Allegiant

kristin

3.0

Mar 10, 2026

I made an interesting discovery about where my heretofore love of the Divergent series originated from. It was not Veronica Roth's writing; it wasn't even the world she created. It was Tris. Tris' life and the strong narrative voice she spoke to us with was what I loved about the first two books. I have "read" all three books via the audio version and Emma Galvin's narration was so spot on. This was a teenage girl telling me personally what was happening to her as it happened. So the very moment that Tobias intruded (yes, I consider it an intrusion) into the book, my mouth took a downward turn. I was about halfway through the book when I realized what Roth was doing. I knew instinctively that she would kill Tris and I instinctively felt betrayed. Not because it was unrealistic or inappropriate to the narrative arc. It's because I had been tricked into following Tobias' story, not Tris'. Tris was just our Proxy into Tobias' world in the first two books, which was not the journey I thought I was on. Because here's the thing: Veronica Roth published quite a few short stories in Tobias' POV and I didn't read a single one of them. They didn't even remotely intrigue me. Because though I felt Tobias was a good match for Tris initially, I do not care about him beyond what he means to Tris. And honestly in the third book, it seemed like she had outgrown him. I would have simply liked for the two of them to part ways, letting Tris grow and become even greater. But that's not what happened. I don't want to be one of those weird fan girl types who gets genuinely angry at a book.... but right now I'm watching reruns of the Big Bang Theory trying to cheer myself up.