24. Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Insurgent is the second book in the Divergent Series, a series set in a Dystopian world, where the human beings are categorised and segregated into factions, based on their dominant traits, with those failing to qualify in a faction, leading the life of factionless (not much different from our equivalent of homeless). And then, there are the divergent, individuals with multiple dominant traits, who are a closely guarded secret, a dangerous one, since they are immune to one of the critical tools used in the society, the simulations. The factions, all, serve different purposes and between themselves, manage to keep their little society functioning and self sufficient.

Like in any Utopia, things go wrong, the nature and extent of the wrongness is something the author seems to have reserved for the final installment. The second installment of the series, is not necessarily an improvement on the first. It also fails to significantly add to the storyline so far, since the series has only one more book to go, I am assuming all the action (relating to storyline, blind violence, there was plenty of in this one too) will be concentrated in Allegiant, the third and final installment of the series.

My review of Divergent, the first book of the series, can be found here.

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1. Divergent by Veronica Roth

End of Day 5 of the new year, and I finally have my first read for the year! Divergent! While I have planned most of my reads for January, this one, ironically, was the last addition to the list. January is the month when we (with folks at LibraryThing) start with the year long Group Read of the Vorkosigan Series (Bujold), AND the year long read of Culture Series (Ian Banks) AND the quarterly read of Middlemarch AND the quarterly read of Bleak House, apart from a few other books of my own, planned for this month. Luckily, I finished my RL Book Club reads for January (Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami and Disgrace by Coetzee) in 2013 itself. I knew it to be the author's publishing debut, a Dystopian work, with a female lead character. Surprising isn't it? The surge in the number of strong female lead characters in Dystopian works lately? Or maybe not all that surprising, since most of these new authors venturing into Dystopian works are female authors AND that historically, female lead characters have been grossly under-represented in Sci-Fi / Dystopian works AND that there exists (existed) a huge (latent) demand for such work.

Getting back to the book in question, a strong plot, simplistic and executable, just like it should be - 5 factions, based on (dominant?) characteristics and traits - and while we don't get to see a lot of Amity or Candor or even Erudite, for that matter, one gets a good idea about those factions would be all about. The entire story is enacted within a city, and there is no clarity about the world outside the walls, which I am assuming will be left for the subsequent books. This is actually not a bad thing, rather, this was one of the things I liked about this novel, it didn't try to do too much, too soon. This was one of my complaints with Samantha Shannon's debut work, Bone Season.

Beatrice's is a delightful character, with all her values and contradictions, it was very well done. Unfortunately, this clarity seemed to be lacking in most of the other characters, including in that of Four, the main male character who is part scary, part brave, part mysterious and yet romantic? Clearly, this character needs some work. Many of the other characters (mostly other initiates) have been dealt very superficially, which could probably be an indication of Beatrice not being properly able to evaluate them herself, but I doubt she would know as little as we do.

The rating of 4*, is indicative of how much I still enjoyed this book, and anticipate reading the sequel.

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62. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Halloween 2013#5

I am not yet sure what made me pick this book up as one of my Halloween reads, maybe it was the genre listed as "Paranormal" and "Dystopian". I do admit to being curious to read this book in general, with the young author already being hailed as the next Rowling. The declaration being a bit premature, in hindsight, maybe.

There is no denying the fact that Samantha Shannon has a lot potential as a writer, her imagination good, and the execution not too shabby. However, in her debut novel, I think she tried to do a bit too much, a bit too soon. In a novel of this size, she created a new Dystopian world, added a couple of alien races, not-so-ordinary human beings (and tonnes of categories of them, no less!) and strung along far too many ideas for a reader to keep track of, or make associations and connections with.

Then there was the fact that the protagonist was not likeable, not one bit. Indeed, she was annoying for the most part, and mule-headed for the other. And she didn't even have the benefit of a traumatic past like Katniss Everdeen or Lisbeth Salander to explain her behaviour. The biggest shock she seemed to have undergone is the fact that her first crush is gay! Boo hoo! Cry me a river and see if I care!

Having said all of the above, the effort for a debut novel was fantastic, I hope and believe she will only improve from here. The theme and ideas in the novel were quite original, the concepts and powers quite fresh and the writing satisfactory.

I am reasonably certain that I will try the sequel as well - but will I continue to read the series (the series is intended to have 7 books from what I have read), is a question for another time.

In this review, I have obviously dwelt more on the negative and done little to justify my 3.5 star rating. That however, was the intention, to highlight why this book didn't get a 4 or 4.5 from me, rather than the other way around.