Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Holy mackerel people! I found the ARC to Insurgent squirreled away among the adult ARCs that our adult selectors receive. What are the chances! Needless to say, I snagged that sucker.

And I couldn't put it down. I think I liked it more than the first book. Seriously. It was pretty much awesome from start to finish.

The book basically begins where the last one left off. They are still on the train escaping. Tris, Tobias, Peter, Marcus, and Caleb hop off the train and are given refuge with the Amity. Only the refuge doesn't last long and from the start of the book until the end there is non-stop plot-progressing action that is fantastic. Tris is still Tris. Meaning she is still awfully hard on herself - to the point where it can detract a little from the story - but by mid-book I think you can see a turning point. And by the end, she's come to terms with a lot of things she needed to.

Looking back over my review of the first book, I feel as though the author addressed almost all of my "potential problem" list:

Love interest too perfect? Not anymore, now that we spend more time with Tobias we realize he's got flaws just like the rest of us. And some pretty gaping ones at that.

Factions don't really make sense? Well, they still are sort of strange - but we have an entire plot dedicated to learning more about them and we learn about all of them. We spend some quality time with Amity and Candor and it helps to expand the storyline in necessary ways. The author did a good job expanding the reader's knowledge of the political structure without it bogging down the action. And then we get to the end of the story and it blows the whole thing wide open. And I mean wide open. I can't wait to see where the story goes in the next book.

Are the simulations for real? As in, why wouldn't they have immediately recognized Tris as divergent? Well, turns out they sort of did, but there were things going on that couldn't be revealed until the sequel. I loved the continuation of the nefarious simulations created by Jeanine. And how Tris is forced to endure more of them.

People heal waaaaaay too quickly? No magical-at-the-speed-of-light healing in this one. People who were injured early on remained injured throughout - they did heal, but bullet wounds did not go away after a week. Indeed, serious injuries did not completely heal at all.

We've got people showing up that were thought to be dead, we've got more traitors than you can shake a stick at, we've got an entire political structure that is imploding and so many people fighting for power that it seems as though things are never going to improve.

If you at all liked the first book I think this one will knock your socks off.

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Book Source = ARC found on 4th floor