Insurgent

Insurgent, the follow-up to Divergent, is finally (ok, it's been less than a year) out, and I picked up a copy at the airport to read on my long-weekend trip to LA.  The cashier says to me, "Sooooooo gooooood." and I'm like, "Did you know the author lives in Chicago?" She goes, "Yeah, she wrote the first book when she was in college.  I was just writing papers when I was in college."  And I say, "Yeah." and then we make faces at each other and laugh.  YA love in the airport! Squee!

The downside to this whole thing is while I remembered the broad strokes of Divergent (this girl, Tris, is in a faction in futuristic Chicago called Dauntless, which is characterized by bravery and strength, and she's "divergent" and there's some inequality in the factions...) I didn't remember the details very well.  I suppose I should have re-read it before I started this one. If you're like me, you may want to read these reminder/spoilers about Divergent, written by Veronica Roth herself.  BTW, her blog is pretty cool, I especially liked this post about sexual assault and how she wishes she had written a scene differently.

Anyway, at the end of Divergent, this crazy thing has happened, which you may or may not remember very well, and Tris and her bf, Tobias/Four, are trying to regroup.  Imma try not to be too spoiler-y for anyone who intends to read the book.  What's nifty is she ends up living for a while in each faction's building/living space and sort of experiencing what it's like in each place.  She and Tobias have a lot of secrets they're keeping from each other for various reasons and they go through a few spats, with Tobias being largely wise and sensitive and Tris being mostly impulsive and insecure.  Whatevs, she's 16.

I really enjoyed reading more about what it's like to live in each faction and how the groups communicate and function.  A couple of mysteries emerge and Tris tries to solve them.  For various reasons that were not entirely clear to me, Tris finds it necessary to hide things from Tobias.  One thing that I admire about Roth's books is that they're very grown-up YA, like Rowling and Suzanne Collins, she isn't afraid to include some big themes, violence, and death of beloved characters.  I also really like the main character.  She's flawed, she's smart, she's really brave, and she's a kick-ass inspiring girl.