Insurgent

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Tris, formerly known as Beatrice, and her boyfriend Four are at the heart of the second book in the Divergent series.  They join forces with members of Abegnation and later some of their Dauntless family in order to battle the mind-control invasion of Erudite.

A war has begun within the walls.  Other than the woman who orchestrated the whole thing, only one man is certain why it happened, everyone else is speculating.  That one man has proven himself to be cruel and untrustworthy.  Four will absolutely not listen but Tris thinks that despite his flaws, he may just be telling the truth.  In the meantime, they must try to stay alive and save as many others as they can.

While they stay with the Amity group outside the walls, Tris realizes why she could never be part of their faction.  Their happy peacefulness is so contrary to her nature that she must leave before she explodes.  When they seek refuge with Cantor, their black and white way of seeing the world is both refreshing and painful.  Revelations of truth cause a strain in the relationship between Tris and Four.  Being young in a young relationship, they aren't quite sure how to handle absolute honesty.

Four decides to ally himself with his estranged mother and her group of Factionless.  Tris is increasingly weary of her agenda and finds herself an ally with Four's cruel father in attempt to reveal what the leader of Erudite started a war to keep hidden.  As Four and Tris grow more familiar with the attributes and flaws of each faction, they become more certain that a world of factions is no way to live.  The way they each seek a new world could tear them apart forever or the truth of it all could bind them like nothing else could.

Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Some sort of horrific war has occurred.  Chicago has a wall around it.  There is a gate in the wall and the lock is on the outside.  Everyone inside the wall lives in one of four factions.  A fifth faction lives outside the wall.

Beatrice is sixteen years old and today is the biggest day of her life.  She has grown up in the faction Abegnation in which the members give selflessly to others in time and service.  She will undergo an aptitude test which will tell her in which faction she belongs.  She then gets to choose and decide if she will follow the advice of the test or go into another faction.  The one thing she absolutely doesn't want is for the test to be inconclusive.  If that were to happen, she would be Divergent.

This is an engaging story.  Beatrice is like-able and believable as a sixteen year old girl who has grown up struggling to be selfless.  She sometimes behaves stupidly but so do all sixteen year old people.  This is a story about a girl growing into her own, coming of age in a dystopian world full of turmoil.

This book has been made into a movie and I am looking forward to seeing if the movie does justice to the story.

The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

This is book 1 of the Maze Runner series.

Lately there has been a bunch of hoo haw on-line regarding whether the movie The Hunger Games (rated PG 13) is appropriate for elementary students. The book was extremely violent and dark and was all about the government forcing 12-18 year old kids to fight each other to the death.

The Maze Runner is of the same ilk. It is young adult fiction and the youngest kid involved in this particular scenario seems to be about 13 but no one actually remembers exactly how old they are or where they came from. They remember their name and that's it for personal information.

The book begins as Thomas wakes to find himself inside of some sort of metal box and it seems to be moving up. He can't remember anything about himself, save his name, and he's pretty freaked out about the whole thing. After awhile the box stops moving and the ceiling is pried open. A bunch of boys ranging in age are peering down at him. After they hoist him out of the box, their leader, Alby, barks orders at Thomas and the others and Thomas is left in the care of Newt. Thomas has a million questions but no one is answering them. It seems as though telling someone too much, too soon, results in death but this is never really explained.

Thomas learns that he is in a place they call The Glade. It is surrounded by a Maze. Small lizard robots keep an eye on everything and make sure no one is breaking any rules. The rules aren't spelled out, they have been deduced over the past two years as kids who break the rules, die horrible deaths. Thomas makes a friend of Chuck, the newest arrival prior to Thomas. Chuck seems extremely like-able although hapless. The inhabitants of The Glade are all boys age ranging from about

Thomas is frustrated by the fact that eve