So I read about two chapters of this book and went, "I am so over this whole dystopia thing. So, why am I even reading this?" Well, the answer is threefold. 1) Because everyone else and their mother has started reading it and I want to be part of the in-crowd (PLEASE don't exclude me! I'll read anything! Yeah, sometimes I'm still that shy, nervous little 14-year-old and for that I apologize). 2) A friend of mine whose opinion I respect read it and loved it. Sorry, but on this one we have to disagree. 3) The book was a super quick read and I knew it would only take a few hours of my life to get through.
That being said, I think there are a lot of similarities to the Hunger Games here, both good and bad. First off, we have another 16-year-old kick-ass girl as our heroine. Don't get me wrong, I love a good old-fashioned kick-ass heroine (Buffy is only my favorite show ever). My problem is with the author sticking me inside her head and not letting me out. I'm sorry, I already spent my time as a neurotic teenager, I really don't want to spend any more time in that hell.
Much like Katniss, our heroine, Tris, is pretty good at survival stuff, underestimates herself (actually, in this case, I'm okay with that, with Katniss, it got kind of obnoxious), and is clueless when it comes to boys. Sometimes she's clueless with people in general and that, too, is all normal teenage girl stuff. I just don't want to be stuck in her head for all of it.
My other problem was entering this story knowing that it involved civil war. So I spent 3/4 of the book going "where's the war?" Once the war started, it was awesome. The action scenes were intense and suspenseful and kept me reading. But, again, I have to quibble about being stuck inside the main character's head because, if I hadn't been, it would have increased my suspense. As it was, I knew the narrator needed to stick around and was therefore safe.
So, right now I'm debating whether or not I want to continue reading this series. Now that the war is in full swing, I might ...
Just a heads up, Insurgent is 10x more whiny than this one. The third one hasn't been written yet so I can't comment on how the whole thing wraps up yet. In reading the Hunger Games I like the first, thought the second was way to whiny, and liked the third again. I'm hoping this series is the same way. Seriously, the depths of the whine in Insurgent are... deep. You have been warned.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up! I was also good with Katniss until the later books so I was wary of Insurgent. Maybe I'll wait to see what people think of the third book before continuing ...
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