Allegiant
The final instalment of Veronica Roth's explosive Divergent trilogy has arrived. Told from two viewpoints, Allegiant follows Tris and Four and few friends they trust, as they come to terms with the information revealed at the end of Insurgent, that pulls the factions and the factionless further and further apart. Seeking a way out of their crumbling world, the group take a chance and go beyond the fence to discover if life outside the city is better. What they find is another society threatening to tear itself apart. Through Tris and Tobias' eyes, Allegiant closes the curtain on the broken dystopian society.
I really enjoyed the double viewpoint of this book. I loved Tris' viewpoint from the first two books but seeing things through Tobias' eyes at the same time gave the situations much more perspective and widened the setting. There could be two separate things going on at once and you'd understand them both first-hand, rather than later reading about a character relaying the information. Also, by adding in Tobias' viewpoint, Roth develops his character and highlights the stark differences between how Tris sees him, the decisions he makes and how he views himself. That, for me, was interesting to read. However, in places, the switching between viewpoints got a little hazy. The two narrative voices sounded too similar to the point where it was confusing to read. Other than that the double viewpoint worked extremely well.
The expansion of the Divergent world was another feature of the book that really made it stand out. Instead of perpetuating the same faction trope from the first two books, Tris and Tobias' world is made bigger, answering a lot of questions from the end of Insurgent, providing more information on what caused the faction system to be implemented in the first place, within dystopian Chicago. The way the society outside Chicago mirrors the warring system within was another aspect I really liked. The hypocrisy of it says a lot about society in general, not just within the books.
Once again, Tris becomes stronger as a character, making decisions that really show how far she has come from the girl who left Abnegation in Divergent. While I didn't always agree with her viewpoint or the path she took throughout the series, by the end of the story I thought she had made the right choice after all. I believe that Roth, though criticised by some fans, also made the right decision.
Allegiant is the perfect ending to the Divergent trilogy. It has just as much action as the other two books, as well as answers to a lot of the questions I had. Of the three books, I would have to say that this book is probably my favourite, simply because I liked the double viewpoint aspect and the widening of the characters' world. As for the ending, well, you'll just have to read it and make up your own mind. Was it the right decision? Would you have ended it the same way?
