So I have something a little embarrassing to admit. This post is soooo long overdue. Like, so long that I read the book twice in order to do really do my review justice. I just cannot seem to carve out enough time to spend on the blog. I really need to go back to my grad school habit of visiting a coffee shop for a few hours of quiet every weekend.
Anyway, without further ado, I give you my review of Allegiant, the third book in the Divergent series. If you have not read my review of the first two books in the series, check them out here.
Book Review: Divergent Trilogy
Book 3: Allegiant
By Veronica Roth
Book three in the Divergent series picked up where the previous book left off. The factions ceased to exist. There is only the factionless and the allegiant, those that wanted a return to the factions and the principles upon which their city was founded.
Tris and Four join a handful of the allegiant in a trip beyond the city walls, to see what lies before them. There their world, although already spinning from revelations about the creation of the city, is upended once again as they discover that even that was a lie. The two struggle to figure out not their own future but also that of everyone still within the city.
Review/Recommendation: I enjoyed Allegiant. The story was pretty good, and to be honest, Roth completely shocked me with her ending. It shouldn’t have been unexpected, but so rarely do books end in such a way… but no more on that (no spoilers!). I’ll just say that the ending was very surprising and that she wrapped up the story very nicely. One of the better endings I’ve read, actually.
One of my more frequent criticisms of young adult books is that the characters get a little whiny, ruining an otherwise great story. Insurgent, book two in the series, was no different. However, I’m really happy to report that Allegiant did not follow that tradition. Tris returned as a strong character, more mature than she was in the earlier books of the series.
I think my only complaint about Allegiant was that the chapters alternated points of view between Tris and Four. That would have been fine, but the two characters largely had the same voice, making it sometimes easy to forget whose point of view you were reading from.
Overall, a great end to the trilogy.
Grade: A-
I am still torn on the ending of this book. It works- it makes sense and IMO ended how it should, but I still wish it had ended differently! But now I want to re-read it to see if I appreciate it more knowing.