Allegiant by Veronica Roth | 3.5/5
Let me tell you about Divergent... I am a huge fan. Insurgent was a little disappointing but still is good enough.
Allegiant though... Honestly, I feel it the weakest among the other books. It was a downhill from the first book to the last. What happened? Let me enumerate the positive side to it's bad. Let me warn you though, I have very strong opinions on this one - harsh even.
I appreciate the reality side of the book, that death is just around the corner. Let me tell you a fact: V Roth killed so many characters in Allegiant! (I'm not going to enumerate the names since I intend not to spoil you) I admire her courage as a writer to do so, to kill not just any character from her book, but MAIN characters! Sometimes, when I write a story, I feel scared. I fear to kill my characters, not just out of worry that my readers will curse me to death, but because I've given so much effort developing personalities (of the character) and such. Many of the instances of deaths in the book came very unexpected.
Another plus point is the flow of the story. Allegiant is fast paced and direct to the point. That's what I look forward most when I read YA books. No super long descriptions.
The last positive note is the changing pov. It's amazing to read from different vantage points. Same scene but different tones and thoughts.
Now that we're done with that, let's carry on with my negatives. There's quite a lot. First of all, I feel like Allegiant as a whole is crammed into one. The main purpose of trilogies is the author's given 3 books to spread the story, to gradually navigate to the ending. Allegiant is so full of information it became too much for me. I found myself confused and irritated. It felt like the entire plot was last minute and Roth didn't actually see her conclusion coming.
We're given the truth then we find out there's another truth, like there's a group behind a group. It could have worked out but the ending was cut too short. We find out there's the facility outside Chicago (The place outside the fence mentioned by Edith Prior in Insurgent) run by a government, meaning the facility is just a part of another group. I find it hard to believe that after everything, the largest group (The one running the facility outside Chicago) just accepted without question what transpired afterwards. I feel like there's something more. The end didn't feel like the end of the story, maybe just an end of a character.
I also feel like the solution to the main problem was too weak. I see cracks in every turn. Maybe because in Allegiant, ALL of the characters are confused themselves. I feel that they struggle against goal-crisis. Everyone knows what they want but nobody knows how to get there, so they run around like a bunch of children expecting progress when they do the same crap over the years! I feel like they need a better ruler. And it's impossible that over hundreds of years no one good leader has emerged in the light.
Speaking of rulers, Evelyn's character was given emphasis in Insurgent, but I feel like V Roth just left her behind. Her character fell deeply in Allegiant. We've seen her by the end of Insurgent as the possible next Jeannine Matthews but something went wrong in building up that part. She's as confused as everyone else. What to do with power and stuff. Seriously, everyone just MESSED UP.
Lastly, let's talk about Four and Tris. One sentence to summarize everything: They had lost chemistry.
I just got pissed over and over that everytime they meet they do nothing but kiss and kiss. Sometimes that's sweet but sometimes it's too much. I felt like it was trying too hard to be romantic. I miss the old Four and Tris. And how insensitive of Tris during the middle chapters of the book. Seriously? I pitied Four so much I wanted to move heaven and earth.
Overall, I didn't hate the book, I just didn't like it the way I wanted. Maybe because the book didn't go exactly where I thought it would, so I'm against a lot of things.
(c) Lilah Gran
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