Allegiant Review

What I LOVED:

This whole trilogy explored what it means to be strong or brave, and what humanity, or what it means to be human, is. There were many great monologues about these topics, and great symbolic events that demonstrates them.

Tris’ character. The changes she goes through are incredible. I love that she has so many levels to her personality and her development as a person.

Tobias’ and Tris’ relationship. I love that we see a strong couple, a power couple who build each other up in every way.

Christina. I remember in Divergent I didn’t like her much. In this installment though, I adore her!

The ending. SPOILERS! Despite how much I hate that they will not have children and Tris would not live to see the world she helped reconstruct, and Tobias is once again alone, Roth was right, this is the ending. It wouldn’t do Tris justice any other way. It also gave Tobias a chance at a new life, and to become the Tobias he wants to be, brave and selfless and intelligent and honest and kind. Also, it goes with the theme of bravery and survival. It is brave to go on without the people you love, and it is hard. Also, it would be weak, too easy to give up just because someone, even someone as important as your first love, dies before you do or without you.

I am relieved though at the same time disappointed that Roth didn’t go for the stereotypical or obvious; those events that despite how overused they are, the reader loves them every time. Though I find it unfair (SPOILERS) Tris died when Peter didn’t, I’m also glad Roth didn’t have him give his life for her and profess his regret at being such a horrible person and hopes he will be forgiven. I am equally disappointed, but relieved, Tobias did not die with her. I am sad because I feel his grief, I can empathize with his loss and how lonesome and difficult it must be, but at the same time I’m glad at least one of them gets to see the fruits of their labors and sacrifices.

Overall, I love this book and though it took me a second to realize everything that made me angry was for good reason, I have no complaints.

5/5

Insurgent

The first time I read this, I was reading to throw the book until the last two pages. Seriously, two pages and then I was appeased. Veronica Roth… you….

Girl… I almost had a freaking heart attack.

So,

What I Loved!

The beginning with all of the cutesy and agreeing just made my heart melt!

The action, as always was well described, very detailed and easy to follow, I also loved the fact that (SPOILER) Tris struggled with guns after Will.

(SPOILER) Their time with the Candor. It was irritating (but that was the point I’m fairly sure) and the (SPOILER) truth serum was fantastic! That was probably one of my favorite parts.

Tris never backs down from what she believes in. She risks her relationship with Tobias (a difficult decision because…

look at him! :D)

But no seriously, I love Tobias and Tris as characters and as a couple. They would work well together if they would get over their stubbornness, which maybe they will do in Allegiant?

The science behind Divergence was pretty cool. And the debate between is personality wholly anatomical/can our behavior be determined based on the makeup of our brains?… Interesting…

What I HATED!

That it followed my Archetypal Bitch’s journey. Tris is so wonderfully different I was really hoping she and Tobias would skip the secrets/protecting each other/sneaking around each other phase of my archetype theory… but alas. (SPOILER) they argue through the whole goddamned thing! Can we have no happiness? Some of the arguments were ridiculously stupid and others I felt were definitely necessary. 

The fact that Roth waited until the VERY fucking end to let them make nice. Well… that was her style and her decision but as a reader UUUUGHHH!!!!

The scene (SPOILER) where Tris has to go through a simulation to get to Jeanine’s office… Why not just kill an intruder? Why allow them to go through a simulation to get there? Is she arrogant enough to believe that whether a person is Divergent or not that they will not survive? That to me is “Illogical” to use the term the Erudite love so much. It doesn’t make sense to me, I think it’d make more sense for her to either be shot, poisoned, driven mad, or for the office to be unguarded or maybe just guarded by the Dauntless drones. I understand the emotional impact of the simulation to me it’s just… “Illogical.”

Overall I tore through this book in a matter of 3 days and now I’m dying for the third and final installment! 

<3 The Reviewer

Divergent

A girl in a world where the population is divided into five groups, the kind, the selfless, the brave, the wise, and the honest. For some reason, you may only belong to one faction and each faction believes their way is the right way (welcome to political statements, religious values, and basically any controversial topic in the modern world.) This girl, Beatrice, chooses the exact opposite faction from her own and is thrust into an environment where she must go against her own nature to fit in, or become a nobody, factionless.

What I Liked: 

Tobias and Tris. I think they are so sweet together and I just… argh I can’t even! 

The action was all beautifully written. I could see it all clearly, but it wasn’t so broken down that it lost the flow and looked like it was going through freezeframe—which kind of tends to happen in YA action scenes. Some of these sequences actually made my heart pound.

Thank God some YA author grows the balls to use the “s” word! I hate it when YA authors beat around the bush and call it something else or don’t say anything at all, just have their characters blush madly (kind of like how I’m doing right now.) I’ll say it nice and loud…

SEX!!!

Although… It kind of felt like…

The way it ends. Very well written and super intense… Not to mention super sweet!

The many sides of Tobias and Tris. They, as well as Tris’ mother and Jeanine were the only truly believable characters because their natures were complex. Everyone else fit into the mold of their faction, whereas the characters listed above were not afraid to reach outside the box and really think critically and differently (SPOILERRRRR!!!!) And I suppose that’s part of the whole Divergence thing with the three former in the list.

The conflict. Not horribly new, the conflict was of someone doing bad things with good intentions in mind. She didn’t want genocide (at least the good in me is trying to believe she doesn’t and I don’t believe she wanted that ultimately (hopefully you guys know who I am talking about)) she wanted a more equal government.

What I Didn’t Like: 

The climax came very suddenly. Like, there was calm, and then all of the sudden there is THE rising action, the one that made me go, whoa something big is going to happen! Maybe the abruptness was the point, but I am not a fan since the rest of the novel was paced so well and then it feels like she didn’t know what else to write between what had happened before and the rising action to the climax.

The characters were a bit too cliche. The Abnegation were incapable of being selfish, the Candor can absolutely never lie, and the Dauntless are always daredeviling/being brutes, and amity people are incapable of being mean. Then from that Peter never varied in his character. He was always Draco Malfoy and his friends were always Pansy Parkinson and Blaze/Crabbe/Goyle.

I still do not really understand the purpose/point of the factions. Why they formed, why all of the personalities must be the exact same. Even with the houses in Harry Potter they all still had completely different personalities (Slytherin being the only exception, of course.)

Overall, I enjoyed the bok though I hope Insurgent will clear some questions up about the factions, the history of the factions, and of course for some blushing madly-ness from Tris and Tobias.

Divergent movie review

Finally got to see this last night! It was great, don’t get me wrong. I do have lots of praises… but some criticism too.

What I Liked:

First off, I must say I was very very impressed by Shailene Woodley’s performance! I think this girl was made for action movies (despite her use of stunt-double, which isn’t a big deal). In all of her projects I have never seen her actually act… well! They rest of the cast was spot. on! I loved everyone! Especially Ms. Kate Winslet. Oh my god Kate Winslet as Jeanine was perfection!

I loved how they made it look. Everything was a lot different than I visualized it in my head but it was a good different because it looked great!

It was easy to follow. My girlfriend was the one that took me out to see it and she has not yet read the book (she’s not a romance fan like I am!) and this was one of the first YA-to-movie movies where she wasn’t leaning over to me asking what was going on. Which told me how written the screenplay was.

What I disliked:

They added quite a bit, mostly to make Daunless even more scary than they really are but also moved some events around, or intensified them for the movie, nbd really.

(SPOILERS!!!!!) I was very disappointed with how they did the ending. Everything, including the changes, I was okay with until Tobias was taken into custody. Then they changed EVERYTHING!!! I won’t go too into detail but lets just say I MUCH prefer how Veronica Roth wrote it. I’m sure lots of people like the way it was done in the movie, whether fans of the books or not, but I personally prefer the original way because it is more significant to relationships and actually the plotline of the sequel.

They made the plot pretty easy to follow, but even for me it was hard to keep characters separated. Peter was pretty easy for me to distinguish because I’ve read the books, but my girlfriend kept confusing Al, Peter, and Will because they all three had dark hair and eyes, light skin and similar face shape, for that reason (SPOILER) Al nor Will’s death were quite so significant to her; which makes me sad because both were very emotional for me while reading.

Overall, I liked the movie and will probably rewatch it when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray, but I wish they would have stuck with the ending as they had stuck with it throughout the movie. No matter what, I highly encourage Divergent fans to see it!

<3 The Reviewer

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