Reviewed by ammaarah on
Oh no, Zara here comes your infamous random rants...
Allegiant starts off right where Insurgent ends. My memory of what happened in Insurgent was hazy even although I read it only two months ago (Give me a break!). But as I continued to read Allegiant, I did remember most of what happens in Insurgent
Allegiant is told from two POV's: Tris and Tobias(Four). When I saw that Four was getting his own POV, I was a happy fangirl, until I realised that the book would have been much better if it was from a single POV instead of a dual POV. Tris and Tobias POV's sound the same. I would be reading a chapter thinking that it is from Tris's POV, only to realise that it is from Tobias's POV and then I would be all confused and turn back a few pages to see whose POV the chapter is really being told from. Getting Tobias's POV makes him seem weak and insecure and not the same Tobias that my horrible memory remembers from Divergentand Insurgent.
The romance between Tris and Four was a negative aspect of Insurgent that continues in Allegiant. I loved the relationship that Tris and Four had in Divergent. They complemented each other, protected each other and treated each other as equals. In Insurgent, something went wrong and they started to hide things from each other, lie to each other and after arguing for ages, they would "solve" it by making-out. In Allegiant it's almost exactly the same. I started off this series, with a couple that I would ship until the day that I died and I end the series wanting them to break off that same relationship. This means that any interaction involving Tris and Four, no matter how "sentimental" makes me roll my eyes in annoyance.
Since Allegiant is the last book in the trilogy, I wanted it to focus mostly on its original characters. Many new characters are introduced and the new character information is overwhelming. The old characters have no personality or character development that shines through. This makes me feel a little detached from them. Even when a certain incident happens to a certain someone, Uriah dies, I knew that Roth was trying to make me feel something, but it didn't work. I remain an emotionless stone.
I have a major issue with the world-building. I loved the faction world and everything about it. Even although I knew that there would be a rebellion or some form of resistance, I wanted at least something of the faction world to remain intact. When Tris travels beyond the gate, she leaves the faction world behind and then cue the info-dumping and unexplained situations that makes my brain hurt. (Why do I always seem to talk about my brain?)
And even although I knew how the series ended before I started it, I didn't like it at all! Because it's the ending, I'm going to discuss it in a spoiler tag... Tris dies. So firstly, the way Tris dies suits the type of person that she was, but I dislike when the main character dies at the end of a story if something could have been done to change or prevent the situation. i.e. her death feels unnecessary. If the main character dies at the end, no matter how selfless or brave it is, doesn't it make the whole point of the story non-existent? When I read a book, I want to see the character grow and develop and when they die, all that growth and development that I read about seems to be worthless. I do have to say that Veronica Roth has guts, and for that I love her, but I still don't like the way in which the Divergent trilogy ended.
Even although I have issues with most things in Allegiant. I do love the amazing bad-ass fighting and action that Veronica Roth writes about in such an amazing way. Unfortunately, there is so little of this amazingness compared to her other two books.
While the series started off with a beautiful Dauntless beginning in Divergent, the Dauntless way in which it ends in Insurgent and Allegaint makes me want to throw knives at something...