Monday, October 28, 2013

Allegiant (Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth


Like many of the reviews I've seen on Goodreads, I must say that I'm unsure exactly what to say, or how to even review this.  Also like at least one other review, I loved Divergent, Insurgent kind of was the usual middle book, not really great, but okay to get through to the next book.  And this one, good, just not how I would have liked it to have ended.  Big alert now, there is NO WAY, I can do this review without SPOILERS, so stop reading now if you don't want to know anything until you read it for yourself.  In fact, from here on out, I can't promise when a spoiler might show up, so before that, let me remind you to go enter my Fierce Reads Giveaway, and then you won't have to read any further!

SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!


So, here goes.  I really enjoyed getting out of the "Factionless" group where Four's mother was in charge.  For some reason, that was just never something I enjoyed in the 2nd book, so of course it makes sense it wouldn't be my favorite in this book.  But once they got out of their city, and headed to the place they were supposed to go, I really began to enjoy it.  But it turns out this experiment they were part of, well, the outside may not have been quite as bad off as the video they watched led them to believe.  While I enjoyed learning about this outside society.  I also feel, like I saw another review on Goodreads again, that maybe we got into one of those back story information overloads that happen sometimes in books.  While this book was basically the same number of pages as the 2nd book, I almost felt like it was shorter in a way.  I think it could totally have been longer, but, that being said, a lot happened in the book.  We had a lot of characters that we lost, or that got injured, and not always just disposable characters.  In fact, the ending of the book, was a HUGE death.  One that changes the whole world.  Someone we began with, we don't get to finish with.  But it's okay.  It was a realistic ending.  The person that saved everyone with their sacrifice, it only made sense that they did that.  But it was so sad.  When it happened, I immediately knew what all the angry reviews I'd seen but hadn't read were about.  I wasn't angry though, just really sad.  I was at a point when I had to stop to go do something else, this was about page 500, and I was glad.  I wasn't sure how I was going to get through the rest of the book.  Whether the ending worked or not, it wasn't a happy one.  I did like how the reason the whole experiments had begun was because of genetically "damaged" people and it turns out the "Divergent" people were what they had been looking for to come out of this experiment.  And it wasn't just Chicago, it was many other cities.  The first city set up didn't even start with a faction setting, and that experiment basically was a horrible failure.  I enjoyed the genetics talk that there was.  And the dystopian society, that Tris and Four and all of the people we knew not only left, but found outside their city.  I also want to comment on the dual point of view, both Tris and Four.  I enjoyed getting the story from Four's point of view.  In fact, it really kind of helped.  Because there were times that if we'd only  had Tris's point of view, you'd probably not have been able to forgive Four for not listening to what Tris thought they should do.  
Really, a good story overall.  A good ending, or realistic ending, not the kind I'd probably read again.  I know a lot of people hated the last book of the Twilight series, and said they wouldn't have ended it that way, but I always argued with them, and said it was the author's story, it ended the way she saw it.  And I actually liked that last book, and I can read it again and again.  This book, while I will argue again with people that it ended the way the author wanted it to, unfortunately it is not a feel good, read over and over story.  But I am excited to see the movies, especially Divergent, so I'll be revisiting the end again at some point, at the theater at least.
Now, if you made it all this way, and you haven't gone and entered my Fierce Reads Giveaway yet, go do it NOW!!