This weekend, I read the final volume in a trilogy I had been reading throughout the year. I had been prepared for the disappointing ending by the groundswell of online rage about this book—the ending was a bit of a surprise, and not a pleasant one—so my response was a bit of a muted one. But my friends at GoodeReader were not as subdued, and their review was downright scathing.

But in her review, Mercy Pilkington makes a point that I thought was an interesting one. Overlooking for a moment the content of this particular book itself, she remarks that the sheer time it takes traditionally publishing to get a book to come to market can work against it: “In the time I’ve waited since first falling in love with Tris and Four and rooting for the factions and factionless alike, I’ve found twenty other authors that I like better, and just as many story lines and compelling characters to keep me entertained.”

I have noted in my own past reviews that the digital content trend has made me profoundly less patient than I used to be, so I see where she is coming from on this. I have 200 ebooks on my Kobo right now waiting to be read, and 10 times that many in my Calibre library. Project Gutenberg, Smashwords and Humble Bundle can all download directly to my Dropbox folder. I will never run out of books. So, if I am reading something and it isn’t working for me, it’s a lot easier than it used to be to bail on it.

In fact, that’s why I pretty much stopped writing reviews in the first place. I used to think I was doing some kind of public service by pointing readers toward the good books and warning them away from the bad ones. But now? Well, warning someone away from a bad one means I have to read it too. And I am just not interested in doing that anymore. Life is too short to read bad books. And with so many good ones available to me with the tap of a button, why should I have to? If I don’t like it, delete and next!

I did persevere and finish Veronica Roth’s much-maligned Allegiant because it was a trilogy, I had read the other two already, and I wanted to see how it ended. But the reviews are all true. The writing isn’t stellar, the plot is a little ponderous, the non-gloomy moments are few and far between and the ending is…disappointing. If this had been book 1 on the series—or even book 2—I would have bailed and moved on.

Editor’s Note: Just in case you’d like to test this yourself: [easyazon-link asin=”B00BD99JMW” locale=”us”]Allegiant (Divergent Trilogy)[/easyazon-link]

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"I’m a journalist, a teacher and an e-book fiend. I work as a French teacher at a K-3 private school. I use drama, music, puppets, props and all manner of tech in my job, and I love it. I enjoy moving between all the classes and having a relationship with each child in the school. Kids are hilarious, and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. My current device of choice for reading is my Amazon Kindle Touch, but I have owned or used devices by Sony, Kobo, Aluratek and others. I also read on my tablet devices using the Kindle app, and I enjoy synching between them, so that I’m always up to date no matter where I am or what I have with me."

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