You know those books Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant by Veronica Roth? Yeah? Okay, well if you're a big fan of that series and you haven't read Allegiant (the final book) yet, then this is a major spoiler and I suggest you make a major decision in your head before you read any further. Alright. Let's begin.
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When I first picked up Allegiant, I was so excited. I will eagerly tell you the Divergent and Insurgent are two of the best books of a trilogy that I've read since Hunger Games. The first one was so, so good. I can't even describe to you unless you already know. It was thrilling and jam packed with so much interesting stuff and character detail and depth but it wasn't like the stupid things you read every day with the same 'ol same 'ol Teenage/ Young Adult fiction plot. It had real feeling and meaning, therefore making it all the more real. The second book was true to the second and plowed on just as strong as ever. My confidence in Veronica Roth was sky high. I just knew she was a one in a million author. I knew she was amazing and could do no wrong.
Then I picked up Allegiant. I'm not going to lie, I was rather confused. It had been almost year maybe since I'd read Insurgent and I didn't own it nor had I thought to read it in advance so as to remember everything. I guess I just assumed it would all click into place once I started up again. Well . . . I couldn't remember who anyone was. All I could remember was Tris and Tobia's relationship. (although, I'll tell you, I liked it better when Tris referred to him as Four. I felt like Tobias wasn't the type of guy who was swimming in his past, therefore he wasn't Tobias anymore. You don't see Tobias calling Tris "Beatrice". And when you hear that name for her it feels wrong, doesn't it? Exactly.) I had trouble remembering what had happened in the second book a lot, and well, Allegiant didn't pick up the pace or help me to remember.
It didn't have the same vibe. You know what I mean by vibe? Writers have different kinds of vibes. I guess you can call them writing styles, but they can be even more specific than that. Different series and books and stories all have different vibes depending on point of view, writer's personality, and character's personality. Book one and two both had the same vibe, and man, that vibe was jammin'. Book three was not so jammin'. The point of view switched from Tobias to Tris and I was like . . . Uh, no. You never did this before, you can't do this now. Like many others have said, Veronica Roth was unable to create a personal persona for Tobias that was unlike Tris. Her own personal mind was too ingrained in her writing and so Tris and Tobias melded into one. Sometimes I'd get confused if I had skipped over the beginning name of the chapter, like: Wait, which one is it now? Now, it's never bad to integrate your own personality into your character, it's just that you can never write any other book in first point of view ever again. Because you know why? It'll be the same. exact. thing. Sometimes that's okay, but it's NEVER okay if you're writing from multiple points of view in one book.
All the bad things that were happening didn't seem believable. That Edith Prior video at the end of Insurgent? Pretty stinking powerful cliff hanger, right? Okay, so in Allegiant Jeanine is dead, right? It doesn't feel like it means anything. Everything she did is referred to casually like it wasn't really some catastrophic thing that happened like, um, a week ago. Well Tobias's mother, Evelyn, is this crazy evil dictator who lies to everyone and can't be trusted. Yadda Yadda. Basically she just reminds me of Jeanine. I think she may be her reincarnation. Well, guess what? There's another rebel group called the Allegiant and they want the factions back. Well you know what the main characters do? They leave the city just like the video said they should. Sounds like this book is moving is a good direction, yes? No.
In like, no time, like, two seconds, they find a compound with other people in it. Oh, yay. That was fun kids. Let's all pack up and go home now. Just kidding, they don't do that. Although, they may as well have. What they really do is get told that Divergence is not really a thing. You see, eh hem, like, a hundred years ago some idiot thought it'd be smart to try and fix the genes that make us bad people so that we would be good people. Well that backfired so now we're all evil. Woop-dee-doo. The government put us in enclosed cities so that we would have babies and get cleaner genes, or something and the compound would regulate the experiments. Like, whatever. Okay. So, then Divergence really means you are genetically pure because, I don't know, somehow through generations of breeding you've filtered out all the bad? Yay for you! You have a spleen! HOW DUMB IS THAT? Divergent is the freaking name of the first book. THE FREAKING NAME AND IT DOESN'T EVEN MEAN WHAT WE THOUGHT IT DID? But wait, it get's better.
Everyone just goes along with this dumb genetic thing, right? All these Dauntless trust these people they don't even know. And you know what? Tris has pure genes and Tobias has damaged ones. Oh, oh joy, oh great. So then he trusts this other chick who has absolutely NO character development, Nita. She tells him that the genetically pure and genetically damaged thing is not true and that we're all just people making choice on our own. WELL CRAP NOW DIVERGENCE DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. MY LIFE DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. Anyway, it turns out she's a psychopath and lied to him and she blows up the compound. Oh, but he didn't know she was going to do something that bad. But he his friend Uriah gets killed and there's a riff between him and Tris because he was a part of the movement. She's sooooo mad at him, the little brat. Then they make up and make out. Then the compound thinks they need to wipe the minds of everyone in Chicago because it's going so bad. WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DO THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK. THEN YOU WOULDN'T HAVE WASTED MY TIME. Well Tris and Tobias can't have that. "I know," says Tris, "let's just wipe everyone's minds in the compound so they won't do it to everyone in the city!" You selfish hypocrite! Where are your Abnegation values anyway? Well, then they tell her brother that he should set off the mind erasing mist because he's such a traitor and everything, and whoever does it will be exposed to this death serum that no one, not even Divergent are immune to. (I really think Tris is the worse person because she wasn't being very Christian-like despite her references to her parents believing in God and wanting to stay true to what her parents taught her) Well, in a very heroic like fashion, she takes the place of her brother and then she survives the death mist. And then she gets shot. And she dies. And no, she doesn't come back to life.
And then everyone in the compound can't remember anything and everyone in Chicago can and Tobias is depressed and angry and I am depressed and angry but now I think I hate everyone.
Allegiant made that whole book series worth nothing. NOTHING! I hate that book so much. What was the point of me reading it? Of me falling in love with it? What was the point of Tris and Tobias? What did Tris die for? Nothing! I feel like her death could have been meaningful. I would have let Veronica Roth get away with it if there had been just cause to kill her off. It was so stupid! It was fluff. It was ALL FLUFF. VERONICA ROTH HAS WRONGED ME! Stupid trilogies and stupid young adult fiction has wronged me. I don't think I'm going to read again for a very long time. Why is there no more quality in the world of literature, if it can even be called that?
I'm done with life. I'm going to live underground from now on. I hate all of you and everyone.
Oh, Maddie...
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