Insurgent by Veronica Roth

At the conclusion of Divergent, Jeanine Matthews, leader of the Erudite faction has used a serum containing a transmitter to create a simulation that causes Dauntless soldiers to attack and murder members of the Abnegation faction.

Tris Prior and Tobias Eaton were not affected by the simulation because they are Divergent - able to know they are in a simulation and therefore not be controlled. To avoid being discovered they accompany their Dauntless friends to the city but are captured. 

However, Matthews knows that the Divergent are not affected by the serum. The Divergent, most of whom inexplicably come from Abnegation, do not respond to the simulations, so she needs a way to either remove them or control them. 

To control the Divergent, Matthews has created a new serum that allows the person to act independently but still confuse friend with enemy. She injects this into Tobias who immediately attempts to kill Tris. Matthews has Tris sent to be murdered but she is rescued by her mother who it turns out was a Dauntless and is also Divergent. Natalie reveals to Tris that her father, her brother Caleb, and Marcus have escaped the mass murder and are hiding in the basement of Abnegation headquarters. Tris's mother sacrifices herself so Tris can escape and once treated by her father for her wounds, she sets out to destroy the computers running the simulation. 

To do that she had to go to the Dauntless headquarters where her father sacrifices himself to save her. Tris also finds Peter who tells her he was kicked out of the simulation. Tris manages to bring Tobias out of the simulation and he is able to stop it and steal the hard drive containing the data from the program. While the Dauntless must now deal with what they've done, Tris, Tobias, his father Marcus, and Peter flee to the Amity farms.

Insurgent picks up exactly where Divergent left off. The five fugitives are on a train that takes them to the Amity headquarters outside the city. There, they hope to secure the Amity faction's help. However, the Amity, under the direction of Johanna Reyes, decide to remain impartial and to establish their faction headquarters as a safe house for all factions provided that there are no weapons and no fighting or discussion of the current conflict. This is mainly because the Erudite and Amity factions work closely together.

Tris overhears a conversation between Marcus and the leader of Amity, Johanna that reveals there is some kind of secret information that the Abnegation were entrusted with. Jeanine attacked the Abnegation faction to steal this information, in order to destroy it. Marcus refuses to reveal the nature of this secret information to Johanna. When Tris tells Tobias what she's overheard, he dismisses it as his father exaggerating. Tris also learns that Marcus is determined to obtain this information back from Jeanine but is rejected when she offers her help. 

Peter attempts to steal the hard drive from the simulation computer from Tris which leads to a fight between the two of them. Tobias and the Amity stop the fight allowing Tobias to retrieve the hard drive. Tris is taken away and injected with "peace serum" which makes her silly. Johanna tells Tobias that because they have broken the agreement with Amity they will not be able to stay. He accuses Johanna and the Amity faction of working with the Erudite under the pretense of neutrality and that they will be gone in two days but will not be taking Peter with them. She tells him to avoid the bread.

But before Tris and the rest of the Divergent can leave, the Amity compound is raided by members of the Erudite faction with the help of Dauntless traitors. Tris destroys the hard drive and she, Tobias and the rest of the Abnegation change into Amity clothing and try to hide. However, Tobias is discovered by a Dauntless, setting off a shoot-out. Only Tris, Tobias, Caleb and an Amity woman named Susan manage to escape through the cornfields and back through the fence.

When these four follow the train tracks into the city, they find themselves confronted by the factionless (those who failed their initiation into a faction) who are led by Tobias' mother, Evelyn Eaton. From Edward who survived with one eye, Tris learns that most of the factionless are Dauntless, Erudite, then Candor, with a few Amity. The Dauntless faction is now fractured with half of the faithful going to Erudite and half with Candor. What is left of Abnegation is now with the factionless. Evelyn has been tracking the location of the Divergent in the city, in the factionless safe houses. The Abnegation, who had been providing food to the factionless prior to the attack were test the factionless because they believed they had the highest number of Divergent - those who think differently and therefore are more likely to fail their initiation. She is concerned that the Erudite who are now looking for more bodies to control, will look to the factionless next, both for bodies to fight with and also to eliminate the Divergent. Evelyn wants to know how many Divergent they have so they know who can resist the simulation. Evelyn has her own goals however; she wants to destroy the Erudite, form a new government and a new society, one without factions. And to achieve that she is willing to destroy whatever is necessary to achieve this goal.

Evelyn reveals to Tris that her father was born into the Erudite faction and left it to become Abnegation. He grew up knowing Jeanine Matthews as their parents were friends. Tris realizes this might be true as her father never spoke about his childhood and seemed to hate the Erudites.

Tobias and Tris decide to go to the Candor faction at the "Merciless Mart" where they are arrested and meet the faction's leader Jack Kang. While at the Candor faction, both Tobias and Tris are interrogated under the influence of truth serum. However, while there, the Dauntless traitors raid Candor headquarters, searching for Divergent with the intent of bringing two back to study and killing all other Divergent they can find. This assault is unsuccessful mainly due to Tris and Tobias's intervention. Tris manages to save Will's sister, Cara.  Despite this, Kang wishes to negotiate a peace treaty with the Dauntless and Erudite factions. Tris and Tobias realize they cannot attack the Dauntless traitors and the Erudite factions without Candor's help, so they decide to try to enlist the factionless.

When Kang meets with Matthew's representative, Max, he is told that Candor is disposable since they provide nothing useful to the Erudites. Instead he is ordered to turn over the Dauntless leader Eric as well as the Divergent and provide the names of those who were not injected with simulation serum. Believing Matthews is somewhere nearby, Tris sets out to try and locate her but before she can do that, Lynn shoots Max. Realizing that they are no longer safe at the Candor headquarters, Tris and Tobias leave and return to Dauntless headquarters. Tobias, who is now leader of the Dauntless meets with his mother Evelyn. Evelyn agrees to form an alliance with Dauntless provided they are given a place in the new government after the Erudite are destroyed.

When Jeanine Matthews threatens to kill a Dauntless every two days unless one of the Divergent surrenders to Erudite headquarters, Tris decides to turn herself in. Jeanine Matthews is desperate to learn why the Divergent do not respond to the simulation serum and therefore cannot be controlled. She never dreamed of getting the strongest Divergent but with Tris she hopes she can learn how to control them. An MRI scan of Tris's brain reveals a large lateral prefrontal cortex and Jeanine decides that the newest serum should deal with that aspect. Despite the experiments, Tris cannot be controlled by Jeanine. Tobias enters the compound not to rescue Tris but to learn the location of the Erudite control rooms so when they attack they can shut down the simulations. He tells her that will be in two weeks when she is scheduled to be executed. and she is eventually helped to escape. Tris also meets her brother Caleb who it turns out has been a traitor. When Jeanine fails to learn how to control Tris, she schedules her execution, but with the help of Peter, both Tris and Tobias escape.

Marcus finally decides to reveal to Tris the information that Jeanine Matthews stole from Abnegation. He tells her that a week before the simulation attack, the Abnegation leaders decided to reveal the information they had, to everyone but they needed the help of the Erudites to do so. Instead, because o Jeanine's simulation resulting in the Dauntless attack on Abnegation, they were not able to do so. Marcus tells her that they were placed here for a specific purpose. Marcus says he cannot tell Tris what the information is because she will not believe him. Tris also learns that her mother was trying to retrieve that information from Matthews but chose instead to save her. Marcus asks her to help him, but helping Marcus means betraying Tobias who along with his mother Evelyn, are planning to attack the Erudite and destroy them. For Marcus however, retrieving this information is more important than any attack to destroy the Erudite.

Can Tris retrieve this important information before it is destroyed forever by the attack on the Erudite headquarters? And just what is the information that is so important that Tris' mother and father died trying to retrieve it? What they learn will change the path of the people of Chicago forever.

Discussion

Insurgent is the second novel in the Divergent trilogy and picks up immediately where the first book ended.  It is a very lengthy read (over 500 pages) and probably could have used better editing. It also introduces so many new characters that a cast of characters placed at the front of the novel would have been helpful. To that end Roth has realized that this was problematic and has created a webpage  for readers listing the characters in Divergent and providing a summary of the end of that novel.

Insurgent is explores the themes of conflict and loyalty. There is conflict between each of the factions, even within the Amity faction who are supposed to love peace and live somewhat pastoral lives. There is unresolved conflict between Tobias and both his parents; Marcus for his cruelty and Evelyn for her abandonment. There is conflict between Tris and her brother Caleb who supports the Erudite faction. 

Ironically, it is the division of society into personality characteristics which fosters conflict and ultimately civil war. For example, the Dauntless who are fearless and strong will see all other factions as physically weak. The Erudite who honor the acquisition of knowledge will see other factions as ignorant. Those who fail their initiation and become factionless, living on the margins of society are despised by all. Although the factions are all supposed to work together, their society is simply another form of class, creating conflict and tension because it highlights differences and not commonalities.

The theme of loyalty is highlighted in the division of factions as various characters switch allegiances. Tori and Zeke, believed to be Dauntless traitors show up at Candor revealing they were gathering information and helping Erudite defectors. Tris's brother has been pretending to be Candor but eventually reveals that he has always been faithful to the Erudite faction. Peter has become a Dauntless traitor, yet helps Tris escape from Jeanine Matthews. The ultimate test of loyalty is set up between Tris, Tobias and Marcus, creating intense inner conflict for Tris. 

Tris loves Tobias and wants to be with him but she must choose between being loyal to Tobias or being loyal to the pursuit truth. Tobias believes dealing with the Erudite is more important than learning the truth about their society.  Despite having no reason to trust Tobias's father, Marcus, Tris decides to help him find the information Jeanine has because she knows that her mother died trying to obtain that information and she wants to "...accomplish the goal she failed to achieve."  Ultimately, her gamble pays off, when the file is shown to all after the attack on the Erudite building.

Roth also begins to explore the concept of evil but doesn't give it much depth in this novel. When Tris tells Peter what he's doing is evil, he responds "Evil depends on where you're standing." implying that it is a relative concept. 

Roth has fashioned a strong bur realistic female protagonist. She is a complex mixture of strength and weakness. Physically she is very strong, but emotionally Tris is vulnerable. She obviously suffers from post-traumatic stress as she tries to deal with killing her friend Will while he was under the simulation, the death of her parents, and the fact that many of her new faction, Dauntless have murdered innocent Abnegation while under the simulation. "For the first time I feel like I understand Al. I am tired of being Tris. I have done bad things. I can't take them back, and they are a part of who I am. Most of the time, they seem like the only thing I am."  Eventually she comes to realize that people are not good or bad but they are a mixture of both. Tris herself notes later on that Marcus, despite having done cruel and evil things, is not all evil. "Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind. Marcus is not good or bad, but both." 

There are several week points in the the plot of Insurgent. Why do Tobias, the Dauntless and factionless want to wait two weeks to attack the Erudite headquarters, especially since Jeanine has learned from him the location of the factionless safe houses? Why would he allow Jeanine to experiment and torture Tris for that length of time? Although this ends up being redundant in light of what happens, the entire plan doesn't make sense. One thing the novel does not really address is the effect on the Dauntless soldiers who committed mass murder while under Jeanine's simulation serum. The only character who seems to experience remorse is Tris who is so traumatized by having to kill her friend Will, that she cannot handle a gun and freezes in situations requiring her to do so. 

It also puzzling that Jeanine Matthews would not have destroyed the information she had on her computer from the very beginning, especially if it would prevent her from achieving her goal of a new government. She had to know who Edith Prior was, she had to know what being Divergent meant and that the Abnegation survivors knew about the file and would be determined to retrieve it at any cost. If Jeanine Matthews wanted to set up a new government, the most logical action would have been to destroy that file which was the only evidence of the origin of the factions.

The book ends with the revelation of what that information was; the people of Chicago were placed in the destroyed city, which is fenced off and completely isolated from the rest of the world. This new society was formed based on attributes such as sacrifice, candor, intelligence and divided into factions. They were to stay isolated until those who were flexible and open minded became numerous then they were to come back to the parent society and help save that society which was riddled by war. Those people were to be called Divergent. It's apparent that this experiment has failed. The video containing this information was made by Amanda Ritter who moved into the colony and changed her name to Edith Prior.  It is as Tris's mother told her "Human beings can be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us."

Overall, Insurgent was a good read but far too long. Two hundred pages could have easily been edited from this book without much loss to the plot and this would have created a better flow to the storyline. It will be interesting to see how Roth evolves the storyline in the third book. It is likely we will see Tris and Tobias and the rest of the characters work to determine just what lies outside the fence. 

The third and final book in this series will be released in the Fall of 2013.

Book Details:
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Katherine Tegen Books   2012
525 pp.