182/111 - Insurgent by Veronica Roth

As I mentioned, I was really swept up in Divergent and although I had a lot of problems with it, I actually blasted through it in one evening. I enjoyed the momentum and I do love speculative / dystopian fiction.

So then I began to read Insurgent in spite of my doubts, which is where it really started to unravel. It picks up immediately from the ending of Divergent, but I found that I couldn't really suspend my disbelief any further, and no longer being swept up in the pace of the first book, Insurgent just didn't hold up in the cold light of day. I was bored of reading about serums and hallucinations, and I didn't understand why Tris would keep company with some of the more unsavoury characters who were so obviously up to no good. It was either stupidity on the part of the character or just poor plotting. I think I was just bored of the whole thing.

Next, I was being introduced to more and more characters which is when I started to realise that I just didn't care anymore. There are times in my life where I'm doing something, like getting out of the shower and drying off with a towel, or using a particular item in the kitchen and when I'm done with my towel or the item, I just let it drop out of my hands and I walk away and abandon it completely. I'm done with it. It's not a conscious decision to relinquish the item, it's more that I'm hypnotised by the process that I'm engaged with, which might be getting ready for work, or cooking my dinner, and I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do next, and when I'm finished with that step there is this slightly mechanical ending before transitioning to the next step. That's how I felt about this book. I was reading it, and then a moment later, I was not. I abandoned it. Something in me just switched off and I knew it was over.

Kind of a shame, but it wasn't for me, so now I'm moving onto the next great book. And it really is a great one.