardly make it through. It sucked. It was awful. I felt like all I had done in level 1 was for nothing and I wrote a teary email to more than one person about how I felt like a failure and I wasn’t strong enough.

OF COURSE I WAS, but being thrown back into that insecure, weak place in level 2 was a reminder that there was still a lot I could improve on. But knowing what I knew about how I worked in level 1, I decided that day 2 of level 2, I would be making modifications as needed. I won’t lay out the movements in level 2, but they are significantly more challenging than level 1, and many of them involve plank pose (which if you have weak wrists, well, they’re tough is all I can say). As I made those plans for modifications, though, the other thing I did was set goals for myself. By the end of day 4, I told myself I would be doing 70% of the plank twists (which is the last ab movement in circuit three of level 2). By day 5, I would do them all. Setting those mini goals within the bigger goals motivated me, and I achieved them.

Today is my last day of level 2, and aside from moving up from the two pound weight to the three pound weight in this level, I feel like I learned a lot about how much I can push myself. The pain, I will say, has been non-stop during this level, but it’s an entirely different kind of pain than in level 1. This time, it feels like there is constant tingling in my abs, in my hips, in my thighs and my back.

But the results? As of earlier this week when I measured — and I plan on measuring when I finish day 10 of this level today — I’d lost 3 inches in each arm, 2.5 in my chest, 3 in my waist, 5 (actually, 6, since I did measure there yesterday) in my hips, and 3 in each of my thighs. I guess if you measure that all up, it’s over 24 inches total.

In 20 days.

There are ten days left for me, and I am not going to lie: I’m terrified of what I’ll feel like after the first day of level 3. I am prepared to suck at it, prepared to cry at the end when I feel like I’ve just sucked it up. I’ve already given the heads up to my support folks they’re going to probably hear me whining about how I can’t do it. Except, I know that after doing this for 20 days, I can do it for another ten. I just have to make the modifications I need to make when and where I need to make them because it’s as simple as this: any movement is going to be better than no movement. Moreover, I know that by day 4 or 5, I’ll turn a corner again and by day 10, I’ll feel like I’ve got it. I’ll also measure again and hopefully see some movement, even if it’s simply in the way my clothes fit.

Now the part everyone probably really wants to know. I’ve laid out how I did it, but I have a ton of caveats for anyone who wants to do this:

  • Jillian is tough as hell, but she is ultimately very encouraging. She will tell you she wants you to feel like you are going to die. But she does it because it is MOTIVATING. It is normal to feel like you are going to die. That means it is working.
  • Follow the movements. I previewed the levels before doing them, and I tried out the moves before doing the entire level. This helped ensure I was doing the movements correctly with good form. It would be VERY easy to get hurt if you hurry through things without making sure you are doing them right.
  • This is killer on the knees, on the joints, and on every muscle you can imagine. Be prepared to hurt. Be prepared to pop pain reliever (I found myself taking them before working out, which helped). You will be working things you didn’t know could hurt. That’s normal. But also pay attention to your body’s cues — if you know you’re hurting more than simply workout pain, take it easy on yourself. Don’t kill yourself. Not worth it. Modify, modify, modify, and take a day off here and there if you need to. Take breaks (short ones) during the circuits if you need to.
  • Hydrate. I drank a glass of water before and a glass of water after, and obviously, plenty of water throughout the day. I work out first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, and it works for me. But other people might find themselves feeling ill because of this. If that’s the case, eat.
  • Be motivated by other people’s progress but do not use it as a yardstick. My results are huge. Your results might not be the same in terms of numbers, but you have to find out what it is that will be a measurement of success for you. Is it fitting into smaller clothes? Is it getting through the entire level without dying? Is it simply working out every day? Pick something and use it. Then be surprised and pleased with the other outcomes (like the amazing skin!). Note here: I did not lose a single pound on this work out. In fact, I gained a couple pounds.
  • Choose how hard core you will be. I chose not to diet at all. I chose to eat what it was I wanted to eat, when I wanted to eat it. I have had insane cravings for peanut butter and saltines (which makes sense — the protein and salt). I ate them. You can choose to overhaul your entire diet, too, but for me, that felt more like punishment than a commitment to fitness. Your mileage may vary.
  • Be okay with making modifications. This is insanely important. Do not berate yourself if you have to change things to make them work for you. I am very easily demotivated by things like this. But changing that attitude was key. Also? If you need to stay on a level longer than 10 days, there is nothing wrong with that. If you need to go back to a level since the next one is simply too hard? No shame.
  • Maybe the most important thing is this: have support. I do not know what I would do if there were not other people doing this with me that I could vent to and celebrate with. This is not easy. Jillian will tell you that. But what made the difference for me this time against all of the other times I’ve tried this and failed was that there were people who could cheer me on and tell me I wasn’t a failure when I felt like one. For me, that was enough push to do it the next day and the next day and the next. Of course, if you’re getting support, give it back. I personally find giving pep talks as encouraging, if not more encouraging, than getting it.

I’ve never been public or open about health/fitness-related things, so writing this out and talking about it openly (and even privately via many of those support-related emails) has been incredibly scary. That’s part of why there’s not a picture here openly to show off the differences in my body over the last 20 days. The thing is, being open about it has opened up some incredible discussions with other people, and I have been utterly shocked with how many people want to know what I’m doing and how I am doing it. I hope this helps someone decide to step up and do something — whether it’s Shred or not — because frankly, it has changed me in the last few weeks. I feel incredible, strong, and I feel like I can take on the things that are challenging. Maybe the biggest thing for me is that I don’t feel shame and I’m really coming to accept how I look isn’t as important as how I feel and how much I know I can do. The mental and emotional well-being is as crucial, if not more crucial, to me.

There are ten days left in the program for me, and I’ve been asked what my maintenance plan is when it’s over. Almost as if this is the end of things. But it’s not. I feel so encouraged by my progress that I don’t want to stop at all. I bought Jillian’s Ripped in 30, which is similar to Shred and I plan on tackling that next. Then maybe I’ll move onto one of her other videos. As much as I hated the woman at the beginning of this, I have found her to be the right level of what I need in a video instructor: she’s tough but she pushes because she knows that’s effective. At least for me. I’m motivated by being told I should feel like I’m going to die (there’s something comforting there).

Now that you’ve made it this far, the long and short of it is this: I think it’s worth it. It’s not going to be for everyone, though. It’s tough, and it’s a killer on the body, especially if you have any health/physical limitations. The thing is, if you’re willing to put in the work, even via making modifications, it is absolutely worth it. It’s only 25 minutes of your day.

I say it with utter sincerity: if someone in my shape can do it, I suspect most people can do it. Jillian has worked with people on all sides of the weight and fitness scale. I trust her ability to know what works and what doesn’t, and I never felt like there was something impossible in the work out. Just very challenging and maybe not achievable for me — just yet.

 

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Updates:

 

 

 

DVD dusted off from my shelf at home. 

The Princesses of Iowa by M Molly Backes

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At the end of last school year, Paige Sheridan, along with her two best friends Nicky and Lacey, were in an accident after a late night drinking party. Because Paige’s mother is obsessed with keeping her daughter’s reputation flawless, she ships Paige overseas to au pair for the summer, thinking that by the time summer’s over, the accident will be out of the minds of everyone in their small Iowa town. Paige has to maintain her image as one of the popular, pretty, perfect girls.

When she gets back from her summer away, Paige is ready to see her boyfriend Jake and she’s eager to see Nicky and Lacey. The time apart was meant to heal their wounds, except when Paige returns, things are anything but peachy. Nicky and Lacey aren’t interested in being kind to Paige and Jake, who promised to take a creative writing class with Paige, has suddenly changed his schedule to take a film class with Lacey instead. Now Paige is alone and has to figure out who she is and where she now fits in at the school where she’d once reigned supreme. Thankfully, she’s got a lot of time to do it and a lot of opportunities to figure herself out via this creative writing class she hates being in.

Princesses of Iowa has all of the elements of a book I love: complicated characters, complicated situations, and a lot of unrest and insecurity between the two. There’s also great voice in this novel.

First and foremost, we’re dropped into the story at the beginning of the new school year. We aren’t forced through the car accident that created the rift between the girls, and we’re not forced through the summer after. Instead, we’re left to figure things out right along with Paige. And she has a lot to wade through. Where we should have some sort of sympathy for her, especially because it seems everyone has turned against her, Paige is not at all easy to like nor is she all that sympathetic. She’s very much a princess, and she’s egged on by her mother to be so. Paige has made a ton of mistakes in her past, including the drunk driving accident (easily forgotten, given the story’s set up) and she doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse for how she’s behaved. Moreover, she has further made unlikable because of her affluence — it’s not just that she’s wealthy in an area where wealth isn’t all that common, but it’s that she unabashedly flaunts it. She’s really had everything handed to her in life, and she’s not afraid to talk about it. There’s a scene in the story where she runs into Ethan — a new kid in town who has been the source of some relentless teasing — and he’s working at the local coffee shop. Paige even says to him that she can’t believe he has to work while he’s in school because, well, she’s never had to. She’s above him in this moment, and this interaction is just one of the many moments when she pivots herself as better than her peers because of her privilege.

Paige doesn’t act much better at home, and in fact, it’s probably her family and home life that contribute directly to her being the less-than-pleasant girl she is. Her mother is obsessed with maintaining an image of perfection, both for herself and for Paige. Without doubt, her mother uses Paige as a way to achieve the vapid glories she, too, longs for. Then there’s Miranda — Mirror — who is the younger sister and with whom Paige hasn’t necessarily had the greatest relationship. Mirror is envious of the attention her mother gives to her sister, and I think it’s fairly telling that she prefers to be called Mirror. Then there’s the father in the story, and even though he and mom are married, dad is never around. I suspect had he been around a lot more, we’d have an entirely different mother. It’s pretty obvious from the start that mom is bored and restless with her own life and she uses Paige as her way to find excitement and meaning. She’s lonely, much like Paige is. Need I mention her sister prefers to be called Mirror?

Nicky and Lacey are characters who are hurting a lot, but they also don’t garner a whole lot of sympathy. Nicky has taken on the role of advocate for an anti-drinking and driving campaign at school, right before Homecoming and she’s recruiting others to help her push the case. Lacey is dealing with being physically injured from the car accident, and while her pains are real, she uses them as a way to get attention and sympathy. Although we’re getting that reading of her behavior from Paige, I don’t doubt it’s true. Jake, who used to be involved with Paige, has essentially dumped her in order to “help Lacey out.” As much as it sounds like it’s out of the goodness of his heart, I don’t for a second believe it. He’s in it for the attention it brings him. For the honor of being close to tragedy.

Although the heft of storytelling falls in developing characters who are really unlikable and rather terrible people — my favorite kind to read about — one of the biggest plot points is about Paige’s journey of self-discovery through creative writing. She takes the class because she thinks it will be easy and because Jake will be in it with her. But when he chooses to take a different class with Lacey instead, Paige is left on her own. And this writing class isn’t easy at all. Paige doesn’t have anything she believes to be worth writing about. More than that, though, the classroom is a battlefield of everything she’s ever fought against. She has to deal with people who are different than her and who challenge her reputation of perfection. It’s in this class she first meets Ethan (the coffee shop boy) and has to confront the notion of what she’s been led to believe about a person isn’t necessarily the truth about that person. Along the same lines, Paige has to figure out how to work with her teacher, Mr. Tremont. Rumor is he’s gay and being gay in a place like small town Iowa isn’t cool. It’s scary and makes Paige uncomfortable when she buys into the rumor. . . and maybe spreads the rumor herself.

This creative writing class not only helps Paige learn about other people and how it’s okay to be different, but it helps her discover who she is. It forces her to confront all of the ugliness she carries and use it in more meaningful ways. Although it’s effective in the story and at times it’s great to read (because when you read or when you write, you confront those very same things about yourself and getting that affirmation via reading is always neat), I felt like it sometimes bordered on didactic.

The Princesses of Iowa is a long book, and when I was reading it, I felt the length more than once. That’s not to say this isn’t well-paced or well-written because it is. There is certainly great character development and I appreciated watching these terrible characters get what they deserve, but because of the length, the power of the creative writing element made me question whether the characters were really great characters or whether they were props supporting this Great and Meaningful Message about the way writing can change your life. That’s not to say I ever believed that was the purpose of the story or the characters, but it felt like a little too much. Combined with a few plot points that felt over-the-top and slight (including a scene where the anti-gay coalition shows up at the high school to protest their hiring of a teacher who may or may not be homosexual which was over and done in just a couple of pages, despite being a huge and important thing worth digging into), the story became heavy within itself. It took on more than it could support when it had so much going for it already. A little less could have made this even stronger.

Backes’s book reads like a love letter to writing, and the real story behind it here is that of how writing can change a person. Paige definitely has an ah ha moment in the book, but I think she got off much too easily. For being as terrible a person as she was, she comes to some hard and fast realizations through making new friends and through realizing that opening her mouth when she shouldn’t isn’t always the smart thing or the right thing to do. She works through 450 pages of story and walks away way more unscathed than she should. I’m a big believer in terrible characters getting their fair share so it was a little bit of a letdown.

Princesses of Iowa will have nice appeal to teen readers who are interested in writing themselves, and I think it’ll appeal to readers who like stories with complex and downright unlikeable characters. This book is set in small town Iowa, so it’ll appeal particularly to readers who want stories in a rural setting. There were a lot of interesting cross-over themes between Backes’s story and Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast, particularly in terms of social class, small-town life, social norms, and the whole host of -isms which box and label people, and I could see those who liked Herbach’s story liking this one, too. Fans of Catherine Gilbert Murdoch’s Dairy Queen series who are looking for something a little more mature will likely appreciate this one as well.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Princesses of Iowa releases today.

Dual Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

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*Warning: Spoilers for Divergent included*

At the end of Divergent, the faction system was in shambles. Erudite had launched an attack on Abnegation and the Dauntless had been forced into becoming unwilling accomplices via a simulation. Tris, a Divergent and therefore immune to the simulation serum, and Four barely escaped with their lives. Insurgent picks up right where Divergent left off, with Tris fighting to find a safe haven and learn more about Erudite’s plans. She, Four, and other possible allies bounce between Amity, Candor, the old Dauntless compound, and even the factionless safehouses in their quest to salvage what’s left of their society. They also search for the reason behind the Divergents’ immunity to the simulation serum and uncover a shocking truth about the nature of the faction system.

Jen:

Insurgent was, by far, my most anticipated book of 2012. I whizzed through Divergent and was amazed at the uniqueness of Roth’s world in a sea of derivative dystopias. And while Insurgent was definitely a solid, fast-paced, and compelling read, I found that it paled a bit in the shadow of its predecessor. Perhaps part of this is due to the inevitably difficult role of the middle book in a trilogy, which has to continue the narrative of the first book while bridging the gap to the conclusion–all the while not simply serving as a filler journey but actually having some meat of its own. However, beyond that, a few issues still bothered me.

Perhaps it is a result of reading so many books, but I tend to forget some details about books after I’ve finished them, especially when a year has passed since I’ve read them. As a result, I was utterly confused when I first picked up Insurgent and, apart from Tris and Four, couldn’t quite remember who a lot of the characters were. After re-reading Divergent, I was absolutely fine, but the reader should definitely be aware going in that there is no recap, and that the book basically picks off right where Divergent left off. This isn’t necessarily a downfall of the book, but it is a choice that pulled me out of the reading experience right off the bat.
However, when I did start reading, I was impressed all over again with the strength of Roth’s writing and her ability to describe the five different factions, all of which are given distinct ‘personalities’ and whose environments are vividly brought to life. The supposed peacefulness of the Amity compound, the destroyed wreckage of the Dauntless bunker, the modernity of the Erudite building–all stand solid and distinct from one another. I also loved how Roth introduced the world of the Factionless, and how its members, more numerous and significant than previously believed, are now making their way into the story.
One of the most impressive parts of Insurgent is Tris’ emotions in the wake of both her parents’ and Will’s deaths. Drowning in her feelings of loss and culpability, Tris seems to be struggling with a combination of loss, survivor’s guilt, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and Roth portrays her emotions masterfully. Tris’ emotions are not wrapped up in a set period of time, but keep recurring over and over. Her guilt, especially over Will’s death, also interferes with her relationships with Christina and Four, and I was quite impressed by the ensuing complexity of these relationships and the characters’ interactions with each other, especially as Christina deals with the horror of having become a Dauntless ‘soldier’ and Four deals with the presence of his father.

Perhaps it is because of the emotional conflicts that clouded Tris and Four’s relationship in this book, but I didn’t feel a lot of chemistry or connection between the two, and it even seemed like theirs was a relationship that wouldn’t last through the trilogy’s conclusion. After building up Tris and Four’s connection so much in Divergent, the lack of sparks was a bit of a let-down. I could be proven wrong, however, and this is by no means a criticism of this choice–after all, in a war zone, with lives on the line, there is not much opportunity for wooing with candlelight and roses.

However, despite these qualms, Insurgent is ultimately a great read because of the characters and the plot. The book has characters with realistic emotions and a plot filled with twists and turns. It has characters who do not turn out who we thought they were and an ending that completely reverses the tone and direction of the trilogy. While I’m still a bit doubtful about the ending–though intriguing, it seems to come out of nowhere and similar events have been seen before in other books–I am eager to see more from Veronica Roth.

Kimberly:

Like Jen, I felt that Insurgent suffered from middle volume-itis. There’s a lot of action, but it all seems to be just a very, very long lead-up to an ending that didn’t particularly satisfy me or (I think) make total sense. I’ll be interested to see how Roth builds upon and explains the twist at the end. As it stands at the end of the book, it’s a bit muddled. Perhaps that’s intentional – Tris and her companions must certainly be feeling confused as well.

I’ll touch on a few things I really enjoyed about Insurgent (and there are certainly a few!). Firstly, I enjoyed seeing the factionless as the large group that I knew they must be. I liked seeing a few familiar faces among the factionless and realizing they could be a serious power in the story. I loved getting to know the other factions as well – their strengths and their foibles. I also appreciated that Roth hasn’t lost her ruthless touch. Terrible things happen to people we care about, and those same people often have to make terrible choices. I think the choices that Tris made – while perhaps not the wisest – were believable for her character. Too often, choices will be made for the convenience of the plot, but I didn’t see that happen here.

Like Jen mentioned, the first parts of the book can be confusing if you haven’t read Divergent recently (which I hadn’t). I welcomed a brief bit after the first few chapters when Tris and Tobias go under truth serum and are forced to recount what happened at the end of Divergent to a crowd of Candor. It was interesting character development and it helped remind me of those events. Still, I’d recommend re-reading or at least refreshing your knowledge of Divergent before you dive in to the sequel.

When I read Divergent, I was so engaged the entire time. When I set it down, I wanted to pick it up again immediately. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that same feeling while reading Insurgent, despite its quick pace and action-packed pages. I think that’s pretty telling. Of course, I’m not trying to indicate that it wasn’t a good book, but it didn’t hook me like I wanted it to. It was a bit more uneven: some parts were thoroughly engrossing and others not so much. It’s not that these sections were slow, precisely – it was more that I didn’t see what purpose they served. I think some parts just needed to be tightened up a bit. Still, for fans of the first novel, this is a must-read, and I’m sure its concluding volume will be too.