Insurgent by Veronica Roth

The following review has been pieced together from a conversation about Insurgent on Goodreads. I figured that since all the words were mine, I could do with them what I would.


**spoilers**


I'm having hard time putting a finger on why Tris and this book aren't as good (although they are good) as the first book.


I think it's hard to write a trilogy going into to it knowing that you are going to write a trilogy. You know there are things that you aren't going to reveal until the end and you know that these things have to be alluded to in some faction for your audience to buy it. You're main characters (in this case I'm including only Tris and Dour) have to also change in some fashion from book one to three. And, that change has to be warranted...this has got to be hard to do especially if you are writing in first person.


I don't really want to like Tris...I understood her behaviors incredibly well in the first book and her pouty petulance, defiance and all out rudeness made sense in the context of her life, her relationships and her factions. I bought it all. In this book Tris changes and I'm not sure that we can use her age as a defense , however, since 16 year olds make life changing decisions all of the time and while sophomores are different than seniors, they can still reason and think and listen and are on the path to adulthood. 


I do not like when a positive role-model (especially one for girls, as there are so few) seems to change her stripes and becomes, in fact, like all the other girls in all the other books that have girls as heroes. Can girls only be heroes if they cry/have ill-tempers/make stupid decisions? It would seem that the literary world seems to thinks so. I would even add Hermione Granger into this mix as she couldn't just be defiant she had to be, at times, downright mean and a 5-letter word...you know which one. I hear that Evie in Paranormalcychanges for the not so good, Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen inTwilight and The Hunger Games, respectively are not girls I see as having virtues and they only gain virtues by finding or loving boys--argh; even girl leads as far back as The Chronicles of Narnia are not girls I want my daughter to emulate in any fashion. Frankly, as I go through these types of books in my mind Forgive My Fins and other mermaid books, The Girl in the Steel Corset (don't even get me started on Wither) et cetera...the girls all seem to exhibit the same traits of whininess, weakness and neediness that are suppose to make them strong.


I don't know what I want to see in a heroine, a YA heroine in particular, I thought that Tris was getting there. I am afraid that she took a few steps backward in this book, which brings me to the point about trilogies...perhaps Tris just needs some room to grow, perhaps as a Divergent she needs to act and think and truly be selfless, maybe book two was all about acting as she learned the hard way that acting without thinking or truly being selfless does not work.  All I could think about while Tris was being so reckless and going into danger when everyone was telling her not to was Bella Swan and her recklessness...the fact that I could connect them (even if for a little bit, as i know the characters are truly different) irritates me.


I am still undecided about Tris. I don't think anyone would question her goals or motivations, although they do seem to contradict in terms of being selfish and selfless (or are they just both at the same time?). She doesn't make me want to punch her in the face, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be her friend. She just isn't what she was in book one. I don't like her at all in this book, even if she does question shooting Will and other of her actions that have not yielded positive results, I liked her loads in the first book when her actions and motivations seemed a little clearer. I'll see about the third.


4 Stars   

The thing is, I did enjoy this book loads. It was easy, fast and fun and it has me thinking, all good signs, especially from so young a writer.  Maybe Veronica Roth is being consistent with her characters and plots and we don't know it because there's a whole book to go. I'm willing to give Tris the opportunity to become the YA heroine I've been dreaming of. 

Teacher Advisories 

Sex 3.5-4/5

There are some really steamy kisses ...hands under shirt, lying down type kisses

Language 1/5

If there's any at all it's few and far between and in the heat of the moment.

Substance Abuses 2/5

Only because there's the initiation process and a truth serum and simulation...not really sure all of this should count, but...some people may not like it.

Violence 5/5

Um, there are fight scenes, a war is beginning. Tris and Four have a verbal fight. Actually, a lot of people and Tris have verbal fights. People get knocked out and murdered. A boy is shot point-blank. A girl gets shot and bleeds to death. A leader of one of the factions is assassinated and her body is put on display.


Touchy Subjects

War is Hell
If Dystopic novels don't tell us this, than what are they good for, however when you lose your parents and your brother is a traitor and your friends are dying that point may be a little hard to handle.

Revenge
See what that looks like if you are smart or brave or honest or caring or selfless...it comes in every package.
Secrets
Tris has to live with the fact that she killed Will. She tells no one until she is forced to do so.
Being True to Yourself
Even if others doubt you, even if you doubt yourself.
Relationships
At some point Tris and Four seem to be no good for one another...it's good for kids to see that relationships need work and sometimes you have to fight to keep them and sometimes you have to let go.



How this book is used in the classroom

1] Independent Read option
2] Book Club read

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Hmmm...since I'm reading Insurgent, I suppose it's time that I write a review for Divergent.

I feel that you can't talk about this book without first talking about it's author, as it's author is truly every aspect of this book. I began reading her blog a little before Divergent came out and fell in love with her voice, I liked it so much that I found myself wishing that she could have been in one of my classes so we could have spent time talking about books and the world. If you read her blog you will find that she is truly all of her 24 years humble, to the point of self-deprecation, witty, smart, funny and gosh darned brilliant.

All of these traits spill over into the characters in her debut novel, so much so that I found it really hard to dislike a single one, even those that are terrifying and horrible, like Eric.

This book is set in a dystopic Chicago (squee) were people been divided up into 5 factions (Amity, Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite), during your choosing ceremony you go through tests that determine the faction that best fits you. If that faction doesn't work or you don't fall in line you then become factionless and live in the wasteland (a place we know is probably better). Each faction then trains their initiates...and, by trains I mean brainwashes...into the ways of the faction. And, as with any dystopic universe this works only if there's tons of control, people who blindly believe whatever is put in front of them and people who naively believe that what is being done is right and just. Of course, they believe that because they don't know all the answers.

Both Tris and Four, in some way, fall into the latter category. As each begins to find out who they really are, they, of course, find one another. They must then learn to lean on one another when they find out that their perfect world of factions and exact rules is falling apart.

And, while Tris is the narrator, Four is the one to watch and Four, with his light eyes and dark hair and tattoos and muscles, teaches Tris about family and true selflessness.

I understand that there are people out there who have had their fill of all things dystopic. To those, I said add this to your list, I promise it will rejuvenate you and show you that there is hope for dystopia.  There are also many out there who compare this series to The Hunger Games. I don't disagree with them (and, in some ways I think this series is better...of course, this series is not for those in the middle grades) I do, however say "Who the flip cares?". In Divergent, Veronica Roth, has given us a strong female lead who is fiery and fierce and who knows that she is flawed, who makes mistakes, a girl who I imagine is a bit more like the author than most think and therefore a bit more real than the rest of the YA heroines out nowadays.

Once you finish the book, go find a copy of "Free Four: Tobias Tells The Story", it's a little short story of the initial meeting of the transfers and Eric and Four. I like that from that story we get a sense that Four is truly sensitive and compassionate. I also like how it subtly gives us background we need for Insurgent. Four really is my favorite character...

Oh and just in case you don't have time to read Ms. Roth's back catalog of awesome blog post, here are a few of my favorites:

Prince Charming, Meet Wal-Mart
Divergent Playlist
Likeable Schmikable
Writing Out of Order
The Mistakes Writers Make

Now, back to Insurgent, I'm right in the middle!


5 Stars

Four, Four, Four...oh, and there's a plot too! :D

Teacher Advisories 

Sex 3.5-4/5

There are some really steamy kisses that kind of made me wish I could leave the room or turn my head or something...but, I couldn't help reading them...pretty hot stuff. There's one kiss in a bedroom against a wall or bedpost or whatever that...whew...

Language 1/5

If there's any at all it's few and far between and in the heat of the moment.

Substance Abuses 2/5

Only because there's the initiation process and a truth serum and simulation...not really sure all of this should count, but...some people may not like it.

Violence 5/5

Um, there are fight scenes to advance to the next levels in Dauntless. A child falls to their death off of a train, although it's mentioned no one seems to care. A boy commits suicide. A boy attacks a girl. A boy pokes another boys eye out with a butter knife...um...a girl shoots a boy in the head at point blank range...er...parents die. A father abuses his son by whipping him with his belt. Pretty intense stuff.


Touchy Subjects

When its OK to stand up to your parents
One boy chooses a different faction just to stay away from his father and then must confront his father. Tris chooses a faction that goes against how she was raised.

Revenge
See what that looks like if you are smart or brave or honest or caring or selfless...it comes in every package.
Family Secrets
No one really know who Four is and he tells no one. Tris's parents have their own secrets to hide.

Being True to Yourself
Even if others doubt you, even if you doubt yourself



How this book is used in the classroom

1] Independent Read option
2] Book Club read

The Maze Runner Trilogy James Dashner

Readers, meet The Maze Runner Trilogy, another book series you won't be able to put down. Be sure to allot a couple hours a day of couch time for this one. And be prepared to have some strange dreams if you are one who reads before bed.

The Maze Runner is a wonderful science-fiction, mystery, dystopic/post-apocalyptic roller coaster. Right up my alley (maze?). The first book, The Maze Runner, opens with the protagonist, Thomas, inside a box, with no memory of anything other than his name. The box rises like an elevator and a group of boys pulls him out and lifts him to The Glade, where the colony of boys has been living for the past two years After asking numerous questions and getting answers to few, Thomas discovers that the boys don't know much more about their predicament than he does and their memories are just as absent. The only thing these boys know is how to survive The Glade- and that they have to find a way out- a feat that would be easy considering it's all they have to do. But it's not that easy. Outside The Glade lays a maze with moving walls which harbor strange, part-blubber, part-mechanical and fully deadly creatures. As far as they can tell, there is no hope for escape.

If anyone has watched LOST, you know of feeling of being completely in the dark about what is going on, yet getting just enough details to keep you wanting to turn the pages to find out more. The Maze Runner does just that. When Dashner does shed light on all of the seemingly impossible things that are happening, he does so in such a wonderfully scientific way that it all seems just a bit plausible.

Though the protagonist is a 16 year-old boy, the books are actually much darker than some young adult books I've read. They get rather gruesome at times, and there are a lot of implications about how far a group of people should go in making individuals suffer for the good of society. Dashner is clearly trying to convey a message that we can't do whatever we want to people even if it will help us in the long run. It seems that he is saying that in some cases, the ends don't necessarily justify the means.

One of the things I really love about this series is that it is SO opposite of The Lord of the Flies (not that I didn't love that). Dashner must have a lot of faith in teenagers, and I'm glad he does. When these kids are left to their own devices, instead of becoming corrupt and killing each other, they create a full-functioning society with order and justice and diplomacy and a system for doing things. They're smart. They think things through and problem solve. They're kids you could be proud of.

I would recommend- no- HAVE recommended- this series to high school students (and they've loved it!). There is enough action to keep them interested, and I would hope that they could see the layers of this series and consider the message it may be giving. It has something for girls and boys. Action, love, friendship, loyalty, fighting, technology, you name it.

The rating I'm giving this series reflects my feelings on it as a whole. It was riveting. I couldn't put it down. But now that I've stepped back, there are some things that bothered me about the third book and the way it ended- but I won't get too much into that. Overall, I think these books are great for young adults- especially anyone who has read The Hunger Games. Instead of a Katniss, we have a Thomas, and the message is quite different- but it's just as dark and enthralling.

5 Stars


Teacher Advisories
Violence 3/5
There is a lot of it, and the killing seems so unnecessary, especially since kids are the ones being killed. The kids themselves, though, are the ones who are admirable and NOT doing the killing. The adults are the ones to blame for everything here.
Sex 0/5
Flirting, relationships, love: yes. Sex: no. It may be implied at the very end, but not enough that it would affect the rating.
Language 0/5
One of the things I loved about this book was the inventiveness of the kids. They have invented their whole language of slang and curse words, but they are words that don't mean anything to us. i.e "What the klunk," and "You shanker"
Substance Abuse 0/5
There is ONE scene where people drink quite a bit. And there is a drug that doesn't exist to us now that people are abusing. Not enough for me to give it a 1.

Touchy Subjects

Self-sacrifice
A big question with these books is whether people should sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Even while reading the book, it's difficult to decide what is right and what the main characters should do.
Mercy Killing
This issue comes up once and it's not a major part of the book, but still a touchy subject for many
Family
These kids all have lost their families for one reason or another.

How I would use it in the classroom:
1. Independent Read Option

Wither by Laura DeStefano

I wasn't going to read Wither, as the cover makes me want to...I don't know punch puppies, drown kittens, vomit uncontrollably? Can you tell I hate these new-fangled covers that have some sort of waif model on the cover posed in some sort of Tyra Banks type manner? And, yet, against my will, I am drawn to its colors and symbolism...

Anyway, I wasn't going to read it and then I saw this review for it on Goodreads (by a reviewer whose opinion I value and whose reviews I follow) just trash the dickens right out of it. It made me curious. Isn't it funny how a bad review can do that? But, I still wasn't going to pay to read it...I waited...hoping one of my students would have it and let me borrow it, hoping one of my friends would buy it and let me borrow it and then there it was on the bookshelf at my aunts house when we went to visit her in the summer begging me to read it. I read it in a day, it's not really that hard of a read.

Frankly, I like the story. The only thing that makes it dystopic, however, is the premise. The rest is mostly a love quadrangle.

Frankly, I like the setting. It happens to be a gothic castle full of mysterious secrets and an orange grove in its meandering garden and, by contrast, a city taken over by disease-riddled, I can only imagine, zombie-like teens and pre-teens and those who prey upon them.

Frankly, I like the main characters. Rhine (isn't that a lovely name that you know 85 million teenage girls will now want to name their first born?) is strong when she needs to be, feminine when she needs to be and knows what she wants which is out of her life of sister-wifedom and back with her brother defending their home. I like her husband, a man/boy struggling not to be the pawn of his father, and the boy she truly loves (at least I think she does), the servant, Gabriel. I, even, like the other two sister-wives, even if one is a little spoiled child who enjoys that she is pregnant at 13 and the other is a bit sad (we find out for good reason) and mopey.

I've recommended it to a couple of students who I know like their dystopia on the light, romantic side and I've mentioned it in passing to a couple of my SF YA friends in the hopes that we could then chat about the many reasons this book and its author bugs me because I can't put my finger on it, except to say maybe there's too much to try to entice the reader to buy into the concept and not enough once your hooked. It's kind of like Taken (that movie with Liam Neeson), meets the Uglies series, meets Frankenstein (the book and the Kenneth Branagh movie), meets I Am Legend, meets the most beautiful sweeping romance ever...say Gone with the Wind.

Will I read the second one? I'm not sure, it's got another one of those covers and a setting that seems to be all the rage now...the carnival/circus. Maybe, I'll just have to keep my eyes on the look-out to see if anyone will let me borrow it.

3 Stars

Side note: my review for this book bounces between 3 and 4...I'm torn...

Teacher Advisories

Sex 3/5 

It really doesn't go into any type of description whatsoever when it comes to sex in this novel. However, Linden marries for love at first, but then his father finds him 3 sister wives (two of which we know were kidnapped from their homes by, what seems to be, some sort of sex slave ring). While Linden doesn't force them to have sex with him, it is heavily implied that Jenna doesn't really want to but sees no way out and that Cecily doesn't really understand what she's gotten herself into. The main characters talk candidly about buying sex for money and about how to get pregnant. It would seem that the goal of a sister wife is to have as many babies as possible.

Language 0/5 

I don't remember any language that would be considered an expletive, there are some real and candid conversations.

Substance Abuses 2/5

It seems that once you are on your death they pretty much just drug you up until you don't feel anything until you die. One of the sister wives may have overdosed on drugs. The parties involve alcohol.

Violence 3/5

The sister wife who overdosed may have been murdered. Rose dies pretty graphically...pale, weak, smelly, coughing up blood. Kidnapped girls that are not sold to prospective husbands are murdered in cold blood. Then there's the whole idea that Linden's father may be using the babies of the wives to experiment on to find the cure...that's just chilling and creepy.

Touchy Subjects

Sex Trafficking 
With all the things that are coming out now about children being kidnapped into sex slavery (Jaycee Duggard) or being forced to be 13 year-old wives (too many to name), this may be the subject that kids pick up on and want to talk about the most.
Science and Ethics
AIDS, Early Science experiments that didn't ask for consent of the patient, the fact that the death virus was created by scientist trying to find a cure for disease and the fact that it only affects the young might come into question.
Sex
Because they talk about it a lot...Rhine even understands that the three sister wives have each been brought to the mansion for three separate purposes and while her's is for conversation, Jenna's is for sex and Cecily's is for breeding.
Sister Wives
I'm sure there are some out there who find this sooooo objectionable that they won't want children to read this book. It may also make people feel uncomfortable because of the aforementioned kidnapped children. Sister wives are controlled by their husbands or, in this case, their husbands' father.

How this book is used in the classroom
1] Independent Read option
2] Websites

A biting but honest review of the novel and Fantasy cast
Author website

Matched by Ally Condie

My mom always gets me books for Christmas, so this year I told her I needed tangible Young Adult books. I've become used to reading on my Kindle, but I want books that my students can borrow... read... touch...smell (who doesn't love the smell of a good book?) One of the books my mom got me was Matched. I have to say, she did a darn good job. 


A dystopic novel, Matched reminds me a lot of Anthem in the way that equality is emphasized at the expense of the people. It opens as the main character, Cassia, is on her way to her matching banquet, where she will be paired with the one person in the "society" who is statistically predicted to be her best match. This is how they do everything in the society. They make predictions and decisions based on statistics and probability. Freedoms are few and far between, but this kind of leadership is all under the guise of "protecting" the people. In this way, they are able to control people and have their perfect society. For the most part, people accept it. Until Cassia comes along. Matched is predictable in that its main character starts to question things. Questioning things in The Society is dangerous and can lead to banishment to the "outer provinces." Cassia struggles throughout the book with whether it is worthwhile to risk what she has to do what her heart tells her.

There was something about this novel that had me glued from the start. Maybe it's because Dystopia is one of my favorite genres, or maybe it was the writing style. Condie depicts the society in such a way that the reader can't help but believe that maybe the people in charge really are looking out for the best interest of the citizens. It makes me think of our own political structure and how easily the lines can be blurred between freedom and protection.

The only reason I would not give this five stars is that there is nothing particularly earth-shattering that occurs in the novel, but it is captivating nontheless. I think it's the kind of writing that many young adults would find interesting and in many ways relatable. It centers largely on a love triangle, so it is probably more suitable for girls, but I can imagine that boys would get something out of it as well.

Matched is the first of a series, and I enjoyed this book enough that I will definitely get the next one. In fact, I am dying to read it, because Matched ends when things are just getting good.

Teacher Advisories

Sex 0/5

Doesn't happen, isn't referenced

Language 0/5

Nothing grandma would disapprove of

Substance Abuse 0/5

Unless you consider the anxiety and memory-wiping red pills substances that can be abused, there isn't any here

Violence 1/5

There are references to violence as far as how the society created its current state and the war they are engaged in with people of the "outer provinces," but nothing is explicit

How I would use this in the classroom

I think I would only use it as an independent read, and I would definitely recommend for kids to read it during the Anthem Unit. It is very similar in theme and in the set-up of the society, and it would help students to see this kind of idea in more detail

4 Stars 

Touchy Subjects

None to speak of!