This book was not was I was expecting for the conclusion of this series. Up until this point the series had been primarily focused on Tris, her life her choices. In this book it did both her point of view and Tobias point of view.

Tris was a unique character within the series. She had her good points and her bad. She mostly was caught in still defining herself as the faction in which she had been raised, however from getting to know her I believe her test should have placed her in four factions. I know it states her results were of three factions but she really falls under Candor to in my opinion because she tells it how it is and mostly thinks of herself when speaking. When she is thinking thoughts she’s more Abnegation. Her curiosity falls under Erudite and her thrill seeking is Dauntless.

Back to this book wasn’t what I was expecting. The ending took me by surprise even though it had been spoiled by a few friends, it wasn’t how I had seen the book playing out. In fact it was very far from it.

I am not sure I agree with how everything played out and what became of the characters. But I am sure that it is a well written series and I’d gladly read it again and again.

I look forward to reading the rest of the mini stories to this series as well as future writings by Ms. Roth. ( )

HOW DARE SHE SMILE AT US IN THE JACKET PHOTO.

OK, Veronica Roth. You see what happens when you decide to kill your main character/narrator? Yeah, you have to CONFUSINGLY ADD IN A SECOND POV. Maybe this wasn't her choice, but I wish they'd printed the narrators' names at the top of each page- sometimes I'd forget which voice I was listening to and had to search for "Tris" or "Tobias" on the page to figure it out.

I can't judge this book effectively outside of its context as the third part of a trilogy, so I won't try.

Having Tobias narrate some chapters was amazing. It was a terrific idea, which should have probably been introduced much sooner so it wasn't so abrupt and weird and hard to adjust to. But I did like it (once I was used to it). Hearing him grapple with not wanting to become what he hated, that was really important to me. I wish we'd gotten to know him so deeply sooner.

I laughed a lot, and yelled at the characters a lot (sorry family), and the scene in the airplane left me breathless.

I think there was too much making out towards the beginning of the book. Can you guys see each other and NOT kiss? I love romance as much as the next teenage girl but, please, I'm gagging.

I'm still kind of confused about what exactly Tris and her friends were trying to accomplish towards the end with all those serums. I'll have to go back and re-read that part. I know she and Tobias both strayed from their initial declared plans, but I'm not sure the plans were what I thought they were to begin with. I don't know. A lot happened at once that was hard to keep track of. But I did feel the desperation and the urgency. Except in the bit where they possibly had sex even though it doesn't really say either way??? Children??? You have LESS THAN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AND MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO IN THAT TIME THAN MAKE BABIES WHO WON'T SURVIVE THE FIGHTING YOU'LL HAVE TO DO. Maybe I'm reading the wrong thing into the absence of details, but that's what it sounded like she was skipping over.

Anyhow, I loved the highlighting of the importance of friendship and forgiveness, of honoring family ties whenever possible, and knowing that love is not a one-time thing and then it's set and done and Happily Ever After. It's continually choosing a flawed person who will keep making mistakes, but who makes you the best YOU possible. I also appreciate the very casual inclusion of gay and lesbian characters. No big deal, no earth-shattering ramifications for Tris wondering "HOW DO I DEAL WITH A GUY I KNOW BEING ATTRACTED TO ANOTHER GUY I KNOW?!" but just "here's some people. they like each other. or one of them likes the other. sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, for a wide variety of reasons. gravitation between two people is a thing that happens in the real world and in this one, so here it is."

I hope you have enjoyed this immensely disjointed book review.

Oh yeah P.S. this book contains more obscenity than the previous two (four letter word starting with S. I'm too tired to remember if there are other S words, LOL). Warning for, um, all the kids reading the book? It's worth noting, even though it's not that much, it's in there. ( )

I’m beginning to feel like I’m stuck in this vortex of young adult trilogies that start out great then just peter out into a fizz of disappointment. I finished Allegiant roughly a week and a half ago and I’m finally starting to get my thoughts together on the book. While reading it, a few different themes definitely popped into my head…



Allegiant picks up pretty much where Insurgent left off. After the revelations at the end of the Insurgent, Evelyn takes over and disbands the factions. In an effort to try and rid their world of control, she instead just creates more. Tris and the others don’t really agree with disbanding the factions or Evelyn’s leadership in general, and they eventually find a way to leave the city. On the way, they make shocking discoveries about how the world came to its current state. When they leave, they meet what’s left of the US government. They are told that many years ago, the government was practicing eugenics “became interested in enforcing certain desirable behaviors in citizens.” (p 121, 2013 HarperCollins first edition hardback) Eventually, there was a big war between the people who were deemed “Pure” and those said to be genetically “damaged.” It destroyed nearly everything, leaving in its wake the world which Tris and the others encounter outside the city. They are told that after the war, the government started experimenting to reverse the genetic fiasco they had created. One of those experiments included their own city, and they discover that they have been watched their entire lives as part of that. Basically, they isolated these populations to create more “Divergent” people – or those with “Pure” genes, that could help heal humanity. Each of the isolated cities had different social experiments going on – factions in some, strict rules in others.

At this point all I can think about is Fallout.



C’mon, Vaults, f*cked up government-funded social experiments?? Anyone? OK maybe I’m just really pumped about Fallout 4… Anyhow…

Here’s what I liked about the book:

Roth included themes of forgiveness. I can appreciate when authors are not cookie-cutter about "good" and "evil." Where characters who are evil are only ever evil, or characters who are good are only good. In real life, there are many shades of gray to “good” and “evil.” And some people deserve forgiveness or redemption.

Another thing she did right was writing about grief, and how people deal with it. In my edition of Insurgent, there were some extras in the back where she admitted she hasn’t dealt with grief herself, so writing about it for her was difficult. But I think she accurately portrayed how it feels and how a person deals with it.

Aaand here’s what I didn’t like:

Tris and Tobias’s relationship. It has honestly driven me crazy since Insurgent. I could not get on board with the idea that they had this perfect relationship; something that many of the characters comment on in several instances. All they do in the last two books is bicker and fight with each other. In my eyes, there seems to be no trust between them, which is admittedly the most important part of any relationship… so I am not seeing how their relationship was supposed to be so amazing. Also, they live in a death-ridden, dystopian world. Why do they want to spend so much time mad at each other when either of them could drop dead at any minute?? Why????

Little to no character development. The characters hardly change at all from the previous two novels. Because of the lack of character development, I had a hard time keeping track of which person was which during the story. I found that I wasn’t interested or invested in them at all to begin with. Even my interest in Tris and Tobias at this point in series was very minimal. They had begun to get on my nerves.

The story drug on and felt predictable. There are a LOT of slow parts in Allegiant. Much of downtime that occurred between the action in the novel felt… unnecessary. Probably because things like character development were not being used. Additionally, there were lots of attempts throughout the book to try and “surprise” us, but each time it just felt predictable. A lot of the ideas and storyline could be guessed at based on what one usually expects to happen in other young adult/dystopian novels. Moreover, the general idea of the story didn’t really feel believable to me to begin with. The whole idea of the factions always seemed silly to me. There was never really anything to force these people to stay in their factions. Yes there were the serums, propaganda… but honestly, it took them that long to rebel against the factions? There is no roaming, strong police presence like, say, in 1984, so I had a hard time believing so many people would go with that lifestyle for such a long time. When they finally get out of the city and find out what’s happening in the outside world… it still does not feel plausible. It felt silly and unscientific, which made it boring in the long run.

THE ENDING. Ok, I get how Tris’s death was supposed to be all heroic, and that she was basically being a martyr… but it just felt cheap to me. It felt like Roth wanted to kill off her main character to make the story “different.” It felt like a weak attempt at a plot twist that really just made me want to throw the book across the room. We have this buildup throughout the whole series about how amazing and powerful and unique Tris is, thinking that she has this amazing destiny, but she just gets killed. Plus I think in general, I get a little grumpy when so much of our emotions and time gets invested in a character, and they get carted out with a cheap death. I had a hard time finishing the book after Tris died… I mostly felt like, “Welp, I’ve made it this far… might as well finish it.”

To sum things up… I would probably still recommend Divergent to people who really enjoy young adult fiction. But I honestly, don’t really see it being worth it to finish the series. I enjoyed Insurgent slightly more than Allegiant, but I still felt myself feeling annoyed and bored throughout it as well. If you’re one of those people that really needs to finish something you’ve started… yes, read the last two books. Otherwise… find another series to devote your time on. ( )

Representation: N/A
Trigger warnings: Military violence and war themes, explosions, physical assault and injury, self-sacrifice and death
Score: Five out of ten.
Find this review on The StoryGraph.

What a disappointment. Again...

I wanted to read Allegiant to give Veronica Roth one last chance to redeem herself after Insurgent underwhelmed me. I enjoyed Divergent, so what happened, and how did she come to this point? I picked it up and glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing, but when I closed the final page, I didn't enjoy it.

It starts (more like finishes) with Tris still living in Chicago in the aftermath of the events that happened in Insurgent when she discovers something extraordinary. She comes across information that the world is not what she thinks it is. It's no longer a place divided by the Divergent, those with multiple traits, and the five factions without, like the Dauntless, instead, the Divergent are better off since the government considers them genetically pure while the faction members are genetically damaged. Really? That does not sound like genetics and more like a personality issue, which didn't improve the worldbuilding and instead made the narrative do a 180. The characters are hard to relate since they lack character development, the plot is not engaging enough and the pacing is slow in the first 450 pages due to the filler ones. Roth could've removed those to make Allegiant more engaging and ensure every page counts. Roth sends a message through Allegiant's implicit theme that having many traits is beneficial but other issues didn't make it clear and that was in the background. The conclusion is faster paced as another battle occurs, but Tris sacrifices herself in the middle of all that, but what for? I don't get it. That peters out Allegiant. ( )

I'm so upset about how it ends. Honestly I cried. It was a good ending but not how I wished it did. ( )