Allegiant review
Mar. 15th, 2014 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI finished listening to the last in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth on Wednesday night, and was really surprised by it.
First of all, though, a note on the titles of the books. Divergent - fair enough, it fits with the story and the word has an important role to play. Insurgent - possibly reaching a bit to fit with the sound of the first one, and the conversation a couple of the characters have towards the end, specifically identifying themselves as insurgents is a bit forced. Allegiant - really? That's not even a word! And its use in the book makes very little sense at all.
Anyway, there's a lot of politics, societal structure, in-book history, and conflict in this book, more than I would generally expect from a young adult series. I'm not sure it all makes that much sense overall, but I applaud the complexity and the attempt at investigating social attitudes and values.
The structure of the book itself is also different to the other two - suddenly, we get Tobias as a co-narrator, with the chapters switching back and forth between his POV and that of Tris. It gave some variety, provided the opportunity to see events Tris wasn't involved in, and generally made the book more interesting. However, and here comes the major, major spoiler - its true purpose was so that the narrative could continue on after Tris died. That's right - the teenage girl protagonist of the trilogy gets killed saving the city - and stays dead. It really surprised me, especially considering the complex and intense relationship that had been developed between her and Tobias for the whole series. But it did kind of work - and the very end, when he goes zip-lining (despite a fear of heights) so he can scatter her ashes over the city is really lovely.
Now that I've finished the books, I'm not sure about going to see the film of the first one - it's a very violent series and the majority of the main characters die by the end, so I don't know if I want to invest in the film version, even though I'm intrigued about how it will be adapted. Maybe I'll let my friend Maisie go and see it first and let me know if it's worth it...
First of all, though, a note on the titles of the books. Divergent - fair enough, it fits with the story and the word has an important role to play. Insurgent - possibly reaching a bit to fit with the sound of the first one, and the conversation a couple of the characters have towards the end, specifically identifying themselves as insurgents is a bit forced. Allegiant - really? That's not even a word! And its use in the book makes very little sense at all.
Anyway, there's a lot of politics, societal structure, in-book history, and conflict in this book, more than I would generally expect from a young adult series. I'm not sure it all makes that much sense overall, but I applaud the complexity and the attempt at investigating social attitudes and values.
The structure of the book itself is also different to the other two - suddenly, we get Tobias as a co-narrator, with the chapters switching back and forth between his POV and that of Tris. It gave some variety, provided the opportunity to see events Tris wasn't involved in, and generally made the book more interesting. However, and here comes the major, major spoiler - its true purpose was so that the narrative could continue on after Tris died. That's right - the teenage girl protagonist of the trilogy gets killed saving the city - and stays dead. It really surprised me, especially considering the complex and intense relationship that had been developed between her and Tobias for the whole series. But it did kind of work - and the very end, when he goes zip-lining (despite a fear of heights) so he can scatter her ashes over the city is really lovely.
Now that I've finished the books, I'm not sure about going to see the film of the first one - it's a very violent series and the majority of the main characters die by the end, so I don't know if I want to invest in the film version, even though I'm intrigued about how it will be adapted. Maybe I'll let my friend Maisie go and see it first and let me know if it's worth it...
