Review: Allegiant - Veronica Roth

Allegiant

Veronica Roth

Series: Divergent, #3

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Word Rating: Fierce with a capital F
On Goodreads

It shouldn't really come as a shock that I'm reviewing Allegiant, considering my last post was all about the book signing and discussion I attended for it and I am at least 65% sure I did a Waiting on Wednesday about it.

Okay, so first things first, I will address the question most people reading this review will be asking: What did I think of the ending? The end of this book has been much talked about lately, with people either hating it or loving it (I'm seeing mostly hate). I personally am very satisfied with the ending. Without spoiling it for anyone (because if this ending was spoiled for me, I probably would have punched someone), what I have to say is this: I have no issue with any of the character deaths in this book -- they were all justifiable and although they were sad, I can see why Veronica Roth killed off those characters. Other than the death factor, I thought the ending was pretty solid and that it ended the way it needed to. If I was the author of this novel, there are perhaps some things I would have changed, but I am not the author and I understand where VRoth was coming from and I am satisfied with the way things ended. There, that's as spoiler-free as I can get while still not being totally vague.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk more about Allegiant.
The first thing I want to acknowledge is the fact that this is written in two points of view: Tobias's and Tris's. I absolutely loved the fact that we got to see Tobias's point of view, especially with everything that happened in this book. So props to Veronica Roth for doing that. I really loved reading things in Tobias's voice, and it was very distinct from Tris's. We also got a lot of insight into Four as a character. At one point, he made this observation about his mother and I just really loved it:

"My mother always sits on the edges of things--chairs, ledges, tables--as if she suspects she will have to flee in an instant. This time it's Jeanine's old desk in Erudite headquarters that she sits on the edge of, her toes balanced on the floor and the cloudy light of the city glowing behind her. She is a woman of muscle twisted around bone."

Not only does this help us see Evelyn in a more clear light, but this is just so well written. That last line especially kills me.
In fact, the writing style in general is amazing. It's written straightforwardly, which makes sense considering Tobias and Tris are not individuals who would go around spending pages discussing the way light bounces off the flowers in their gardens. Even with the blunt way it's narrated, the words still manage to strike the reader and are so powerful and so eloquent. One of my favorite scenes in the book was Tris's description of her first ever airplane ride:

"The plane starts to move backward, and I'm surprised by how smooth it feels, like we're already floating over the ground. Then it turns and glides over the pavement, which is painted with dozens of lines and symbols...The momentum presses me back against the skeleton chair, and the view outside turns into a smear of color."

Speaking of the airplane ride, one of my favorite aspects of the book is Tris's view into our world. We get a much better sense of the time and place the series takes place in, and we understand exactly how dystopian their society is. I love the way Veronica Roth handled that, and I love the explanation she gave for the factions, and the uprisings, and just the general existence of everything that happened in the previous books. The beginning of this book, while not as heavy plot wise, gave so much information about what exactly was going on, and how this is a much bigger picture than you would have guessed from the first two books. Once the plot picks up, this book is impossible to put down because not only do you want to know what will happen, you want to know why and how it's happening and what exactly certain characters are going to do with that information.

Allegiant definitely has a LOT packed into one book, and the ending definitely comes with a shock factor, but overall I really enjoyed the book and I'm excited to see what Veronica Roth does next with her writing career.

- Noor

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