Allegiant is the final book in the Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth. While the first book proved to be an exciting read, the issues in the second book left me dubious as to what the final instalment was going to bring. I was right to be suspicious, for there was something about the book that left it a disappointing ending to the trilogy.
Tris and Tobias have come to terms with their differences, uniting together in order to leave the city once and for all to seek the truth. But once outside the gates, it becomes clear that the world is much larger than the thought, and that problems were not only restricted to their city. The fight is far from over as new enemies are revealed and the fight to let the truth win out becomes the most deadly they have yet encountered.
Old characters are given the chance at redemption and new ones have the power to change everything amongst the characters that we know and love. With plots abound and disaster looming, the book should have been one of tension and excitement, a real page turner when it became obvious that their problems are far from over and if they have any chance at a happy ending, their fight has to continue.
Yet somehow, it just doesn’t. Perhaps it is the blurring of the lines between fantasy and crossing into our world. Suddenly, their home is now revealed to be Chicago and all other places mentioned are places in America. Modern day technology is introduced to a world where things have been described as different the whole way throughout. It almost feels like the world of the first two books is suddenly lost and we are thrown into our reality with the problems of Tris’s world. While their adaptation to this truth is handled well, it leaves the reader feeling, well… disappointed.
Roth also has a change in narration. The first two books are told purely from Tris’s point of view. However, Allegiant diversifies to include Tobias’s narration, alternating chapters revealing what is going on. While it was refreshing to have someone else’s point of view – especially after the second book – it gave away certain things about the plot. If Roth wanted to expand on the narration, she should have done it earlier rather than it being a jarring juxtaposition to the first two books just in order to make her plot work.
While the series has been enjoyable, the critics that acclaimed it as the next Hunger Games were wrong. The first person narrative becomes annoying at times and the breaking away of that is too revealing for the plot. The change of the world to our real one is a disappointment and something that could have been avoided, either by not having it happen or knowing about it from the start – like in the Hunger Games.
An alright read if you want to lose yourself for a few hours, but a disappointing end to a trilogy that could have been more.
A Rambling Reviewer 