Review Detail

What I Liked:
-Tris’ character journey. I was one of the rare readers who liked Insurgent more than Divergent, but Tris annoyed me in BOTH books. For most of the Divergent trilogy, I have been invested in the story in spite of Tris, not because of her. In Allegiant, I feel she finally stepped her game up and started acting like the character I wanted from the beginning.

-We finally get some answers about the world of this futuristic Chicago. I have mixed feelings about this, actually. I feel like the world-building in Allegiant was stronger than in the first two–after all, since it’s the end of the series, we’re getting some of the answers, and I was quite satisfied with them throughout this book. However, honestly, now that I know the truth, I feel it sort of lowers my opinion of the first two books, which is unfortunate.

-Tris’ and Four’s relationship. So I was all behind their relationship in Divergent, but the way they both treated each other in Insurgent left quite a bit to be desired for two people supposedly so in love. In this book, at one point Tris actually says something to the effect of “You say you respect me, but then you hide information from me like I can’t be trusted.” I think she may have even used the phrase “You treat me like a child.” And my reaction was somewhere along the lines of “YOU GO GIRL!”

-The plot. Again, mixed feelings on this, but overall I’d say my reaction was more positive than negative. I did really like the story at the heart of this book quite a bit, even if I’m not sure it was as quite as strong as the previous book. I was never bored, instead wanting to race and find out more. Even when things weren’t “happening”, I was still interested in the back story and in the characters. I was invested in this series, and Allegiant never really let me down in that way. And overall, I enjoyed this book a LOT.

-The different rebellions and such. There was a LOT going on Allegiant, and as Tris’ world expands, so does the reader’s. I won’t lie–this got confusing at time. There’s two different places that have two different problems, and it’s sort of crazy to keep up with. However, I found it. . . realistic? Which is a weird word to use. But I don’t think everyone on one side would be such an united front, so it made sense. In situations like that in real life, there’s almost always fringe groups who want something else, etc.

-The ending. I have more spoilery thoughts on that, which I'll refrain from talking about, but I'll just say I thought it was quite fitting.

What I Didn’t Like:
-The Dual POV. Out of everything, this was the thing that really made me want to bang my head against my desk. Tris and Four sound exactly the same, and it bugged me to no end. It made it even more difficult because I read this on my Kindle, and frequently I would have to turn back to figure out whose head I was supposedly in. Dual POV is one of the things I tend to be extremely critical about, because not many authors do it well, and unfortunately, Roth was no exception. If you’re going to do the dual POV, they should not sound exactly the same.

-The minor characters. They were SO good in previous books but fell so flat in this one. I looked them all up at the start to remember who they were, and yet I was still able to forget from chapter to chapter. They didn’t feel like fully developed characters anymore, so much of the focus was on Tris and Four. And obviously, as the main characters, that SHOULD be the focus of the book, but the minor characters were just used whenever they were convenient for the plot’s sake.