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theanitaalvarez's reviews
1766 reviews
Allegiant by Veronica Roth
2.0
Despite my feelings after reading Insurgent, I decided to give the final installment a chance. Mostly, because I like knowing how the stories end. But this book disappointed me thoroughly and in so many levels, I almost feel Tris’ story should have ended in the previous one.
Let’s begin with the structure. If the two previous books were told only through Tris’ eyes, this one includes also Tobias/Four’s POV. On the one hand, it could have been a good tool, having another point of view here. But, after reading the ending, I cannot help asking if it wasn’t added just because of the ending (and I’m pretty sure that t also has to do with the fact that she didn’t have the whole trilogy planned from the beginning, but I won’t hold it against her). Tobias’ narration didn’t add anything to the story. ANYTHING. All that we got were his rhapsodies about how gorgeous and brave Tris was. After the hundredth time each of them mentioned how they couldn’t live without the other, I needed to throw up. Way too much corniness for me.
As if we didn’t have enough heroine worship in the other books.
The plot here was completely away from the one in previous books. Tris and her group of loyal followers manage to get over the fence and discover that what the video they found at the end of Insurgent said the truth: they are part of an experiment. The people living in the Fringe are in change of this experiment.
I’ll try to explain this experiment in a way it makes sense. The government believes that personality flaws (which are totally what is holding humanity from reaching an age of enlightment and peace) come from not being genetically perfect. Thus, they create people who are “genetically pure”, and therefore, good human beings. The next step is to create these city-sized experiments which will produce (magically, I gathered as I read) genetically pure human beings. World peace solved!
You’ve probably guessed it (as I did before): those who are divergent are genetically pure.
But it doesn’t make any sense. At all. Genetically pure people are pretty much as petty and unethical, as the people they dismiss as “impure”. So, how is that they justify their being in power? Nobody cares, they have a nazi-like stance and that’s enough for them to be evil and terrible. And how are they sure that this precise mutation is happening in the city? Don’t think too much about it, it doesn’t make any sense.
And this also means something that annoyed me to no end: Tris is genetically destined to be the savior. Not only she’s genetically pure, but her mother was also so. (Which raises the question of what about Caleb? Why she and not him?) The same reason why Ender was awesome is the reason why Tris is perfect. She's genetically pure!
And now we get to the other thing that set my teeth on edge: CHARACTER DERAILMENT (I totally need the caps here).
Do you remember Tobias, the brave, strong guy in Divergent and Insurgent? Yeah, he disappeared completely in this one. Instead, we get an obnoxious, insecure and boring character. Not only he spends half his parts saying how pretty and amazing Tris is, but also he complains about his insecurities. There’s a moment when he is told that he isn’t a real divergent. His reaction? He completely loses it!
Yes, apparently we’re to believe that this supposedly strong character based his entire personality in him being divergent.Oh, and adoring the ground Tris walks on.
Nope, I’m just not buying it.
And don’t get me started on Tris. People called her level-headed, nice and so on… But she has no problem accepting how awesome she is supposed to be because of her genes. She just gets on in the wagon.
Not until this people begin threatening her city and the people she loves does she question them. Wasn’t she supposed to be smart enough to be Erudite? By this point of the book “don’t think too much about this” had become my mantra for everything that didn’t make sense.
Let’s skip to the end, please. Beware, unmarked spoilers will appear here.
I know that there are lots of people who are enraged because they feel cheated that Roth has killed the protagonists. I’m more enraged with the reason why she killed her. For me, it felt like Tris’ death was there just for shock value.
That is, she died for basically nothing. Her death was there to point even more her Christ-figure status. Mind you, a female Christ-figure is something pretty original, but if Tris is intended to be one, she’s lacking the motive. Harry Potter had to die to defeat Voldemort, for example.
But, Tris died just because. She didn’t die in the effort to get the memory serum (she was killed after showing that she’s so awesome that can survive the death serum, which again supports my claim that her death was for shock value and little more), she didn’t die protecting anyone in particular (maybe Caleb, but I think if he had died would have been a better ending to his story arc), and her death didn’t change anything in the outcome of the situation (again, she had already released the serum, her dying doesn’t change anything). I’m sorry, but Tris died to shock everyone and little else.
Of course, in the end we get a lot of people mourning the amazing Tris’ death. And a little for Uriah, who also died after being in a comma (provoked by a bomb set by Four, and which main object was throwing our hero into a guilt trip). I felt worse for his death than for hers.
After all, the conclusion of this trilogy disappointed me. I expected a world in which not everything is set around the protagonist, and she has flaws that are not overcome in the first book, you know? The ending could’ve been very good, but the problem was in the plot as a whole. At points it weakened and I got pretty bored.
Let’s begin with the structure. If the two previous books were told only through Tris’ eyes, this one includes also Tobias/Four’s POV. On the one hand, it could have been a good tool, having another point of view here. But, after reading the ending, I cannot help asking if it wasn’t added just because of the ending (and I’m pretty sure that t also has to do with the fact that she didn’t have the whole trilogy planned from the beginning, but I won’t hold it against her). Tobias’ narration didn’t add anything to the story. ANYTHING. All that we got were his rhapsodies about how gorgeous and brave Tris was. After the hundredth time each of them mentioned how they couldn’t live without the other, I needed to throw up. Way too much corniness for me.
As if we didn’t have enough heroine worship in the other books.
The plot here was completely away from the one in previous books. Tris and her group of loyal followers manage to get over the fence and discover that what the video they found at the end of Insurgent said the truth: they are part of an experiment. The people living in the Fringe are in change of this experiment.
I’ll try to explain this experiment in a way it makes sense. The government believes that personality flaws (which are totally what is holding humanity from reaching an age of enlightment and peace) come from not being genetically perfect. Thus, they create people who are “genetically pure”, and therefore, good human beings. The next step is to create these city-sized experiments which will produce (magically, I gathered as I read) genetically pure human beings. World peace solved!
You’ve probably guessed it (as I did before): those who are divergent are genetically pure.
But it doesn’t make any sense. At all. Genetically pure people are pretty much as petty and unethical, as the people they dismiss as “impure”. So, how is that they justify their being in power? Nobody cares, they have a nazi-like stance and that’s enough for them to be evil and terrible. And how are they sure that this precise mutation is happening in the city? Don’t think too much about it, it doesn’t make any sense.
And this also means something that annoyed me to no end: Tris is genetically destined to be the savior. Not only she’s genetically pure, but her mother was also so. (Which raises the question of what about Caleb? Why she and not him?) The same reason why Ender was awesome is the reason why Tris is perfect. She's genetically pure!
And now we get to the other thing that set my teeth on edge: CHARACTER DERAILMENT (I totally need the caps here).
Do you remember Tobias, the brave, strong guy in Divergent and Insurgent? Yeah, he disappeared completely in this one. Instead, we get an obnoxious, insecure and boring character. Not only he spends half his parts saying how pretty and amazing Tris is, but also he complains about his insecurities. There’s a moment when he is told that he isn’t a real divergent. His reaction? He completely loses it!
Yes, apparently we’re to believe that this supposedly strong character based his entire personality in him being divergent.
Nope, I’m just not buying it.
And don’t get me started on Tris. People called her level-headed, nice and so on… But she has no problem accepting how awesome she is supposed to be because of her genes. She just gets on in the wagon.
Not until this people begin threatening her city and the people she loves does she question them. Wasn’t she supposed to be smart enough to be Erudite? By this point of the book “don’t think too much about this” had become my mantra for everything that didn’t make sense.
Let’s skip to the end, please. Beware, unmarked spoilers will appear here.
I know that there are lots of people who are enraged because they feel cheated that Roth has killed the protagonists. I’m more enraged with the reason why she killed her. For me, it felt like Tris’ death was there just for shock value.
That is, she died for basically nothing. Her death was there to point even more her Christ-figure status. Mind you, a female Christ-figure is something pretty original, but if Tris is intended to be one, she’s lacking the motive. Harry Potter had to die to defeat Voldemort, for example.
But, Tris died just because. She didn’t die in the effort to get the memory serum (she was killed after showing that she’s so awesome that can survive the death serum, which again supports my claim that her death was for shock value and little more), she didn’t die protecting anyone in particular (maybe Caleb, but I think if he had died would have been a better ending to his story arc), and her death didn’t change anything in the outcome of the situation (again, she had already released the serum, her dying doesn’t change anything). I’m sorry, but Tris died to shock everyone and little else.
Of course, in the end we get a lot of people mourning the amazing Tris’ death. And a little for Uriah, who also died after being in a comma (provoked by a bomb set by Four, and which main object was throwing our hero into a guilt trip). I felt worse for his death than for hers.
After all, the conclusion of this trilogy disappointed me. I expected a world in which not everything is set around the protagonist, and she has flaws that are not overcome in the first book, you know? The ending could’ve been very good, but the problem was in the plot as a whole. At points it weakened and I got pretty bored.