Allegiant, Day 3

Today's post is going to be uncommonly short (in theory, anyway; sometimes I end up writing way more than I think I'm going to) for two reasons. Reason one is that my next post will be written about the end of the series, and based on reports from trustworthy sources concerning the traumatic nature of the conclusion, I'm assuming I'll have tons to say, making up for a lack of insight and ranting in this post. Reason two is that today's reading was even more dull than yesterday's.


In the 191 pages I read today, there were three scenes that could be classified as action scenes. The first was reasonably intense. The second was very short and basically pointless. The third was, in addition to being really short, only observed from a distance and not participated in by either of our narrators.


And speaking of our narrators, remember how in one of my Insurgent reviews I complained about the frequency of their arguing? Well, at the beginning of Allegiant they had a long, heartfelt conversation in which they apparently worked through their myriad issues, leaving me with high hopes that the rest of the series would be focused on more important matters than relationship drama. Which were fulfilled. They were fulfilled, that is, until Four did something unspeakably stupid which resulted in 70 more pages of Tris being mad and them arguing and me almost wishing there was a love triangle because these two seem so wrong for each other.


Almost.  


Don't worry, they're back together now. They forgave each other, and as they hugged, Tris thought to herself, "I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me."


Sounds healthy. (Note my sarcasm.)


In other news, my favorite character from Insurgent who hasn't really been in Allegiant much because Veronica Roth doesn't like me was critically injured and is now slowly dying, and I was right to assume that absolutely everybody in the scientific compound is untrustworthy, deceptive, and if not intentionally evil, at least evil due to ignorance. And how was this information revealed? Through pages and pages and pages of expository conversations.


Ufta.  


Well, there is one scientist named Matthew who seems nice and is trying to help the Chicagoans overthrow the compound. Therefore I trust him least of all. I know how this works now. I will not be fooled again!


Actually, I have one more observation about that. Plot twists cease to be powerful if readers are slinking cautiously through books, wracked by paranoia and reluctant to count on anything because of past reading experiences. I'm also in the middle of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and today while reading that I came across a plot twist that doesn't really even qualify as a plot twist that shocked me way more than any of the surprises in Divergent or Across the Universe or The Hunger Games. I was so startled I expressed my surprise verbally reading Great Expectations, which is way more than can be said for any of the YA series I've read. Why? Because I've learned to always expect the unexpected reading teen lit, and so I've come to the point in it where nothing is unexpected and therefore there is no anticipation or suspense.


To conclude, I was bored today. I was really bored. And frustrated. And irritated. If the conclusion of this series is truly as overwhelmingly traumatic as everyone's been hinting it is, I think that something majorly earth-shattering is going to have to go down in the next 50 pages or so.


But I guess I'll see tomorrow.


Until then, I remain,


~Pearl Clayton