Allegiant (book review)

"One choice will define you"

Title: Allegiant 

Author: Veronica Roth

Genre: Young adult, Dystopian World

Rating: 4 stars 

Click here for my rating system...

Book 3 of the Divergent series: Click each title to read Book 1 & 2 reviews; Divergent Review & Insurgent review 

I am not being compensated or swayed for this review in anyway.  Well, that's a lie it is my love of books that sways me..

No copyright intended for photos, book quotes, etc. 

Amazing Description:

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?

Spoiler alert past this point, you have been warned!

Edith Prior

We finished off the second book with a shocking revelation, that there were people outside the walls and that divergents where meant to join them.  This revelation leads us into a whole new direction in the book.  Now, it isn't just the people around them, it is the people outside the walls we never knew existed. 

Trust has been an obstacle for Tris and Tobias, but in the beginning of this book as she is locked up for going against the factionless he ask her to trust him.

"I'm trying to trust him.  But every part of me, every fiber and every nerve, is straining toward freedom, not just from this cell but from the prison of the city and beyond it.

    I need to see what's outside the fence."

We all know when Tris sets her mind to something it becomes so and so we know that the group will go outside the wall, but we have no idea what they will find.   

One thing that was hard for me to adjust to and honestly is part of the reason it didn't get five stars is that Roth switches POV's on us during the book.  Almost every chapter she switches from Tobias to Tris and back and forth.  Even though it is necessary for us to see the full picture I find it frustrating.  

The two love birds don't fully trust each other and even once they exit the city truths they are told about GD and GP's put another difference between them.  It isn't a big deal to Tris, but to Tobias it validates everything his abusive father told him as a child.  In so many ways Tobias is a child trying to fight his way out from under his parents influence.  

Our favorite characters do not escape war and harm once outside the city, they have just found a new war.  The war between GD and GP's.  Tobias and Tris both want to do different things with the truth (they honestly act a little immature about it, blaming jealousy, showing their true age) and Tobias refuses to accept Tris' instincts which ends with one of their close friends being harmed and never able to recover.  Adding more guilt to Tobias and that weight bares down on him.  His decision and the repercussions nearly tear him and Tris apart for good.  

"Just as I have insisted on his worth, he has always insisted on my strength, insisted that my capacity is grater than I believe.  And I know, without being told, that's what love does, when it's right--it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be.

This is right."

They of course find their way back to each other, true love can survive anything...

This book wasn't my favorite and I wonder if it was Roth's plan on how the series would go all along or if she forced it.  I don't know and some may feel differently, but she really didn't truly pull me in until...

He(Caleb) is a part of me, always will be, and I am a part of him, too. I don't belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent.  I don't belong to the Bureau or the experiment of the fringe.  I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group could.  

    I love my brother.  I love him, and he is quaking with terror at the thought of death.   

"Caleb," I say. "Give me the backpack."

She sacrifices herself, but not in the grief stricken way in the previous book.  This is the ultimate sacrifice, like the ones her parents made.  It is truly for the people she loves and she truly believes she will survive it and I believe it too.

"If I don't survive," I say, "tell Tobias I didn't want to leave him."

Her last words to her brother, to the love of her life. 

All books end with a happy ending right?

Well, not this one and I am okay with that. She does survive the death serum, but she doesn't survive the evil of people. Actually, I think it is the biggest risk that Roth took and I think it was perfect because even the Hero's don't live forever.  It was the ultimate sacrifice and I honestly think Roth couldn't have closed up the series better.  It wasn't the BS happily ever after that you usually get, it was raw and real and I respect it.  

"There are so many ways to be brave in this world.  Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else.  Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.

But sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.  

That is the sort of bravery I must have now" -Tobias

I realize this isn't a really great review, but I just wasn't feeling it..  I was really only passionate about the ending, sadly, but it was still a wonderful series and I honestly will read them again some day.