I
finished the last book in the Divergent
trilogy a few days ago, and I’m still not sure what I think of it. I appreciate that it really branches out and
changes the scope of the series. Sometimes,
it pays off to take a series to unexpected places, which certainly happens
here. However, even in new locales with
different crises, it trots out some of the same old plot elements without
approaching them in novel ways, and I’m still flummoxed by the ending. Having reached the end of the trilogy, I’m
not left with a “Wow!” or an “Ugh!” –
more of a “Hmmm…” (Spoilers ahead for
the series.)
Insurgent ends with a bang – the long-awaited
information that infuriating characters had been dangling in front of Tris (and
me) for the entire book. The big bombshell? Their whole society is a lie, a behavioral modification
experiment/genetic sifting bowl cooked up by a bunch of scientists in the
post-apocalyptic but still-functioning world beyond the city limits. The rites and rituals of the faction system
are merely constructs, and outside eyes have been monitoring and manipulating
the city’s residents for generations. No
factions on the other side of the fence, but when Tris and a small party of
citizens venture out of the city, they discover a new social divide. Tris and other Divergent folk are considered
part of the GP (genetically pure) elite, while those who fit nicely into a
single faction are GD (genetically damaged) – menial-labor material at best,
criminally depraved at worst. Tris and
co. try to find their footing in the outside world, navigate the new order of
the day, and wrestle with how they can help the city from the outside.
Complaints
first. The whole series has a penchant
for pulling the rug out from under Tris and the reader, and it maybe does it a
bit too much here. Particularly on the
subject of Tris’s mom, this book undoes a lot of big revelations Tris already had
about her in earlier books, which makes the earlier stuff feel like a waste of
time (plus, I think it’s more interesting if Mrs. Prior wasn’t up to her eyeballs in all the conspiracy whatnots.) I’m also not a fan of the way the narrative
is split between Tris and Four, her hunky-but-angsty boyfriend. There’s a practical reason for it, but it
doesn’t work for me, and the ending especially is just too much Four. I won’t get into the ins and outs of whether
things should have gone down like they did, but if I were writing it, I’d have positioned
it so Tris’s big climax was much closer to the end and truncated the fallout/epilogue. Finally, there’s just too much
rebellion. It’s not continuing clashes
against one corrupt/unjust authority; it’s several micro-revolutions all mixed
together, and it gets repetitive and unspecific. (Oh, and why did the scientists think that
setting up a bunch of diametrically-opposed factions-before-blood sects that
engender mistrust and resentment was a good way to maintain peace?)
On the
other hand I find a lot of the existential “my life is literally a science experiment” stuff pretty interesting, and I like
a lot of Tris’s internal conflict as she explores the outside world and her
place in it. I appreciate that the book
addresses dubious moral choices within a rebellion, the idea that being
oppressed doesn’t give you carte blanche to return an eye for an eye, but in
the end, it sort of drops the ball on the whole idea. The GP vs. GD thing intrigues me, and though
I’m not crazy about the ending, I’m pretty satisfied with the specific
circumstances of it.
Warnings
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