And Now, Hufflepuff House: Insurgent Chapters 1 and 2

We just finished reading Divergent, which means we’re reading the books in this series that people actually don’t like! Get excited for book two: Insurgent, the name of which I couldn’t remember and just referred to it as Bivergent.

Haha. Choice. Nice try, BOOK. We read you!

Chapter 1

Insurgent starts off right where Divergent ended, on a train with Tris, Tobias, and only the first novel’s finest secondary antagonists – Marcus, Peter, and Caleb. Separated from friends recovering from the mind control in situations unknown and forced to seek refuge with two cartoon manifestations of evil and her brother who’s still sort of a jerk, it is truly a dire situation for Tris.

I wake with his name in my mouth.
Will.
Before I open my eyes, I watch him crumple to the pavement again. Dead.
My doing.

No, seriously, I like how this novel’s actually starting in an interesting, “shit hit the fan” place with Tris tortured by her surroundings and her own recent actions. We’re off to a way more promising start than the “we last left our heroes where my hand got kinda tired of writing” sequels of Fifty Shades or House of Night. Don’t worry; I’ll start being critical in like two seconds.

Tris and Tobias traveling on a train – which for some reason Erudite hasn’t shut down – to the Amity camp – where for some reason Erudite isn’t trying to intercept them – which is located outside the gated-off city – because for some reason, oh, fuck everything.

We [approach] the fence, several yards away from the worn path that the Amity trucks travel to deliver food to the city, and the gate that lets them out – the gate that is currently shut, locking us in.

Ah, so I see we’re going to be a little less subtle about this “locked in or locked out” theme even though we haven’t actually learned about anything untoward yet about the overarching reason why there’s…

“I worked in the Dauntless control room, monitoring the security system. We only change the codes twice a year,” Tobias says. […] “I wanted to make sure I could get out.”
The way he talks about getting out – it’s like he thinks we’re trapped.

…Or a lot less subtle. About something we haven’t begun to-

I never thought about it that way before

TRIS, CUT IT OUT.

They reach the Amity camp where they plan to seek refuge from people who descriminate against people based on broad stereotypes.

I would be shocked by the lack of security if we were not at Amity headquarters. They often straddle the line between trust and stupidity.

You know, the ones who are not the protagonists.

They meet the Amity representative Johanna Reyes, who is notable because she has a scar. It’s mentioned quite a lot, so get ready for the backstory of Johanna Reyes’ scar eventually, maybe? She allows them all to stay the night, but the decision of whether they can stay there afterwards will be decided by the community in the morning. Because they are a peaceful faction, they request that they hand over all their weapons, but Tobias subtly makes Tris keep her concealed handgun. Marcus begins to introduce the group, but Tobias cuts him off and introduces himself as Four, because these summaries are really awesome to write when everybody calls a main character something different.

What, like “Four” is less stupid?

Chapter 2

During her sleep, Tris continues to be haunted about being forced to kill the brainwashed Will and conveniently not the brainwashed Tobias.

For a moment I see Will standing before me, both our guns between us – his hand, I could have shot his hand, why didn’t I, why?

I’m really glad we’re acknowledging this in this book, because it kind of made the last book come off as really shitty. It’s a little late, but, eh, I’ll chalk it up to character development:

I shove the gun beneath [the mattress]. Once it is out of sight and no longer pressed to my skin, my head feels clearer.

I’ll let the book have this one. That, uh, its main character was forced to murder her friend. You’re welcome, book?

On [the hard drive I put under the pillow] is the simulation data that controlled the Dauntless, and the record of what the Erudite did.

Ok, even if we ignore how unbelievable it is that people apparently don’t back up important programs on multiple hard drives or, like, the cloud or whatever, I am befuddled how this is the only record of what the Erudite did. I guess it’s the only proof, but Tris specifically says “record”. Many times.

It contains the only record of my parents’ deaths

Aside from… you know… their dead bodies…

Insurgent does the old “we can’t be melodramatic if we’re self-aware” trick:

“The Amity are meeting in a half hour.” [Tobias] quirks his eyebrows and adds, with a touch of melodrama, “To decide our fate.“

There’s a nice moment between Tris and Tobias where Tobias tries to ask Tris how she’s doing with her parents’ deaths, and neither of them can say anything, but just realize that both of them have lost parents. Then there’s a weird moment between Tris and Susan, the Abnegation girl who was in Divergent for three pages, where Susan helps her brush her hair. That’s not the weird part.

“It’s a shame this happened when it did,” Susan says. “Our leaders were about to do something wonderful.”
“Really? What?”
“I don’t know.” Susan blushes. “I just knew that something was happening. I didn’t mean to be curious”

Well, this obviously wouldn’t have been mentioned if we weren’t going to eventually learn about it, so does anyone have any guesses? Because I’m seriously struggling to even come up with sarcastic guesses for what would be “something wonderful” by Abnegation standards. Maybe they were going to loosen up the ban on muffins.

And before the book gets kinda dumb again, there’s a really nice/sad moment where Tris just mourns her mother’s memory.

I keep staring [at the mirror], but I don’t see myself. I can still feel her fingers brushing the back of my neck, so much like my mother’s fingers, the last morning I spent with her. My eyes wet with tears, I rock back and forth on the stool, trying to push the memory from my mind.

Tris gives herself a short haircut or something to change things up. Caleb gets older brothery, asking Tobias if he isn’t too old to be with his sister. And then it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: learning more about Amity!

Basically

We begin our thrilling discovery of the Amity by learning that they recognize no official leader, and make all their decisions by talking until they come to a near-unanimous decision.

Every Amity in the room turns to the person next to him or her and starts talking.
“How do they get anything done?” I say, as the minutes of chatter wear on.
“They don’t care about efficiency,” Tobias says.

Amity eventually comes to decision, which is also really dumb.

“We feel that the only way to preserve our relationships with both [Abnegation and Erudite] is to remain impartial and uninvolved,” she continues.

Oh, wow, there are so many problems with this, the most glaringly obvious one being that you kind of can’t be impartial when one fifth of your civilization systematically murders another fifth? You can’t be neutral on a moving train that murdered 20% of everyone you know.

They then announce that Amity headquarters will function as a safe house for members of all factions, so long as they abide by their rules of nonviolence and zero conflict. And that is the solution they found.

Basically

Tris and Tobias realize they won’t be staying there long. Thank God.

Question of the Day! Which was your favorite Harry Potter novel? Because reading all this Divergent, I’m spending a lot of time thinking about YA that’s actually good.

Tagged: Abnegation, books, Dauntless, Divergent, dystopian, Erudite, Insurgent, summary, Tris Prior, Veronica Roth, young adult fiction

Posted in: Insurgent