Review: Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Published October 22nd, 2013
HarperCollins
526 pages (Hardcover)

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One choice will define you.

What if your whole world was a lie?
What if a single revelation—like a single choice—changed everything?
What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered—fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.

But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love. (From Goodreads)

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This review is spoiler-free.  I will also be posting a discussion filled with spoilers soon (after more people have a chance to read).

To be quite honest, I was a little disappointed.  Allegiant didn't quite reach the caliber that the last two did for me.  That being said, I thought the ending was perfect.

Allegiant continues shortly after the end of Insurgent.  Their world has been completely uprooted and everything they knew was a lie.  That leave a lot of place where the book could be headed.  And the direction it went in was okay, but it felt like there was too much info-dumping going on.  By book three of a trilogy, I want action and resolution.  I got that, but there was so much mush in between that I want so badly to skim over.  Ultimately, I think the world made less sense after all of this than before.

And that's where Allegiant lost me.  I couldn't find the wow-factor that made the book impossible to put down.  Divergent and Insurgent both had it.  Allegiant did not.  I never felt that urgency to keep reading.  What kept me going was the suspicion that I had figured out the ending (which I had).

The ending is what bumped my opinion of Allegiant up.  I'm going to talk about this more in my spoiler-y discussion post, but I thought the ending was perfect.  It wrapped the story up nicely and left me satisfied as a reader.  I feel completely satisfied, and not left with wide-open question.  To me, his was a great ending for the trilogy.

In addition to the ending, the characters remain great.  The emotions covered in this book alone are spectacular, and, again, I was left satisfied with what became of them.  In particular, I loved the addition of Tobias' perspective.  His narration felt so different from Tris and being inside his head was a treat.

Overall, the ending is what made the book for me.  I had my issues, but I would still recommend this trilogy to anyone.