BookingRehab

It’s hard to put this review into words. Unlike some of the diehard fans who have loved the series from the beginning, I didn’t. Due to this, I think that the ending affected me differently. For some, it was a betrayal. To me, it didn’t make sense for a different reason, but it still made sense after what happened in Insurgent.

Before I get to that, I should talk about the book first.

Allegiant is the final book in Veronica Roth’s best selling Divergent series. It’s been a long hard road for our heroine Tris Prior. She found out that she’s a Divergent. She left her former faction, Abnegation, and joined Dauntless. She became a tough fighter. She found love. She killed her friend. Her parents died. Her former faction was almost killed. An uprising happened. Her brother betrayed her. And she found out that her entire world was a lie.

And a bunch of other things have happened all in the span of a few months? I think? Maybe it’s actually been less. In any case, lots of things happen to our heroine and this book is no different.

After exposing the city to Edith Prior’s tape, the city now knows that there is an outside world. A world that is better than the lives they have here. Some want to go there, while others are still following Evelyn’s factionless rule. A new group emerges, the Allegiant, who want to go beyond the fence and to the outside world. Tris and her band of merry men/women soon follow and once out, they realize that the world outside isn’t all that it seems.

Unlike the previous novels that were told completely in Tris’ POV, here we get to see Tobias’ POV as well. At first, I welcomed the change because I don’t like Tris (the fact that she was always right in this novel annoyed me) and Tobias had a distant voice. On the outside, he may seem tough and sure of himself, but in reality he’s not like that. He’s scared. Some may find this to be a complete 180 to his character, but I don’t think it was.

After learning about his history, it wouldn’t make sense that he’d always be sure of himself. This is the same guy who constantly goes over his own fear simulations and has anger issues. For him to be perfect wouldn’t make sense. Plus, in the first novel when we first saw him, he seemed perfect because Tris didn’t really know him all that well. In Insurgent when they spend more time together, they fight and lie a lot and she starts to finally see him more clearly. In book three, I think Roth wanted us to get inside his head and see how damaged he really is. I haven’t read the short stories, so I don’t know if he’s always been like this, but judging from what I’ve seen from the previous books, his personality made perfect sense.

There’s a scene with Caleb that really highlights how Tobias’ past really affected him. He puts him down and was actually scary. He looked like a mini Marcus. I kind of wish he would have reflected on that and saw how his attraction to hurting people, might be the same attraction Marcus had. And if it was, then does he really want to continue going down on this path? We don’t really get that, but whatever.

So yea, I did enjoy reading his POV, until I didn’t. Not because of him, I did like getting into his mind, but because Tris and Tobias started to become one. I was a bit disappointed when that happened.

As for the other characters, I thought they kind of got the short end of the stick, especially Christina. Now, I’ve mentioned before that there seems to be a relationship curse in these novels. Whenever someone shows affection to someone, one of them will die or get severely injured. This novel, sadly, is no different.  I won’t spoil what happens, but do expect a few deaths.

A lot of my questions were answered here, except one. I still don’t know why Caleb did what he did and I think that was the most frustrating thing about the book. I’m a Caleb fan. Even though he betrayed Tris, there had to be a reason behind it. Sadly, we’ll never know. When Tris confronts him, he mentions how she didn’t know just how persuasive Jeanine was and instead of hearing more about this, she just beats him up. Instead of listening to him and actually talking to him, he’s beat up, he’s punched, and he’s called a coward on more than one occasion and then some. But why? Why didn’t anyone bother to talk to him about it, especially Tris? She can think like an Erudite, so why didn’t her inquisitive nature come through and find out the reason? His entire purpose in this novel was to be the punching bag to everyone and I didn’t appreciate that or think it was fair to the character.

The actual plot in itself was interesting. I liked how the outside world seems shiny, but when you scratch the surface you realize that it has the exact same paint job as their old world. And I especially loved learning more about Nathalie, Tris’ mother. The history of the world, the genetic discussion and what it means to be a human were interesting to me.

However, the whole Allegiant thing was stupid though and the multiple uprisings, while making sense, didn’t have smart planning behind it. They could have used Caleb here, you know, because he’s suppose to be smart and stuff.

I do think that this book is actually the best book in the series, that still doesn’t mean that this book is all that great. There are flaws here and some things are not explained properly. The romance aspect of these novels consists of Tris and Tobias fighting, making out, fighting, and then making out. Basically, it was repetitive and redundant. I did like the world that Roth created and seeing things from Tobias’ POV.

This is getting to be too long, so I’ll just go back to the ending. I won’t spoil it, but it doesn’t make sense. Not because of what happened, but why it happened. It’s not heartfelt. It’s not shocking. It’s just doesn’t make sense It makes sense for what happened to happen, especially if you’ve read Insurgent, but….okay, I’ll need spoilers here. Sorry!

Would I recommend this? Maybe? If you’ve read the first two novels, then you do owe it to yourself to read this one. But just like before, I feel like this series has a lot of potential, but it’s potential that’s never fully realized.

ps. I’m sorry for the length. I didn’t intend to make the review this long.

Review can also be found at BookingRehab