YA is the new black these days. While the ‘overnight’ success of the Young Adult genre could be attributed to glistening vampires or bread and circus style teenage death matches. The novels are and have always been there. Catcher In The Rye. A Prayer For Owen Meaney. Enders Game. I would even cite, Romeo And Juliet. Shakespeare was a notorious story recycler.
In 2012, The market is flooded with dystopian literature. The kind of narrative that might feature a coming of age story. One that makes us fear for our own world because we see the problems and warnings present in our own time and place. One where the protagonist needs to make their own mark on the world. Through the chaos, oppression, terror and adventure they complete the hero’s journey. The blueprint of this story telling mode resides in a lot of tomes. A structure that is often blamed for lack of originality and cliches and overused tropes.
Roth’s fascination for genre mixing and remixing (whether intended or not) really pushes the ‘Divergent’ trilogy from the casual standard young adult fare into something brand new. ‘Insurgent’ the second book of the three comes out on May 1st and I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of the highly sought after ARC.
For those who haven’t picked up the first book in the series, ‘Divergent’, DO IT! For those who have…let me get you back up to speed.
‘Divergent’ begins when we are told the state and nature of the world is unbeknown following a catastrophic war. So much so that Five Factions resulted from a ‘Great Peace’. All five of these cliques reside within the confines of post apocalyptic Chicago and each group promotes a different virtue: intelligence, honesty, courage, peace loving and self sacrifice. At sixteen years of age, each teenager is given an aptitude test and then get to make the absolute choice of which faction to join or to stay with the one that they were brought up in. Not everyone can be placed and neatly sorted into this utopian never land and Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior’s vague test results characterize her as an alarming ‘Divergent’. A classification that is labeled as dangerous and something that should not be spoken of and to anyone. While I enjoyed the first book, I couldn’t help to think that Veronica Roth was building a foundation to something much bigger. Slowly pulling the curtain back revealing depth, showing off its jousts of ambiguity and exploring deep questions about the universe and our place in it.
I’m not really going to give you much as far as ‘Spoilers’ for Insurgent.
It does pick up right where the first one leaves off. There is no time wasted in this action-oriented sequel. As with the ‘Divergent’, ‘Insurgent’ immediately pulls the reader in and does not let up until the cliffhanger at the books end. One that will no doubt keep fans of this series biting their nails until the third installment comes out next year (a guess at the title: Resurgent, Convergent or Nourishment?).
Roth gets propers for not painting all the factions with a broad brush. Through choices, priorities and beliefs the characters in this world are ‘flawed’ and gray. Is it bad mojo to reject all but one of your personality traits? And would that create the very kind of conflict and selfishness that said society is trying to overcome? Nothing is that black and white (Not even for the Dauntless).
-Dagobot
Learn more about the mind of Veronica Roth here:
http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/
Special shouts to Casey McIntyre at HarperCollins!