#bookreview: Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Allegiant by Veronica Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ah. So now I've reached the end of the Divergent Trilogy, I have a bit more perspective on everything else. I would safely say that this trilogy probably isn't going to be on my re-read list.
Since I read all 3 books in almost one sitting, the divisions of the 3 separate books are somewhat of a blur (especially since there's little to no time jump between each novel). Hence, I suppose this final review of book 3 of the Divergent Trilogy may include some comments on the earlier two.

Where to start? Hmm....

The extra point of view was a little "ugh" for me, because I tend to skip title chapters and I would have to back track a little when I suddenly go "wait, who's narrating here again?" Probably all my fault. I suppose it was necessary or the ending wouldn't have worked. Hah. You should have thought about that earlier, Ms Roth!

So anyway, now you get a little more insight into Tobias/Four, and it feels very different from where he started off in the first book. I don't know if I should attribute that to character development (or maybe devolvement?), or the fact that very little was known of Four in the beginning which was only revealed gradually in Insurgent and Allegiant, or whether there really was a big disconnect as some other reviewers have been saying. I'm not sure if that whole thing about Tobias' struggle over being "damaged" is really plausible in the light of his fear landscape. There could have been some credibility to it, but it didn't seem to be explained very well.

I don't know who came up with this whole social experiment thing first, but when that revelation came up, the first thing that came to mind was "I watched that on Maze Runner." I don't think I will get round to reading that book because the movie was kind of meh for me, and my book-guzzling friend has written it off as a "Did Not Finish".

I don't think I'll talk much about the science - I don't really know if it's good science or not - but in some ways, it felt like Roth wanted to talk about discrimination and societal disorder, and she didn't want to make it obvious, like race, so she picked something arbitrary. There were some increasingly *almost* preachy moments, which were quickly diffused.

I guess... the ending is not bad as endings go. I bring this up because she got a lot of flak for the ending. I would say that what Tris does is in keeping with Tris' character (i.e. both selfless and stupid at the same time). What Tobias does is probably more in line with PTSD? Which is a valid point, seeing all the stuff he's gone through.
Um the denouement of the cities though - seems a little too simple, but hey, Johanna is Amity.

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Note: I'm not going to be posting up my reviews of Divergent and Insurgent on my blog, but you'll find them on Goodreads!