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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.

Dual Review: Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

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We’re back with a pair review of Imaginary Girls, a creepy genre-bending novel from Nova Ren Suma, whom we’ll be twitter-viewing tomorrow. Two of the three of us read it and liked it a lot, so we thought we’d offer up our takes on what makes this book one you should read.

Kim Says…

Imaginary Girls is a deceptive book. At first read, it seems so very different from the usual teen fare. When attempting to describe the plot to others, however, it’s difficult for me to explain how it’s different, since many of the plot elements are just like other currently-hot YA novels.

Chloe, our protagonist, is a teenager living in New York. Her older sister Ruby, a by turns threatening and loving presence throughout the novel, dares Chloe to swim across a reservoir one night while her friends watch. Ruby has told everyone a story of a city named Olive that exists beneath the reservoir, and she wants Chloe to bring back a souvenir from the city. While swimming across the reservoir, Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate floating in a boat in the middle of the body of water. Before the classmate’s body can be explained, Chloe is sent away from her sister and the reservoir to live with her father.

But Ruby misses Chloe and comes to claim her one day. Chloe goes back to New York and the reservoir with her sister, and it’s at this point in the book that we become truly aware of Ruby’s power. It’s a power she has not only over Chloe, but over the entire town in which she resides. She draws men to her easily – and discards them just as easily when she grows tired of them. She’s able to get anyone to do anything for her, by any means she chooses. One day, Ruby decides to give directives via balloon – she writes messages inside helium balloons and sends them up for anyone and everyone to discover. Sure enough, all of her directives are followed by whoever finds the balloons.

Suma writes this aspect of Ruby in such a way that it doesn’t come across as malicious on Ruby’s part, or even really that manipulative. We even grow to love Ruby a little, since we see her through Chloe’s eyes, and Chloe loves her dearly. It’s also clear that Ruby loves Chloe dearly, but it’s a complicated relationship made more complicated by the truth about the city named Olive and the dead classmate in the reservoir.

What ultimately sets this book apart is its writing. Nova Ren Suma has created a deliciously creepy book full of odd happenings all seen through a sort of haze. It’s difficult to get a handle on what’s really going on, because Chloe herself isn’t always sure. That aspect gives the book a feeling of magical realism rather than straight up fantasy or paranormal. And even though Imaginary Girls has elements of the paranormal, which can be found in so many current YA books, you’ll come away from it knowing you’ve really never read anything like it.

Imaginary Girls is being marketed as a book about sisterhood, and that relationship between Chloe and Ruby is the element that drives the story. Ruby has a few secrets that are revealed slowly over the course of the novel, and they impact in a big way how Chloe relates to her. It was refreshing to read a book completely devoid of romance – this book is an exploration of sisterhood and Suma ensures our attention is focused completely on that relationship and no other.

It’s not a fast-paced book. It’s meant to be read slowly, so you can savor the language and let the mood pull you in. That also means it’s not going to be a book for everyone, but for readers looking for something a bit different, this definitely fits the bill.

Kelly says…

I’m going to pick up on something Kim talks about: the language. Suma’s book is meant to be savored. It’s a slow build, but it’s an immediate draw, too — this is a literary work, one with lush descriptions that beg to be appreciated for their use as language and for what they do for the setting and story as a whole. In this, we’re tossed into a world that is at once completely familiar to us and one that’s also completely foreign. And it’s by being put into this position through little more than the language and writing itself that we know something strange is amiss. Ruby’s built in this world, and she’s further fleshed through the adoration Chloe has for her.

One element that Kim didn’t talk too much about and the one that really sort of encompassed the entire story for me was London. That’s the girl whose body was pulled from the reservoir. London becomes a symbol for the relationship between Chloe and Ruby, and I think this is where I got a lot of the chills in reading this book. She’s a representation of their relationship, as well as representation for Chloe’s belief in Ruby. This fits in with the legend of Olive, too, another element of the story to which I latched as a reader.

It was very refreshing to read a story that undulates between realistic and fantastic. I think these stories are important and are far too rare; isn’t it true that readers want to have something to grasp (the realistic) and yet want somewhere to escape to, too (the fantastic, the magical, the otherworldly)? This helps develop this creepy world. It’s just real enough but not pushed far enough in the fantastical to be written off as unbelievable.

The relationship building in this story is strong and memorable. I’ve not read many stories that do explore the idea of sisterhood, and certainly nothing that explores it on this kind of level. I’ve never been a sister, though I’ve had sister-like figures in my life, and it’s easy to buy and understand Chloe’s fascination and her desire to do what Ruby says. Ruby’s magnetic. If I were Chloe, it would be hard for me not to want to do what she says, what she asks. I’d want her approval. The relationship here was a little reminiscent — and I emphasize a little — of the one between Grace and Mandarin in Kirsten Hubbard’s Like Mandarin. As a reader, you’re drawn in entirely, and you’re forced to buy into the mindset of the character telling the story. Falling into Chloe’s mind is easy, especially because she builds up this mythically-real person in Ruby. As I was talking to Kim about what exactly it is that makes Imaginary Girls so creepy, I think that this might be part of it. We buy 100% into the devotion Chloe has for Ruby and we’re buying everything Ruby sells to us, even if it seems absurd, strange, surreal. We want to buy in because she’s magical. She makes things happen and not happen and we’re along for the ride right there with Chloe. This, in conjunction with the real-yet-not-real setting and story, conjures chills for me, even thinking about it months after reading the book.

When I finished the book, I couldn’t help but recall the experience I had reading one of my favorite books for the first time, Aimee Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. The moments of magic, the moments of sheer insight into the story and character, and the prose that begs to be read aloud really came together. Fans of Bender, who writes for adults, will find this book one they need to pick up (doesn’t hurt she also blurbs it!). I won’t ruin tomorrow’s Twitterview, where we get a little more insight into the story and inspiration, but this book definitely recalled some of the moments I had in reading Laura Kasischke’s Feathered a few years ago. Fans of contemporary lit will definitely appreciate this story, and those who want a story with a little magic or a little horror will find a lot to like in Suma’s book. There is easy crossover appeal for adults with this book, too.

To the totally superficial, totally unrelated to what Suma herself brings to the book: the cover. When I first saw it, I was attracted, but it was after reading the book and picking up on the purpose of each element in the cover made it a hundred times more powerful. Each of the items — the dress, the girl with the red hair, the ribbon — plays a role in the story, and this cover really sells the book aesthetically, but then it also gives readers an opportunity to put together the pieces.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this will be one of my Printz potential picks this year. It’s different enough with enough appeal for teens to be readable and commercial, but the language and style are so strong, they lift this book to a more literary level, as well. It had a lot of early buzz and press, and it’s my hope that excitement for this title sustains through the year, since it’s one worthy of attention.

Review copies received at ALA and TLA. Imaginary Girls will be released by Penguin Dutton on June 14.

Guest Post: I Don’t Care About Your Band by Julie Klausner

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Guest blogger Matthew Jackson, who writes about books, movies, and other nerdery at A Walrus Darkly, is back for a special Valentine’s Day review of a heartwarming book about true love.

The full title of Julie Klausner’s book – part memoir, part field notes on years of misadventures in the New York City dating battlefield (because Love, as Pat Benatar was so kind to remind us, is most certainly a battlefield) – is I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I’ve Dated.

When you reach the end, you realize it wasn’t just a clever hook, but a promise. Klausner’s collection of short, hilariously brutal stories runs the gamut from childhood tales of sexual curiosity and romantic optimism, to valiant efforts to make a long distance relationship come together, to good old fashioned terrible dates with perverts, textbook commitophobes and pretentious musicians, all wrapped up in Klausner’s pop culture-laden, self-deprecating style. It’s like what Carrie Bradshaw would sound like if she were Jewish, had a little more brains and a lot more balls.

Klausner begins this chronicle of broken hearts and bedroom farce with a little disclosure: “First of all, I will always be a subscriber to the sketch comedy philosophy of how a scene should unfold, which is ‘What? That sounds crazy! OK, I’ll do it. The other thing is, I love men like it is my job.”

Klausner spends absolutely no time feeling sorry for herself or offering excuses for her romantic missteps, but she makes no apologies for them either. She’s a comedy writer, after all, and may be thinking that what does not kill her will make her funnier. Whether it was all those bad dates or not, we may never know, but I Don’t Care About Your Band is definite proof that she is really damn funny.

But what moves this book beyond the level of “Men are Pigs” shtick and into the realm of something that’s not just giggle-worthy but lasting, is the wisdom of Klaunser’s work. She’s been through the kind of relationship hell you only see on HBO (and even they won’t show all of it), yet she’s come out the other side with a continued sense of optimism that’s neither cock-eyed (pun?) nor misplaced. There’s no bitterness here, no sense of vengeance, no “Here’s What’s Wrong With Me and It’s THEIR Fault” treatise on men and why they’re horrible.

Every chapter is peppered with a few little grains of relationship philosophy, but I Don’t Care About Your Band could never be mistaken for a “How to Meet Guys That Aren’t Nutbars” manual. At times it might seem like Klausner is sending mixed messages, but looking closer you find that all those layers of pontificating on this guy and that guy, this breakup and that one, this one night stand and that really awkward email, are just an expression of the chaos that is Klausner’s dating history. At times it makes you cringe, or even yell at the book like that guy in the back of the movie theatre (bitch, he got a knife!), but it never stops being funny, not just because it’s true, but because we’re in the hands of a talent who’s as brave with her writing as she is with her new suitors. All the miserable dates and ghosts of boyfriends past are churned up and deftly renewed as anecdotal evidence that God had comedy in mind when he invented sex.

I Don’t Care About Your Band is a hilarious book by a good writer, but it’s what is at its heart, a woman still believing in love despite encounters with bedbugs, narcissists and bad kissers, that makes it great. It sounds corny, but it’s what keeps you turning the pages.

Round Robin Reviews

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ONE suggestion for our Round Robin Reviews?
Really?!

We know you’re out there and you’re reading this blog. Leave a comment over here and tell us what to read and review. We’ll make you famous.

To sweeten the pot, our lucky random winner will receive a special gift from BEA. That’s right – a free book (or two!).

Round Robin Reviews

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Remember our Round Robin Reviews? They’re coming back, and this time, you get to choose what the three of us here at STACKED will read and review.

The rules are simple: leave a comment with the book you’d love to see the three of us read and review. Just one title. It must be something we’d have access to but any genre or age level works.

We’ll pull a random number on Friday and that’s the book we’ll read and review it within a month (we’re hashing out a date, but we promise it’ll happen in a month). If it’s a book one of us has read, we’ll ask the winning commenter to choose another title.

Good luck! Here’s your chance to de-lurk as a reader if you’ve been hiding for a while.