Throwback Thursday: 'Allegiant' (Divergent #3)

Allegiant (Divergent #3)
By Veronica Roth
Published: Oct. 22, 2013
Read: October 2013
Format: Kindle

Rating: C-

“The first step to loving someone else is to recognize the evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them.”

Until Allegiant, the Divergent series has been one of my favorites, and I  eagerly awaited the release of its conclusion for more than a year. I am sad to say that it was very disappointing.

Veronica Roth chose to tell the story from Tris' and Tobias' points of view, which I liked. The only problem I had with this approach was that she did not follow the every-other-chapter-changes-perspective format, so I sometimes got confused by who was speaking and had to go back to read the first few pages in the right perspective. That being said, I really liked hearing from both Tobias and Tris, as I thought it helped round out the story and made it less biased toward one character.

The dual storytelling is not the only thing that made Allegiant stand out from its predecessors. Tris, Tobias and company venture out of the city in the beginning of the book and spend most of their time at a compound formerly known as O'Hare Airport. Though I liked that it took place in a different location, I did not so much like what happened there. I will be vague in an effort not to reveal spoilers, but I thought Roth strayed too far from the main plot once she revealed the difference between GD and GP (not going to explain that here as it is kind of complicated). It was interesting stuff, I just think it was a distraction from what was going on in the city and it took away from the story.

The ending. Ahhh, the ending! Again, I don't want to spoil anything here, but the ending was highly dissatisfying. Not just what happened, but how it was treated. I didn't think it was drawn out quite enough, and I feel like it didn't do justice to our two main characters. It happened and then we moved on. I wanted more time to cope, more explanation as to how everyone dealt with it and so on.

Overall, I think Allegiant left a lot to be desired. Aside from the ending, it was an all right book. It definitely kept my interest and I enjoyed it. There was a little bit more romance between Tris and Tobias, and reading his perspective definitely increased that aspect. But the ending just really spoiled things for me, and because of that I've given it a low rating.