OH MY GOD.
The final installment in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth is certain to divide fans. It's incredibly action packed and quite a ride, for sure. And I really enjoyed it.
With this review I cannot promise there will not be any spoilers in this post. Sorry Guys.
Consider yourself more than warned.
Because?
!!!!!!
I cannot wait to gush and swoon and yell (or, yell as much as one can on the written forum of the internet) and discuss every little thing about this conclusion with you all!
Also, you guys: major news: I FINISHED A SERIES! Within the year the series itself got finished. This is such a big deal. You guys know!
WHAT WAS WRITTEN
Tris's whole world is broken. The once faction-based society she grew up in is falling apart around her - violence is ever-present and the struggle for power over the city is tearing apart everything which she once held dear. Loss, violence, and betrayal are the only constants which still exist. So, when there is an offer made for her and a few of her friends to venture out beyond the city limits - somewhere no one has ever been - Tris is ready to go.
However, things outside the fence are not exactly what Tris and Four were hoping it would be. The world they enter is almost as alarming as the one they left behind - new facts unsettle the hearts of everyone who left with Tris. Once again Tris and Four are forced to examine the complexities of human nature, love, and friendship and are forced to continue fighting for what they believe in.
In this fast-paced and powerful conclusion to Veronica Roth's bestselling series, Tris and Four both tell their stories of what it means to truly live, love, and fight for what you hold most dear.
WHAT MY BRAIN HAS TO SAY ON THE MATTER
HOLY MOLY! What a book!
REMINDER: If you don't want this story spoiled for you (and I PROMISE, you don't! Go, read it yourself and then come back and talk to me about it!) then STOP HERE AND READ NO FURTHER!
Okay, now that that's out of the way, I've read a lot of reviews that have not been of the most positive nature. And I'll be honest, they scared me. Seeing anything less than 5 Stars on Goodreads for the conclusion to a series I have loved? Woah. Cue total apprehension about reading this book. So, yes. Those could have totally kept me in my I can't let go of this series thing that I always do. Fortunately, my desire to know what was going to happen won out. Because I really did love this book.
First of all, people aren't happy with Tris's death (I did warn you about spoilers a MILLION times, so if this is coming as a shock to you, not my fault). Did I like it? No. Not even one bit. It hurt. It was like a punch to the stomach. A really, really hard one. I wanted her and Four to live a nice hapily-ever-after. To finally have a chance at a normal life after everything in Chicago had died down some. But did this ending make sense? Yes. It's so Tris. It's exactly what she would have (and did) done. Abnegation until the very end - and so full of a sense of needing to redeem herself to her parents. Yes, Caleb could have done it and redeemed himself for all his prior wrongs. But Tris forgave him when he explained himself to her - he was still her brother after all and Tris wasn't going to watch another member of her family die. Selfish? Yes. But such a Tris move.
I kept holding my breath as I was reading. Hoping that maybe her divergent status would have helped her ward off the effects of the Death Syrum. But that would have been to easy. It would have been a major cop-out on Roth's part - it wouldn't have made sense to send her to her death and then let her live. Because endings aren't always that neat and happy. Roth takes us down the other side of a dystopian setting. Yes, things got better for Chicago without much more blood shed, but sacrifices needed to be made. And? That scene at the end with Four scattering Tris's ashes? It was perfect.
I will say I was a little put off by Four's voice in this story. The dual perspective was a little hard to grasp this late in the series in general (and probably should have been a huge hint that Tris wasn't going to survive the series). Where Four once seemed so powerful and stable and focused, in Allegiant he acts so much more like a little, scared child. Which, yes he is. He's so much more Travis than Four here. He's trying to come to terms with who his parents are, his "damaged" genetic sequence, and he's head-ver-heels in love with Tris. But he still seems to crumble a little as a character - which I did not expect from him.
And then there's the whole genetics thing. It does help put more of this dystopian Chicago into context within the real world. It explains why things are the way they are and why there's an "inside the fence" and an "outside the fence." But it also leaves so many more questions for me with the addition of the genetics problem so late in the story. So, maybe that's the part I agree with most people's criticisms of this conclusion. The Genetically-Pure versus the Genetically-Damaged - a whole entire dystopian controversy set up around a huge government mistake trying to be rectified? I feel like Allegiant could have been broken down into two books to give all the weighty stuff that Roth introduces into the story a little more support. Like the Purity Wars. I want to know more about them.
Yes, the Bureau of Genetic Welfare totally freaked me out. It was heavy and maybe a bit unbelievable that the government would set up a few experimental cities just to fix humanity's genetic code. One of the big things which strikes me as the problem here is that I cannot see how it would ever get that far - that someone wouldn't have risen up on the outside far before it came time for Tris and Four to do it themselves. But maybe that's just me being hopeful - that our society would never let itself get that far gone.
But, all in all, I really loved this book. I love that Veronica Roth went where she went with the ending. She took a risk and I think it paid off for her in the long run. But, with a risk like that you face the possibility of severely ticking off a fair number of your fans. I think once many fans have let the dust settle on their initial, emotional reactions to the book a lot of them will realize what a great story it actually was.
Because, it really is a great book and a stunning conclusion to a remarkable series.
REMINDER: If you don't want this story spoiled for you (and I PROMISE, you don't! Go, read it yourself and then come back and talk to me about it!) then STOP HERE AND READ NO FURTHER!
Okay, now that that's out of the way, I've read a lot of reviews that have not been of the most positive nature. And I'll be honest, they scared me. Seeing anything less than 5 Stars on Goodreads for the conclusion to a series I have loved? Woah. Cue total apprehension about reading this book. So, yes. Those could have totally kept me in my I can't let go of this series thing that I always do. Fortunately, my desire to know what was going to happen won out. Because I really did love this book.
First of all, people aren't happy with Tris's death (I did warn you about spoilers a MILLION times, so if this is coming as a shock to you, not my fault). Did I like it? No. Not even one bit. It hurt. It was like a punch to the stomach. A really, really hard one. I wanted her and Four to live a nice hapily-ever-after. To finally have a chance at a normal life after everything in Chicago had died down some. But did this ending make sense? Yes. It's so Tris. It's exactly what she would have (and did) done. Abnegation until the very end - and so full of a sense of needing to redeem herself to her parents. Yes, Caleb could have done it and redeemed himself for all his prior wrongs. But Tris forgave him when he explained himself to her - he was still her brother after all and Tris wasn't going to watch another member of her family die. Selfish? Yes. But such a Tris move.
I kept holding my breath as I was reading. Hoping that maybe her divergent status would have helped her ward off the effects of the Death Syrum. But that would have been to easy. It would have been a major cop-out on Roth's part - it wouldn't have made sense to send her to her death and then let her live. Because endings aren't always that neat and happy. Roth takes us down the other side of a dystopian setting. Yes, things got better for Chicago without much more blood shed, but sacrifices needed to be made. And? That scene at the end with Four scattering Tris's ashes? It was perfect.
I will say I was a little put off by Four's voice in this story. The dual perspective was a little hard to grasp this late in the series in general (and probably should have been a huge hint that Tris wasn't going to survive the series). Where Four once seemed so powerful and stable and focused, in Allegiant he acts so much more like a little, scared child. Which, yes he is. He's so much more Travis than Four here. He's trying to come to terms with who his parents are, his "damaged" genetic sequence, and he's head-ver-heels in love with Tris. But he still seems to crumble a little as a character - which I did not expect from him.
And then there's the whole genetics thing. It does help put more of this dystopian Chicago into context within the real world. It explains why things are the way they are and why there's an "inside the fence" and an "outside the fence." But it also leaves so many more questions for me with the addition of the genetics problem so late in the story. So, maybe that's the part I agree with most people's criticisms of this conclusion. The Genetically-Pure versus the Genetically-Damaged - a whole entire dystopian controversy set up around a huge government mistake trying to be rectified? I feel like Allegiant could have been broken down into two books to give all the weighty stuff that Roth introduces into the story a little more support. Like the Purity Wars. I want to know more about them.
Yes, the Bureau of Genetic Welfare totally freaked me out. It was heavy and maybe a bit unbelievable that the government would set up a few experimental cities just to fix humanity's genetic code. One of the big things which strikes me as the problem here is that I cannot see how it would ever get that far - that someone wouldn't have risen up on the outside far before it came time for Tris and Four to do it themselves. But maybe that's just me being hopeful - that our society would never let itself get that far gone.
But, all in all, I really loved this book. I love that Veronica Roth went where she went with the ending. She took a risk and I think it paid off for her in the long run. But, with a risk like that you face the possibility of severely ticking off a fair number of your fans. I think once many fans have let the dust settle on their initial, emotional reactions to the book a lot of them will realize what a great story it actually was.
Because, it really is a great book and a stunning conclusion to a remarkable series.
THE NITTY GRITTY
Title: Allegiant (Divergent #3)
Author: Veronica Roth
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Dystopian,
Medium: Hardback, 526pp
Publisher: Katharine Tegen Books (22 October 2013)
Date Read: 19 November 2013
Source: Purchased @ Barnes & Nobles
Recommended For: Late Middle School, YA Lovers, Fantasy Lovers, Dystopian Lovers
Challenges: Goodreads
First Line: I pace in our cell in Erudite headquarters, her words echoing in my mind: My name will be Edith Prior, and there is much I am happy to forget.
Favorite Line: I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.
Last Line: But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other. [Whited out, for spoiler's sake]
I loved the first two books and I still can't wait to see the movie but the third book just didn't do it for me. I hated how it ended.
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