Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Series: Divergent #3
Published by Katherine Tegen Books on October 22nd, 2013
Pages: 526
Shelve It: Goodreads
The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered—fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.
But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.
To say that I was disappointed by Allegiant, the conclusion to the Divergent trilogy, would be a huge understatement. While this series was never one that blew me away, I did find it enjoyable, if problematic. With Allegiant, the plot holes are out in full force and the introduction of the dual PoV resulted in the loss of distinction between the characters and their voices. With the actual deconstruction of one main character, and a contrived ending that asked for an emotional reaction from its readers instead of allowing them to come to that conclusion organically, Allegiant is the unfortunate ending to an otherwise enjoyable series.
Having escaped the confines of the city, Tris and co find themselves at the Bureau, the place which was designed to oversee the Chicago experiment. After various, lengthy explanations about something called the Purity War, where those who had been genetically modified to have the genes that caused dishonesty, selfishness, cowardice, stupidity and aggression removed became more violent instead of less, the government of the United States decided to launch large-scale behavioural experiments where the genetically pure genes would be introduced to the genetically damaged, resulting in the repair of those genes through sexual reproduction over the course of several generations. What I couldn’t figure out was why the scientists responsible for gene manipulation were unable to use the genetic engineering prowess they already had to modify the genes of the genetically damaged offspring, instead of waiting for sexual reproduction to filter out those genes over a period of several generations. Since they introduced the genetically damaged genes, could they not also remove them? Or find a way to repair them? This wasn’t touched on, and quite frankly, it came across as a glaring oversight. [Read more…]