Representation: N/A
Trigger warnings: Military violence and war themes, explosions, physical assault and injury, self-sacrifice and death
Score: Five out of ten.
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What a disappointment. Again...

I wanted to read Allegiant to give Veronica Roth one last chance to redeem herself after Insurgent underwhelmed me. I enjoyed Divergent, so what happened, and how did she come to this point? I picked it up and glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing, but when I closed the final page, I didn't enjoy it.

It starts (more like finishes) with Tris still living in Chicago in the aftermath of the events that happened in Insurgent when she discovers something extraordinary. She comes across information that the world is not what she thinks it is. It's no longer a place divided by the Divergent, those with multiple traits, and the five factions without, like the Dauntless, instead, the Divergent are better off since the government considers them genetically pure while the faction members are genetically damaged. Really? That does not sound like genetics and more like a personality issue, which didn't improve the worldbuilding and instead made the narrative do a 180. The characters are hard to relate since they lack character development, the plot is not engaging enough and the pacing is slow in the first 450 pages due to the filler ones. Roth could've removed those to make Allegiant more engaging and ensure every page counts. Roth sends a message through Allegiant's implicit theme that having many traits is beneficial but other issues didn't make it clear and that was in the background. The conclusion is faster paced as another battle occurs, but Tris sacrifices herself in the middle of all that, but what for? I don't get it. That peters out Allegiant. ( )

I'm so upset about how it ends. Honestly I cried. It was a good ending but not how I wished it did. ( )

Just like Insurgent, I don't think this book is absolutely horrendous, but it's still pretty bad overall. It has so many problems it's hard to even remember them all. However, there were some parts that I thought were genuinely good scattered throughout this book. They are pretty few and far in between, but they are still there.

Everyone's already talked about how the world-building completely falls apart in this book, and I agree. The venture into the outside world actually makes the world feel smaller and less important than it already is. We learn practically nothing about what's happening outside the United States. Heck, we don't even learn much about what's going on in the United States either! All we learn is that a tiny section of the government (called the Bureau) is involved in solving genetic damage by placing people in various cities in the United States as experiments. That's it. Not only is this an extremely disappointing reveal due to how dumb and anticlimactic it is, but it makes the United States seem like it barely has any order to it all. To me, it always seemed like the people in the Bureau were just fucking around, enjoying life while the rest of the world suffers. They're not doing jack shit in the grand scheme of things, when you really think about it. They're just... there. Who's in charge of these idiots? What is this world, dude? It feels like it barely has any order to it. That's just how I personally feel about it. If you disagree, that's fine.

Another thing I dislike about this book (as well as the whole franchise in general) is the amount of characters introduced. Good lord. The amount of main/side characters who are at least somewhat important to the plot is ridiculous. I'm sorry, but you can't expect me to give two shits about even 50% of these guys when I know next to nothing about them. They keep getting introduced left and right, and they leave no impression on me. They're so unbelievably bland and uninteresting.

I also thought the resolution to the story was extremely underwhelming and not thorough in the slightest. Basically, Tris and the other protagonists find out that the Bureau is planning on resetting the experiments by wiping the people's memories clean in order to keep them in order. Because of that, the protagonists decide to reset EVERYONE'S memory in the Bureau apart from a couple guys who will teach them basic history and remove their prejudice against genetically damaged people. This brings me back to my point about how small this world is. If only a handful of people can control the knowledge of an entire government agency without the government noticing or without much rebellion, then this world ends up feeling even less exciting.

Also, the rebellion of the protagonists against the Bureau goes on WAY too smoothly. Like, these guys are sneaking around the Bureau, getting their hands on various tools, weapons, and serums without anyone noticing. Again, what the fuck is the Bureau doing? Why do they not have stricter security, especially knowing the fucked up propaganda they spew about a vast portion of the people working for them (the genetically damaged)?

As I mentioned earlier, there were some moments throughout this book that did make feel something, and I thought Tris's sacrifice in the end was a pretty good way for her character to go out, but none of that alleviates the emptiness I feel when I read this book. I don't get excited or enthralled by the world, the characters, the storyline, or the lore. It's just... meh. That's the best way I can really describe this whole series. It's not abysmally awful, but it doesn't really do anything for me. ( )

Loved it! One of the few series I have ever read where the second and third books are as good or even better than the first one. I think Allegiant, the third and final book in the series, was my favorite. This will definitely be a young adult book I recommend to my students. ( )

Conspiracy