Happy New Year, everyone! To celebrate, we’re going to live it up back at Dauntless headquarters in the wonderful world of Insurgent. 

Chapter 25

It’s dinnertime, and Tris sits at the table where she used to sit with Al/Christina/Will for like 2 weeks. Oh the memories!

I sit at the same table I used to claim with Christina, Al, and Will. From the moment I sit down, I feel a lump in my throat. How is it that only half of us are left?

Because you all decided to join a faction where it sounds like people constantly die during initiation/livin’ life in the dumbest ways possible (I give you pointless train jumping as exhibit A). Plus, you know, that crazy bitch Jeanine and her mind controlling serums! [Matthew says: Plus, you’re in a dystopian YA novel with tons of underdeveloped characters, so bitches gonna die.]

I feel responsible for that. My forgiveness could have saved Al, but I withheld it. My clearheadedness could have spared Will, but I could not summon it.

Yikes, things are getting pretty depressing up in Tris’ head. Luckily Uriah and co show up to remind us that those dead losers have been replaced by much kewler friends like Uriah and Lynn.

Uriah and Marlene flirt a lot, and Lynn gets all upset about it. No one seems to suspect maybe she has feelings for Uriah or something, but I guess they’re even less interested in this subplot than I am.

Tris makes really stupid observations about Marlene and Uriah’s blossoming relationship.

I force myself to stare at my plate. It is so strange to see two people you have known separately join together, though I have watched it happen before.

There are some times when taking a simple concept and dressing it up with more abstract or flowery writing is fine, but this is not one of those times. Firstly, there really isn’t any significance to Marlene and Uriah getting together because Tris didn’t really know them separately at all, what the fuck does she even mean? Secondly, if what Tris means is, “It’s weird seeing two of my friends get together,” just fucking say that instead of this “two people you have known separately join together” crap.

Fourbias shows up to ask Tris to help him out. He has a meeting today and he needs her there to help “read the situation.” Tris also susses out that Four’s been going through his fear landscape again, and he mysteriously reveals that it’s changed. Oh my God, what if he’s scared of a different number of things now, you guys? This could change everything. 

“Yes,” he says. “But the number is still the same.”

Oh how very convenient. [Matthew says: They missed a great opportunity to sell separate action figures for Tobias, Four, and possibly even Five.]

While  jumping onto the train, Tris hurts her knee:

“Here, let me see,” he says. He pushes my jeans up my leg and over my knee. His fingers leave streaks of cold on my skin, invisible to the eye, and I think about wrapping his shirt around my fist and pulling him in to kiss me; I think about pressing myself against him, but I can’t, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.

What a shame that their secrets aren’t even that interesting. You might as well just make out with him, Tris, or get more interesting secrets.

Four admits that his father is still in his fear landscape, but “in a different way” and that now Tris is in it too. One of his fears is watching her die, apparently, which leads to more awkwardly placed foreshadowing.

His hands shake. I try to think of something helpful to say. I’m not going to die—but I don’t know that. We live in a dangerous world, and I am not so attached to life that I will do anything to survive. I can’t re-assure him.

Super convincing.

Still!Four and Tris meet with Evelyn (Four’s mom) and Edward (former Dauntless initiate who lost his eye to Peter’s butter knife).

Even though Four brought Tris along to read the situation, he immediately forms an alliance with the factionless, but Tris feels weird about it. I can understand her reservations, but their demands seem pretty reasonable. They want to be part of society again and to destroy all of Erudite’s evil!data in exchange for their manpower. [Matthew says: It’s weird how we’re supposed to not know if we can trust the factionless because they want to get rid of the Faction system, and that’s supposed to create tension, even though the point of the series is that the Faction system isn’t a good idea?]

Evelyn also reveals that she didn’t abandon Four but was exiled. After she and Edward leave, Tris is rightly irritated that Four brought her along and promptly ignored her. I fucking hate this guy, why are girls obsessed with him?

Tris and Four have an argument about his mother that reads like a bad sitcom wherein the mother in law be cray.

“What other way?” he says, folding his arms. “You just don’t like her. You haven’t since you first met her.”
“Obviously I don’t like her! She abandoned you!”
“They exiled her. And if I decide to forgive her, you had better try to do it too! I’m the one who got left behind, not you.”
“This is about more than that. I don’t trust her. I think she’s trying to use you.”
“Well, it isn’t for you to decide.”
“Why did you bring me, again?” I say, mirroring him by folding my arms. “Oh yeah—so that I could read the situation for you. Well, I read it, and just because you don’t like what I decided doesn’t mean—”
“I forgot about how your biases cloud your judgment. If I had remembered, I might not have brought you.”
“My biases. What about your biases? What about thinking everyone who hates your father as much as you do is an ally?”
“This is not about him!”
“Of course it is! He knows things, Tobias. And we should be trying to find out what they are.”
“This again? I thought we resolved this. He is a liar, Tris.”
“Yeah?” I raise my eyebrows. “Well, so is your mother. You think the Abnegation would really exile someone? Because I don’t.”
“Don’t talk about my mother that way.”

Four was so suspicious of her five minutes ago, and he can’t accept that maybe she wasn’t actually exiled? That his instincts about her were right? I totally understand the inclination to want to forgive her, but this seems incredibly out of character and like yet another way to have a stupid argument between Tris and Four flare up. [Matthew says: Maybe a better “-ent” word to title this sequel instead of Insurgent would have been Belligerent. Because I’ve seen a lot hot-headed squabbling and basically zero, you know, insurgency.]

Who do you guys think is potentially a worse parent, Evelyn or Marcus? Discuss!