[REVIEW] Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Published: October 2013
Age Group:  YA
Series: Divergent #3 [end] 

This review took me a long time to write, mainly because I have so much to say. In fact I'm almost certain that I've forgotten to say something, oh well.

I remember the first time I saw Divergent. I was looking for new YA books to borrow from the library and came upon it. the cover seemed intriguing and I put it on hold not knowing that I had put into motion an adventure of epic proportions and amazing stories filled with emotional readings and a sad goodbye. Divergent is one of my most treasured books. I would say it ranks in there with my Harry Potter collection and childhood stories. Definitely a book that I'll come to over and over again for a good read. It might be selfish of me to say that when this series picked up in hype and was getting worldwide attention, I felt joy for such a wonderful story being recognized but, also a sense of anger at the fact that I would have to share such a masterpiece. But clearly masterpieces are meant to be shared and not hidden away in a safe concealed at the back of your closet. I thank Veronica Roth for taking me, and everyone else who loves this series as much as I do, on this wonderful story. Now onto the [last] review of this trilogy: onward to Allegiant.

Allegiant picks up right where Insurgent left off. And (if anyone remembers) the ending of Insurgent was crazy, chaotic and cliffhanger-ish in my opinion so I'm really glad that the story started off right away and didn't leave us hanging.

Tris is a very complicated character. I'm not sure if she's written this way because of her Divergence, or because she's one of the protagonists but for Tris, her actions always have a deeper meaning. And sometimes I find myself disliking her, or for thinking that she's thinking too much into a situation, or is being too harsh or too blunt but that's the nature of this character and it's interesting to see her evolve from someone with so little freedom at the start of Divergent to finally getting a small grasp and glimpse of freedom after choosing Dauntless, to finding out life isn't as easy as it seems in Insurgent and, finally in Allegiant, she comes to the understanding of what the real world is and what needs to be done.

Four/Tobias on the other hand is seen to be a typical "guy figure". He's strong, muscular, doesn't see the deeper meaning behind things, and yet he's very emotional and internally very weak. I think Tobias also went on a journey of self discovery and found it in the end.

It's interesting to see the juxtaposition between these two seemingly different characters who have this one connection of striving for freedom and finding their selves in this world where you are deemed to a fate on the day of your 16th birthday.

The story took up slower then the other instalments. Think of it as the 'calm before the storm' and boy was there a storm to follow. I would say even starting in Insurgent, Four has become less confident and confused in his decisions. Allegiant only further proves that. His choices in the book are questionable and, in my opinion somewhat desperate. I feel that he's so desperate to seek his own freedom that he is willing to follow whoever seems to have the "right" vision. I believe Tris can see this too and she starts to distant herself. Tris isn't the bright and, shall we say, intelligent being in Allegiant. Well, she's still intelligent but I found her to be more dark and gloomy, sort of a foreshadow of upcoming events.

Allegiant's storyline wasn't as smooth as the other plotlines. For one, it seemed to be too convenient for certain events to occur or for some characters to act out. Secondly, some scenes were somewhat predictable due to the nature of the situation. I would assume due to the particular events or character choices that it became quite evident, at a very early point, what they were going to do. Divergent and Insurgent both had an element of surprise and often sudden climactic situations which I found missing in Allegiant.

I understand the difficulty of finishing a series, regardless of how popular it is although I can imagine the pressure to finish this book and make everyone happy, and that Veronica Roth was most likely under a lot of pressure to make this ending fitting. I've spoken to many people about their opinions of the ending and most of their opinions were similar to mine. I personally feel like the ending could have been much better. I'm not sure if I'm being biased or unjustified in saying this because I had such high expectations of this instalment that perhaps my expectations were much too high and that a good ending for me would only seem subpar compared to my expectations. Was the ending bad, no. I enjoyed the parts with the character's emotions. I felt the pain, the happiness, the shock and perhaps the sadness the most. I remember reading the second half of Allegiant at school during a 1 hour break. Everything just started building up at a really quick pace compared to the first half of the book, and I just remembered getting really emotional and holding back tears by the end of it. I must have looked like fool sniffing like I had an allergy with watering eyes. I'm not sure if I got lucky and had no one was around me when I was reading this or if I scared everyone away but luckily there were very few students around me at the time.

If my emotions were any indication, the ending was definitely impactful. Do I believe it could have been better - most definitely. Do I think it was absolutely horrible - no. It was an ok ending to such a phenomenal series. To be honest, I'm not sure how the series could end on as powerful note as the series start was but Veronica Roth did a good job wrapping everything up and ending the story on a climactic ending, albeit somewhat predictable, still amazing and definitely memorable.

I would highly implore you to read this series and I am very certain it will go down as one of those iconic dystopic lit YA fiction series', along with the Hunger Games.

(The initial amount rating was 4.5-5 cups of tea but after thinking about it for the last couple of weeks I've dropped the rating to 4 cups of tea.)

MEH on it's own. BUY as a series.

If you like this check these other tea loving books out:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The Selection by Kiera Cass (for the romantics out there)
• The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

[REVIEW] Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Hallowed by Cynthia Hand
Published: January 2012
Age Group: Young Adult
Series: Unearthly #2

Second time's the charm for me and this book! After re-reading Unearthly, [REVIEW HERE], I found myself absorbed in the series again and proceeded to start Hallowed from the beginning and give it another try. Honestly I'm not sure why I even stopped last time since I was already more than half way through the book but I did and completely forgot about it. And so I read it again and enjoyed it much more then the first time.

Once again it's the love triangle between Clara, Tucker and Christian. I feel like Cynthia Hand is giving each boy their deserved amount of pages because I found Hallowed to focus more on Christian than Tucker. I guess that's fair since Tucker got the most of Unearthly.

Also, once again, we have these visions that the characters have. Although I'm not really sure if they can even be called visions anymore...more like glimpses into the future. I'm slightly confused about the premise of this evolving idea because at first I was like "cool. nephilim children get visions when they're older that is basically their sole purpose of being on Earth. that's cool" and now it just doesn't seem like that. Before the visions came at certain specific moments when part of the vision was coming together. And now they just come sporadically and it's not really a purpose. Does that make sense? Cause if it doesn't don't worry, I'm kind of confused too...

Clara and the other nephilim adolescents get introduced to the angel world formerly in this book in the form of a camping trip. They get introduced to many more adult angels and get told a shocking secret (which I think is a spoiler and to keep this spoiler free I won't be saying anything. Go read the books!) The nephilim adolescents (i.e. Clara, Christian, Jeffrey and Angela) come together and create this lovely Angel's Club which I find to be completely useless when it comes to the story plot but I guess they had to get together somehow. Clara also gets a blackwing stalker (I wasn't that surprised) that kind of becomes her friend (Not really a friend but kind of...and a kind-of friend sounds better than stalker). Also did I mention that Christian and Clara are apparently (a big APPARENTLY) "soul mates"? Why you ask? Oh they just share this special bond and all these visions. That definitely makes people soul mates. Imagine someone said this to you: "Hey, not to scare you or anything but, I saw you in a vision and I get weird feelings around you. I think we're soul mates." Doesn't that sound strange? Oh well, soul mates are meant to be together. Right? I hope I'm right.

I found the story lacking in the development in any other character but Clara and Christian. There are just pivotal scenes in the story that came at a surprise for me, mainly because I didn't understand the character well enough to understand why they would say this or act like that. I understand the need for his love triangle to play out but it's getting a bit too much, and this is coming from someone who's a die hard romantic and LIVES for these angsty romances.

Overall the story wasn't that great. Did I hate it, no. Did I love it, no. Clara became much more annoying in this instalment and the story in general lost it's novelty and attraction that lead me to love Unearthly and rave about it. I don't think this lived up to my expectations (even the second time around) and I'm dreading reading the finale just because I don't want this series to end on a cliché note. I want the two characters that I like to get together. But knowing my luck it won't happen.

BUT even after everything I said, this was still a lovely read and I was very excited to know what happened to everyone after the fire and everyone's relationships. It was interesting to read the turmoil and somewhat internal conflicts between the few, but important,  characters in the story.

MEH

[REVIEW] Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgens

Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgens
Published: May 2012
Age Group: Young Adult
Series: The Sweet Trilogy #1

First I'll admit that I'm currently on the mend and needed to read something to keep me occupied. The cover for this story caught my attention and I decided to read it. I have no qualms with this story...nor do I have any utter love for this story. It's an okay story that I used to past the time, a classic 'meh' read.

The story follows the main character Anna and her, shall we say, rocky road to figuring out who she is and what her destiny is. She discovers she's a Neph, one born from a demon and a women but Anna's special, she's born from a demon and an angel (This should have been hint one already that she's the destined one meant for a bigger meaning and is meant to save the world yada yada).  Along the way she meets other Neph's, particularly one Kaiden Rowe, who is obviously her love interest if their first meeting wasn't a big enough clue. Now I don't want to get to in detail of what the story is about because there's a lot of background information into the hierarchy of these demons and what each Neph is expected to do. I'll just sum it up by saying Anna's lived a different life and it's this different life that allows her to be separate from the rest and put her towards the path of righteousness.

Now on to the story overall. I do love a good angsty romance story so I was really excited when this one seemed to be turning out to be a story like that. I'm not sure if Anna's best friend, Jay, was meant to be seen as a rival love interest or if I was blinded by my crush on Kaiden Rowe to not really pay attention but Jay honestly seemed like just a good friend.  His purpose in the story sort of diminished in my opinion because of his role but hey, every hot female lead needs at least one good guy friend.

The storyline was slightly generic. Introducing the one different character that can save the world, cliché cliché. I did like the inclusion of the Dukes of Hell, or more like the Seven Deadly Sins incarcerate since each one represents a Sin and act upon it, with some added Sins. That was interesting and added a new dynamic to the angel tale. But overall it was pretty bland and lacked much originality in my opinion. The story veered towards Anna's attempt at finding acceptance with some group, which I found to be quite interesting. The readers are taken on this journey of her own acceptance of who she is and who she belongs to. She doesn't fit in with the kids from her school (no duh she's a nephilim but that's probably the least of her worries) and when she finds people like her, she tries to fit in and find answers to all the mysteries in her life.

Some parts of the story seemed forced. I don't want to point any out in hopes of trying to make this review spoiler free (am I doing a good job at that?).They seemed to coincidental and seemed to happen at the most opportune moment. I hate when I read a book and get a feeling like that. To me that means the author didn't do a very good job in transitions if I'm left thinking that a certain event didn't really fit or was too perfect for that situation.

I guess this was just another story that I got sucked into because of the cover and the many reviews of people declaring their undying love to a Mr. Kaidan Rowe. Maybe I'm stuck in this funk because I'm waiting, desperately, for some romance novels to come out that I find myself attracted to any mention of a hot guy. Let that be a lesson, hot guys don't always make the story better, although they do help.

 3.5 - 4 cups of tea.

MEH