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Book Review of Allegiant (Divergent, Bk 3)

Allegiant (Divergent, Bk 3)
reviewed on + 112 more book reviews


First of all, I have NOT read the first two books. In fact, I did not plan to read this one either until I read all disappointed reviewers who complain about the alternating voices, overly complicated plotline, and the ending. So I borrowed this out of couriosity about just how bad the writing and storyline might be.

I disagree with a lot of the complaints.

First. This is more a book about thinking, feeling and choosing, not just survival and/or action scenes. If you were presented with the bigger world than you grew up with, how would you react? What if you were NOT different than everybody you know? What is really good or bad, if you knew you were different than what outsiders labeled you? These are all questions every human must answer at some point in ther life.

Second. Tris is just sixteen years old. She grew up believing and living by very simple rules taught to her by her parents. OK, so she's a Divergent and capable of all the other traits. But that doesn't mean she KNOWS what she's capable of, much less understands all the possible paths to choose from. She still in the first 6-months of her relationship with her boyfriend, and as a teenager, her biological urges tied with the neurological changes are going to make her feel rather than deduct an answer to the problems she faces. Her small, very well defined world - even with the Factionless in power - has just been demolished by a whole series of NEW realities and "facts" beyond the wall. So she deals with the most immediate crisis. And Tobias has to deal with the consequences of her choices, as well as his own.

Third. The nitpickers should just write down under "suspension of belief" and get on with the deeper elements. This is far enough in the future that no one questions where the energy comes from. - anywhere in that world So this must mean that it is very renewable or production is very self-sustaining. Either way, knowing the Dauntless has survelliance cameras everywhere, Jeanine has a car or the trains run at all helps the story along. But knowing where the electricity comes from to run the cameras, train (or car) is a distraction. After all, do we question how the cars fly in Blade Runner, or how we get aspirin from willow bark?

Fourth. Tobias has even more things to adjust to than Tris. So self-doubt is going to be very logical for someone who was the "strong one" in their relationship. And Roth needed to establish Tobias' voice for this book because the Divergent/Insurgent world is no longer the main reality they find themselves. They represent two different reactions to the new "factions" of the outside World. Besides. He allows Roth to continue the storyline to the end.

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Kuzu