BOOK REVIEW: ALLEGIANT BY VERONICA ROTH
"According to Roth, the storytelling style of Allegiant is different from Divergent and Insurgent. She said that "[The first two] are heavy action, violent books. The third book has action, it’s not not action-y, but a lot of my interest has moved towards the societal struggles and the wrestling Tris is doing inside of her head. I’m an action girl, I still love action, but I think it’s a little more balanced now."
^This quote is from Wikipedia.
And this quote is completely true.
The action in this book takes up about 10% of this book.
The other 95% consists of whining, anger, rifts in relationships, distrust, trying to trust, lying, trying not to lie, damaged genes, pure genes, stupid cliché experiments and tyrannical government, etc.
The other 5% is a good ending.
The only thing that saved this book for me was the last ~100 pages.
The first 400 pages SUCKED.
Absolutely horrible.
The writing is horrid. There is a mistake. The scenes with Tris and Tobias are crazy annoying and Tobias spends a butt-load of time describing his muscles.
Also, why I hate this book?
"[Veronica Roth's] maternal grandparents were concentration camp survivors, whose religious convictions pushed mother Barbara Ross away from religion. Veronica Roth learned about the Christian religion by attending a Christian Bible study during her high school years, and has stayed with it."
^Quote from Wikipedia.
I thought Veronica Roth was a Christian...
Divergent and Insurgent were completely clean and awesome and amazing.
Allegiant contains:
-indicated sex
-cussing
-jokes about sex
-GAYS
It's really disappointing. Really.
So, big whoop, Tobias really isn't Divergent.
Quote from another review on this book:
"As it turns out, the world has apparently been so full of [jerks] that the government decided to eliminate the genes in citizens that caused dishonestly, selfishness, cowardice, stupidity, and aggression. Unfortunately, this backfired and just created more [jerks] that were more [jerk]-y than before.
So how does a rational government fix this problem? Easy! Just construct gigantic city-sized behavioral experiments all across the country! Get volunteers who had their genes [messed] with to have their memories wiped and stick them into a city and force them to choose a faction. Eventually these people will reproduce enough times until they finally manage to have "genetically pure" (a.k.a. Divergent) babies that are free from messed up genes.
I mean, duh. That's, like, the most logical thing ever. Because its not like bad genes pass down bad genes or anything! Silly science!
In fact, this department is just so full of geniuses that they decided that instead of using the genetic engineering prowess they already had to modify the genes of the genetically damaged offspring, they were just gonna wait around for 8 generations until the problem just miraculously fixed itself."
^EXACTLY.
This whole plot is lame and stupid and cliché.
"Tris and Four's switching POVs only disorient the reader further because as the book continues, the characters voices lose their distinctions and start to sound more and more like each other. "
^AMEN.
Tris and Tobias sound THE SAME.
I seriously had such a hard time switching between their two POVs.
Now let's talk about Tobias.
"While Tris may have been tougher in this book than in Insurgent (which is literally the only redeeming quality I'm willing to give this book), Four's character gets a complete top-to-bottom deconstruction.
Gone is the tough, strong, [awesome guy] we got to know in the previous two books. Instead, Roth replaces Four with a bumbling emotional man-child who fails to make rational decisions and think straight. His judgment is often clouded by his own insecurities and growing fears. Before we knew Four as being a character who would never let his fears control him. In Allegiant, Four's fears have his neck in a leash and tug him in any which direction and he willing goes without even putting up a fight."
^This cannot be any more true.
Tobias turns into an arrogant, angry, bumbling idiot.
I loved him in Divergent. He started being stupid in Insurgent.
Now here.
I hate him.
Now let's talk about the ending.
"And how exactly does the book wrap up the supposedly exciting and suspenseful conflict between the factionless and the Allegiant that has brewing in the background this whole time? Easy! Just have a nice Eaton family reunion where Evelyn magically just decides that the years she's spent neglecting her son and fighting for her own idea of justice is utterly useless because she's been transformed by *~The Power of Love~*. No need to rip apart all of Chicago like she's been planning to her whole life.
All she needs is her son."
^Of course, completely cliché.
Now let's talk about the biggest shocker:
Tris's death.
"Back in at the Department of Genetic Welfare, Caleb is picked for the suicide mission of breaking into the top-security vault to steal the memory-wiping serum. This is only fitting as Caleb is literally the only character who needs to be redeemed for his betrayal in Insurgent. I mean, the tagline of the book is "one choice can define you" so if Caleb doesn't own up to this moment he's basically going to be a selfish, heartless, coward for the rest of the story.
Oh wait. This book hasn't sufficiently [messed] up already so instead of using a perfectly good opportunity for a back-stabbing character to redeem themselves, it's just going to unnecessarily sacrifice the freaking main character because life is cruel and heartless [dang it]!"
^I love this review.
"From just a character perspective, it makes sense that Tris would sacrifice herself for the greater good. That's just what she, as a selflessly reckless person, would do. But considering that there was a perfectly good person involved in this ending that needed to be redeemed (*cough Caleb cough*) who didn't offer to sacrifice himself to save his sister, I'm questioning the true motive for why this ending was picked.
We already know that Tris is a character who's willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Did we learn any new information about her character when she decided to make this sacrifice? Wouldn't we have gained a better perspective of Caleb if he had made this choice instead? And most importantly, wouldn't sparing Tris's life allow the final conclusion of this trilogy to be more sound, less rushed, and less overshadowed by the her death?
The careless way her death is written and revealed suggests to me that this ending was stubbornly picked just so this series could end with a bang. The typical ending where all our heroes live happily ever after was quickly discarded lest it seem too cliche or too similar to other YA giants. Cue the forced emotional and dramatic ending where readers drown in a puddle of their feels as we're forced to read Four's tragic reaction to her death.
The last few chapters, including the epilogue, are incredibly rushed. Literally every single issue in the growing mountain of problems that accumulated over the course of this book are immediately solved without any further complications or commentary because deus ex machina."
^A. men.
Yup.
That review basically is what I had to say.
I cannot...this book was so bad.
I only liked the ending. It had some good quotes and I generally felt sad when Tris died and was truly dead, but come on, seriously?
Uriah dying was also jacked up.
~Amanda
^This quote is from Wikipedia.
And this quote is completely true.
The action in this book takes up about 10% of this book.
The other 95% consists of whining, anger, rifts in relationships, distrust, trying to trust, lying, trying not to lie, damaged genes, pure genes, stupid cliché experiments and tyrannical government, etc.
The other 5% is a good ending.
The only thing that saved this book for me was the last ~100 pages.
The first 400 pages SUCKED.
Absolutely horrible.
The writing is horrid. There is a mistake. The scenes with Tris and Tobias are crazy annoying and Tobias spends a butt-load of time describing his muscles.
Also, why I hate this book?
"[Veronica Roth's] maternal grandparents were concentration camp survivors, whose religious convictions pushed mother Barbara Ross away from religion. Veronica Roth learned about the Christian religion by attending a Christian Bible study during her high school years, and has stayed with it."
^Quote from Wikipedia.
I thought Veronica Roth was a Christian...
Divergent and Insurgent were completely clean and awesome and amazing.
Allegiant contains:
-indicated sex
-cussing
-jokes about sex
-GAYS
It's really disappointing. Really.
So, big whoop, Tobias really isn't Divergent.
Quote from another review on this book:
"As it turns out, the world has apparently been so full of [jerks] that the government decided to eliminate the genes in citizens that caused dishonestly, selfishness, cowardice, stupidity, and aggression. Unfortunately, this backfired and just created more [jerks] that were more [jerk]-y than before.
So how does a rational government fix this problem? Easy! Just construct gigantic city-sized behavioral experiments all across the country! Get volunteers who had their genes [messed] with to have their memories wiped and stick them into a city and force them to choose a faction. Eventually these people will reproduce enough times until they finally manage to have "genetically pure" (a.k.a. Divergent) babies that are free from messed up genes.
I mean, duh. That's, like, the most logical thing ever. Because its not like bad genes pass down bad genes or anything! Silly science!
In fact, this department is just so full of geniuses that they decided that instead of using the genetic engineering prowess they already had to modify the genes of the genetically damaged offspring, they were just gonna wait around for 8 generations until the problem just miraculously fixed itself."
^EXACTLY.
This whole plot is lame and stupid and cliché.
"Tris and Four's switching POVs only disorient the reader further because as the book continues, the characters voices lose their distinctions and start to sound more and more like each other. "
^AMEN.
Tris and Tobias sound THE SAME.
I seriously had such a hard time switching between their two POVs.
Now let's talk about Tobias.
"While Tris may have been tougher in this book than in Insurgent (which is literally the only redeeming quality I'm willing to give this book), Four's character gets a complete top-to-bottom deconstruction.
Gone is the tough, strong, [awesome guy] we got to know in the previous two books. Instead, Roth replaces Four with a bumbling emotional man-child who fails to make rational decisions and think straight. His judgment is often clouded by his own insecurities and growing fears. Before we knew Four as being a character who would never let his fears control him. In Allegiant, Four's fears have his neck in a leash and tug him in any which direction and he willing goes without even putting up a fight."
^This cannot be any more true.
Tobias turns into an arrogant, angry, bumbling idiot.
I loved him in Divergent. He started being stupid in Insurgent.
Now here.
I hate him.
Now let's talk about the ending.
"And how exactly does the book wrap up the supposedly exciting and suspenseful conflict between the factionless and the Allegiant that has brewing in the background this whole time? Easy! Just have a nice Eaton family reunion where Evelyn magically just decides that the years she's spent neglecting her son and fighting for her own idea of justice is utterly useless because she's been transformed by *~The Power of Love~*. No need to rip apart all of Chicago like she's been planning to her whole life.
All she needs is her son."
^Of course, completely cliché.
Now let's talk about the biggest shocker:
Tris's death.
"Back in at the Department of Genetic Welfare, Caleb is picked for the suicide mission of breaking into the top-security vault to steal the memory-wiping serum. This is only fitting as Caleb is literally the only character who needs to be redeemed for his betrayal in Insurgent. I mean, the tagline of the book is "one choice can define you" so if Caleb doesn't own up to this moment he's basically going to be a selfish, heartless, coward for the rest of the story.
Oh wait. This book hasn't sufficiently [messed] up already so instead of using a perfectly good opportunity for a back-stabbing character to redeem themselves, it's just going to unnecessarily sacrifice the freaking main character because life is cruel and heartless [dang it]!"
^I love this review.
"From just a character perspective, it makes sense that Tris would sacrifice herself for the greater good. That's just what she, as a selflessly reckless person, would do. But considering that there was a perfectly good person involved in this ending that needed to be redeemed (*cough Caleb cough*) who didn't offer to sacrifice himself to save his sister, I'm questioning the true motive for why this ending was picked.
We already know that Tris is a character who's willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Did we learn any new information about her character when she decided to make this sacrifice? Wouldn't we have gained a better perspective of Caleb if he had made this choice instead? And most importantly, wouldn't sparing Tris's life allow the final conclusion of this trilogy to be more sound, less rushed, and less overshadowed by the her death?
The careless way her death is written and revealed suggests to me that this ending was stubbornly picked just so this series could end with a bang. The typical ending where all our heroes live happily ever after was quickly discarded lest it seem too cliche or too similar to other YA giants. Cue the forced emotional and dramatic ending where readers drown in a puddle of their feels as we're forced to read Four's tragic reaction to her death.
The last few chapters, including the epilogue, are incredibly rushed. Literally every single issue in the growing mountain of problems that accumulated over the course of this book are immediately solved without any further complications or commentary because deus ex machina."
^A. men.
Yup.
That review basically is what I had to say.
I cannot...this book was so bad.
I only liked the ending. It had some good quotes and I generally felt sad when Tris died and was truly dead, but come on, seriously?
Uriah dying was also jacked up.
~Amanda
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