Chapter 3c: A Trilogy

Allegiant, Veronica Roth

I did it! I finished this series! After forcing myself to get through the second installment, I was kind of dreading this one. Turns out, the finale was better.

Anyone who has read the series this far would be brain-dead to not suspect nefarious plots outside the fence. Fortunately, we aren't subjected to repeated shock-takes from our ragtag group of characters. They basically get the news, make their decisions, and act. No wishy-washy sparkly vampires here. And I gotta say, I really appreciate that Roth does not waste a lot of time rehashing what has already happened. A reader invested in a series does not need to spend chapter after chapter catching up on what they already know. But I have an admittedly spotty memory, so it took me a few passages to remember who a few of the newer operators were. No biggie. I can catch up.

So after suffering through the I-want-to-dies of Insurgent, we now have I-want-to-survive-and-kickass Tris. She's realizing that good and bad are not as black-and-white as the factions led her to believe. She's also realizing that she has her own moral compass and she plans to act on it. This is the hero that I enjoyed in the first book

The plot of the final story is fairly formulaic for this genre. Outsiders are doing evil things to unsuspecting victims. Experiments take place. Institutional racism prejudice, class warfare, government overreach, blah, blah, blah. Not new themes, but ones that clearly still are worthy of discussion. I'm not going to write off this series just because it doesn't bring anything new to the conversation. In fact, I value that it continues bringing these subjects up. Silence as consent and all that jazz.

Overall I liked reading Allegiant. It was fast, easy, and kept me focused. Tris is faced with a major decision and her choice is foreseeable, but also reasonable. Roth could have ended it in a variety of ways that may have left a more warm, fuzzy feeling, but this is the right ending for the story.

Now the nitpicking- As much as I hated being in Tris' mind for all of Insurgent, hopping between her and Tobias every chapter was annoying. I'm sure this was a difficult editorial decision given the actual plot, but I'm not sure it was the right one. I feel like a third person narrator could have done as well without the jarring transition from character to character. The addition of Tobias' voice is already incongruent with the previous books and it doesn't really add anything we couldn't get through other means. This is by far my biggest gripe with the book. Not bad for a wildly popular YA trilogy finale.

I've been coming around to the fact that a book doesn't have to be literary or highbrow or even wonderfully written to be valuable. If I can justify watching trashy television for the sake of entertainment, then I can apply the same to books. I'm going to make a pointed effort to be open to books I normally would ignore. If I get lost in a story for a few hours, it's worth it.

Happy reading, friends.