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Allegient by Veronica Roth
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Allegient is the third book in the Divergent trilogy by 20-something Chicagoan Veronica Roth. If you haven't read Divergent yet, stop reading this post and start reading it. Especialyl if you are experiencing dystopian withdrawal after seeing Catching Fire over the holidays and need something to fill that void. Just a brief intro without giving too much away--Allegient begins right after a shocking video is played at the end of Insurgent, informing all of the citizens of the city that the entire community had been founded as a sort of experiment. What follows is Tris's decisions about how to deal with that information, and of course a little revolution. I mean why not.
The reviews about this book were pretty mixed--many people loved it best of all three, others hated it. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. The good: I loved the unique twists and turns throughout the book. I also loved that there was no clear right and wrong path for the characters--because in real life, right and wrong is so much more complex than black and white...Allegient really spent some time focusing on the gray areas as Tris and Four and the others evaluated different plans of action and faced each path's subsequent consequences.
Of course, along the same lines, something I didn't love was just how many plans there were going on at any given time. I felt for awhile in the middle like I couldn't quite keep track of who the revolutionaries were, which plan was which, etc. I also didn't love the jumping perspectives between Tris and Four. Normally I LOVE this in books, but I didn't feel that Roth did a good enough job differentiating between the two in her writing style. At times I had trouble remember which character's side I was reading. I mean really, are we expected to believe Tris and Four have the exact same inner voices? Doubtful. Just a sign of writing that is good but not great.
Last, the ending. Oh that ending. I promise no spoilers, but I just didn't feel that Roth's grand act in the ending was necessary. More importantly, I didn't feel that it added anything to the story except annoyance on my part. I am all for a shocking or surprising twist in books if it enriches the plot. In this case, I think the big statement resulted in several chapters of dull falling action whereas I was totally hoping this series would end with a bang.
Sooo, while I flew through Allegient (obv) and truly enjoyed reading it, it was probably my least favorite in the series. (Insurgent being my favorite.)
Dying to hear others thoughts if you read the series too!
What have you been reading this week?
I really like the Divergent series. The last book annoyed me a bit..but once I got past my annoyance with what Roth was doing with the characters and plot I liked it. I will say I didn't speed through this last book like I did with the first two.
ReplyDeleteI found Divergent to be the most enjoyable of the three. I wasn't thrilled with the resolution in Allegiant. I thought it didn't meet the build-up. It was also difficult to remember things they'd referred to in the earlier books, but that's on me, not on the writer.
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing about this Divergent series. I really need to check them out. I just added them to my Goodreads!!
ReplyDeleteIt's been way too long since I have commented here! Gah! You are totally right about Allegiant and not being able to decipher the voices at times. I read it on my Kindle app and had to flip back several times to remind myself who was telling the chapter. But it was definitely my 2nd favorite in the series, more than Insurgent. I appreciated the ending more than others did and it might be because I read a blog post from Roth about how she didn't want to cop out the way she thought Suzanne did with Mockingbird. So, I sort of figured out what might happen, but I certainly expected the opposite person to go, not who actually did...and that might be why I liked it more. I need to get back into doing WIRW too!
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