So, I'm trying to figure out how I feel about this book. I actually finished the whole series in one week. I honestly was thinking, "I'm not in the mood to read another dystopian YA" but yet, here I am.
First off, the book has alternating viewpoints, which is extremely annoying. Besides being a YA cliche, alternating viewpoints should at least ADD something to the story. At first I thought it was because both characters were going to go off and do separate stuff. But what's the point if both characters interact side by side and experience most everything together (and have almost the same voice)? Also, every other chapter is a bit much, Veronica. The switching POV constantly took me out of the story and was overall distracting. I hate to say this - but Twilight did a much better job at the alternating POV *cringe*.
There was also a LOT of infodumping and a lot of it got very heavy and hard to follow. Not enough to make me put the book down, but close. I agree with another reviewer that I would have rather had the characters slowly figure out this info on their own instead of just being told everything.
There are lots of other flaws in this book that numerous other reviewers pointed out, so no point in rehashing here. Honestly, a lot of that stuff wasn't nearly as distracting as the constant switching POV. Seriously, a basic editor should have caught that.
I read that a lot of people were spoiled on the ending, and I'm so glad that I was not. The ending came as a legitimate surprise. I was ready to give this book 2 stars for it's overall "Meh"-ness, but that ending really got to me - I'm not going to lie. I actually saw it coming a little bit too, except that I thought it was going to be [spoiler]Four, instead of Tris that dies [/spoiler]. I don't know if I agree with all the details of how the ending played out, but it is a bold move and definitely breaks the YA cliche. For that, I shall give it an extra star.
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