Young Adult Book Review: Allegiant

Title:  Allegiant
Author:  Veronica Roth
Publisher:  Katherine Tegen Books, 2013
Grades:  9 and up
545 pp.



Allegiant is the MUCH anticipated penultimate book in the Divergent trilogy.  If you haven't read Divergent and Insurgent, what the hell are you waiting for??  But seriously?  What?  Folks are saying it is on par with the Hunger Games obsession, and I'm inclined to agree with them.

Being the dystopian junkie that I am, I cannot wait to get my eyeballs on this book to find out how it ends.  And if you haven't read it yet, you might actually be in luck, because Roth's writing style doesn't really remind you what went on in the previous novels, so it's almost ideal to read them back to back to back.  There were numerous times in Insurgent (book 2) that I had to sit and think about what happened in Divergent.  It doesn't help that I read so many books with similar themes and sometimes it's hard to keep them straight.  :/  But perhaps Roth will be nice again and provide us with a "refresher" of the previous books via her blog.  Click here for Divergent refresher.
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Updated to add:
I got a slow start to this book. People everywhere were saying how disappointed they were with the ending. I saw many 1-2 star reviews on goodreads, and many of my friends stated "I'm not able to review this right now, still processing." gulp. These responses squelched my need to speed read the book, and I took my full three week checkout period to finish it. Luckily once I got to the halfway point, I didn't want to put it down. Without giving anything away, I'm pretty satisfied with how the series wrapped up. Get your hands on the series (or the final book) asap.

My rating: 4 stars.
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Summary of Divergent from goodreads (because I don't want to have any spoilers for those who HAVEN'T started from the beginning, only shame.  Lots and lots of shame.... jk):

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.