This review was originally written and posted in March 2015.

It’s time to start a new book! And you nuggets picked Insurgent. *sigh* What am I going to do with you?

Tris wakes up on the train from a dream about shooting Will. It’s only an hour since the last book closed, which is kind of odd. I mean, not technically wrong, I just don’t expect a book break to work the same as a chapter break.

The group makes it to the gate, which is unguarded because all of the Dauntless got mind-controlled into attacking the unarmed sleeping civilians, because you tots need your entire army in order to do that.

“They were probably under the simulation,” Tobias says, “and are now …” He pauses. “Who knows where, doing who knows what.”

No, this is actually a big point. I mean, I could sort of understand forgetting it in the heat of the moment because you’re stuck on “OMG RUN AWAY” mode, but now that you’re actually thinking about it, why are you not also realizing that all your buddies are your buddies again?

What happened to our friends, our peers, our leaders, our factions? There is no way to know.

Of course there is. You go find out. Hell, didn’t the climax of the last book take place in a room full of security cameras?

Tobias knows the code to unlock the gate, because he worked in the security department that handles that sort of thing. (He did? I thought he trained new recruits? We didn’t see him doing literally any other job last book…)

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Tobias says. “I only worked there because I wanted to make sure I could get out.”

Maybe this gets covered more in the novellas that I haven’t read, but Tobias only worries about ‘escape’ exactly enough to service the plot. So what’s his real goal? He preps for ‘escaping,’ but only a little bit? He thinks about what’s beyond the wall, but not enough to actually try to figure it out? He’s concerned enough about this to purposefully get a job that will help him ‘escape,’ but then does nothing else? It just doesn’t seem like a real, self-contained motivation when it comes up half-assed like this.

They have to walk through an orchard to get to the Amity complex.

The orchard has fruit trees growing over the road.

Admittedly, I’ve only seen a handful of orchards, but 100% of them did not have trees over the main roads. Or any roads. First because fruit trees are actually pretty small (what with all that constant pruning you have to do to keep them optimally productive), and second because you’d wind up blocking your access road to get at the fruit. Or wasting your fruit if you don’t want to block stuff.

The sharp, sweet smell of rotting apples mixes with the scent of wet earth in my nose.

Then again, Amity doesn’t seem to be keen on that whole ‘not wasting food’ thing, anyway.

Marcus leads the way once they get in Amity and finds Johanna, the ‘representative’ of Amity. And much like with Jeanine, this book doesn’t understand that words mean things and thus ‘representative’ is synonymous with ‘leader,’ because fuck logic.

She would have been a beautiful woman if not for that scar.

Okay, but, what? She has a single scar down the side of her face, and as many times as books keep up with this godforsaken line, I still don’t get it? Wouldn’t she just look like a beautiful woman with a scar? I could understand (not agree with, but understand) if she had scars to the point of obscuring or changing features, but it’s literally just a line down one side of her face. How does that render her no longer pretty? She could stand sideways and you wouldn’t even know it was there.

Granted, I do get it in the cerebral sense; women are held to absurd levels of perfection when it comes to beauty, but I still struggle with actually seeing/understanding all the way, because you can literally still see the pretty lady. I had the same issue with Snow White and the Huntsman. (Okay, among many others.) The scene with the women who scar their own faces so that the queen won’t kill them/consume their beauty. And, like, the woman explaining all this is extremely handsome and just had a couple of faint lines on her cheek. So I’m all ????????????????

Oooo…hideous?

Johanna greets everyone warmly and courteously, says that the other Abnegation folks they sent have all arrived safely, and that everyone can stay overnight but that Amity as a whole has to agree to what to do tomorrow. Also Tris and Tobias have to give up their weapons. All very reasonable stuff. Everyone settles in, gets medical attention, and gets put to bed. I am pleased.

I am also pleased with Tris this chapter. I didn’t bring it up any, because it’s all been tucked in here and there in minor reactions and thoughts, but she’s still numb and reeling from all the death/action at the end of the last book. It’s a very nice bit of writing to show her mental and emotional state without overshadowing the rest of what’s going on.