“In this addictive sequel to the acclaimed DIVERGENT, a bleak postapocalyptic Chicago collapses into all-out civil war. Another spectacular cliff-hanger.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“INSURGENT explores several critical themes, including the importance of family and the crippling power of grief at its loss.”
—SLJ
“Roth’s plotting is intelligent and complex. Dangers, suspicion, and tension lurk around every corner, and the chemistry between Tris and Tobias remains heart-poundingly real … This final installment will capture and hold attention until the divisive final battle has been waged.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“The tragic conclusion, although shocking, is thematically consistent; the bittersweet epilogue offers a poignant hope.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
To my readers, who are wise and brave.
CONTENTS
I FIRST STARTED writing Divergent from the perspective of Tobias Eaton, a boy from Abnegation with peculiar tension with his father who longed for freedom from his faction. I reached a standstill at thirty pages because the narrator wasn’t quite right for the story I wanted to tell; four years later, when I picked up the story again, I found the right character to drive it, this time a girl from Abnegation who wanted to find out what she was made of. But Tobias never disappeared—he entered the story as Four, Tris’s instructor, friend, boyfriend, and equal. He has always been a character I was interested in exploring further because of the way he came alive for me every time he was on the page. He is powerful for me largely because of the way he continues to overcome adversity, even managing, on several occasions, to flourish in it.
The first three stories, “The Transfer,” “The Initiate,” and “The Son,” take place before he ever meets Tris, following his path from Abnegation to Dauntless as he earns his own strength. In the last, “The Traitor,” which overlaps chronologically with the middle of Divergent, he meets Tris. I wanted very much to include the moment when they meet, but unfortunately, it didn’t fit into the story’s timeline—you can find it instead at the back of this book.
The series follows Tris from the moment she seized control of her own life and identity; and with these stories, we can follow Four as he does the same. And the rest, as they say, is history.
—Veronica Roth
I EMERGE FROM the simulation with a yell. My lip stings, and when I take my hand away from it, there is blood on my fingertips. I must have bitten it during the test.
The Dauntless woman administering my aptitude test—Tori, she said her name was—gives me a strange look as she pulls her black hair back and ties it in a knot. Her arms are marked up and down with ink, flames and rays of light and hawk wings.
“When you were in the simulation … were you aware that it wasn’t real?” Tori says to me as she turns off the machine. She sounds and looks casual, but it’s a studied casualness, learned from years of practice. I know it when I see it. I always do.
Suddenly I’m aware of my own heartbeat. This is what my father said would happen. He told me that they would ask me if I was aware during the simulation, and he told me what to say when they did.
“No,” I say. “If I was, do you think I would have chewed through my lip?”
Tori studies me for a few seconds, then bites down on the ring in her lip before she says, “Congratulations. Your result was textbook Abnegation.”
I nod, but the word “Abnegation” feels like a noose wrapped around my throat.
“Aren’t you pleased?” she says.
“My faction members will be.”
“I didn’t ask about them, I asked about you.” Tori’s mouth and eyes turn down at the corners like they bear little weights. Like she’s sad about something. “This is a safe room. You can say whatever you want here.”
I knew what my choices in the aptitude test would add up to before I arrived at school this morning. I chose food over a weapon. I threw myself in the path of the dog to save the little girl. I knew that after I made those choices, the test would end and I would receive Abnegation as a result. And I don’t know that I would have made different choices if my father hadn’t coached me, hadn’t controlled every part of my aptitude test from afar. So what was I expecting? What faction did I want?
Any of them.
