Coming hot on the heels of an exploding YA market and, most notably, Suzanne Collins’ magnificently violent “The Hunger Games” trilogy, “Divergent” presents a different twist on the dystopian concept: In the city, people are divided into five factions based on their attributes: Erudite (intelligent); Candor (honest); Abnegation (selfless); Amity (friendly); and Dauntless (brave).
The factions have each a unique faction, and once a person turns 16, he or she chooses a faction of their own regardless of the faction they’re born into in what is called the Choosing Ceremony (a kind of twisted version of J.K. Rowling’s Sorting Hat in the “Harry Potter” books).
But not everyone fits into those factions, and they are shunned and feared.
Beatrice “Tris” Prior discovers she is one of these anomalies, called Divergents, and in Dauntless, she meets Tobias (better known as Four). Together, they find out the world isn’t what it seems.
When one faction makes a move for power, their world is thrown into chaos and danger.
Roth continues the dark turn in 2012’s “Insurgent,” when even more secrets are unearthed. At the end of that book, Tris and Tobias are shaken by game-changing revelations that go to the core of their existence.
Original purpose
Yet all that is undone by “Allegiant,” where the protagonists and their friends are met by one twist after another in a complex series of narrative funhouse mirrors where the prevailing order is upset by seemingly endless revolutions.
The factionless battle the Allegiant, defined by one character this way: “The Allegiant are defined by the desire to return to our original purpose in the city.”
In another part, the Genetically Pure are pitted against the Genetically Damaged and Tobias says: “I wanted to believe they were wrong about me, that I was not limited by my genes, that I was no more damaged than any other person.”
Tris is effectively the Katniss Everdeen of the Divergent world, and she is thrust into a leadership position that will test her resolve.
Not only must she and Tobias try to stay together, but she must make the most difficult choices as another observes their ruined home from afar: “We can pretend that we don’t belong there anymore, while we’re living in relative safety in this place, but we do. We always will.”
Surprising climax
“Allegiant” breaks away from the easy “Hunger Games” comparisons with this even bleaker ending, bolstered by an ascendant body count and a very surprising dramatic climax.
One has to hand it to Roth: She does things in “Allegiant” that takes guts as an author. No matter how you may feel about what she ultimately decides to do with the characters, there’s no doubting that she takes serious narrative risks.
It’s not perfect: The twists become almost predictable due to their frequency. The numerous love scenes are strangely presented. And the book mawkishly goes on too long after its denouement. But the action and the urgency of it all push “Allegiant” mercilessly on.
This book is particularly important because “Divergent” is getting its much-anticipated feature film adaptation in 2014. Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine Tris looking like anyone else after seeing images of Shailene Woodley in the role. The movie presents a considerable expansion of Roth’s divided universe.
Fortunately, “Allegiant” presents a definitive and gripping ending to the trilogy with Veronica Roth proving that, in this science-fiction world or in our own, real heroism stands out when all you hold dear is on the line.
In the vicious end, “Allegiant” proves that being dauntless may not be as important as being true to one’s self.
Available in paperback at National Book Store.