The Atlas Paradox

DNF at 50%
i made it a mission to get to at least half way before DNFing and by god i did it and i'm proud of my strength it took me to get there. I am not strong enough to put myself through the rest of this book though so i'm not so perfect after all.

I never DNF but being tested for cancer this past two weeks and being told to brace for bad news and also getting surgery.. yeah it showed me that life is too short for books that rely on a overdone aesthetic to get by. I won't be DNFing many books because i like the finish books but i will sprinkle a lil DNFs here and there for the worst of the worst :)

thanks to my sister for buying me this book from the goodness of her own heart, it was shite but thx <3

Every character in this book needs to be curb stomped and spat on by all their resurrected ancestors.
This book was a waste of time.
Like yeah i get it, what was i expecting going into this book if i hated the first one? i expected nothing. I got the second book as a gift and had an obligation to read it as the book cost $22 and i just can't let that 22 go to waste.

i'm gonna give this book away to a charity shop as it's a fairly new book and won't go on sale for a while in any bookstore so i might just make someones day

???No plot, just vibes??? but the vibes were truly terrible.
I love a vague book with no plot, but it can???t also be painfully boring. I fell asleep reading this book multiple times. I switched to the audiobook because I physically couldn???t stay awake while reading it. I didn???t care about or feel invested in any of the characters that I enjoyed from book one, except for Libby. Both of these stars are for her story, because other than that I???m wholly convinced that nothing happened in this entire 400 page book.

Olivie Blake truly has such a unique and refreshing style of writing. I???ve enjoyed all of what she???s written so far, which makes this book so much more confusing and disappointing.

(And yet, I will probably read book 3, because of Libby alone.)

Really torn between two and three stars.

I loved TA6 so much that I feel sad giving this 2 stars, so 3 it is. Just mostly out of loyalty.

Dang. What happened in this book? Why are all the characters so flat and annoying? They were so dynamic and lovely in the TA6 with so much interesting commentary on the politics BEHIND magic. If you loved that too, do not come looking for it here.

Super disappointed.

DNF at 36% because there still is no plot and, in this volume, not even the characters are interesting.
I only gave this a chance because my library had the audiobook and I like multiple readers for the different POV characters. But even their valiant effort couldn't save this pretentious non-story.

I really enjoyed The Atlas Six, the first book in the series. This sequel was such a bore. I felt the author was rambling throughout about nothing. She sounded like a science textbook, which just made it seem that she was trying to sound intelligent. It just made it a boring read. The characters were so one-dimensional and pretentious! They were just being annoyingly philosophical, which did nothing for the non-existing plot. The only upside is Libby's POV, which carried the book. I believe Olivie Blake didn't know what to do with these characters after the first book. I stopped caring halfway through this one.

This was more like 3.5 stars, which is a bit of a shame considering the first book was a solid 4.5 to 5 stars for me. I did still enjoy Blake's writing and her character works, aspects that stood out to me in the first book, but I found that this story lacked a central hook and was generally overburdened by too much abstract philosophizing between the characters for a vast majority of it. It only got exciting to me in the last 25% of the book and that kinda saved it, but having to get through the first three-quarters of a book to get there is a bit of an ask.

What I really enjoyed about The Atlas Six was how beautifully the characters were written, how delightfully fleshed out they each were and how much their personalities is interwoven with their magical abilities. Sure, they were none of them very likeable but I don't really care about likeability in characters. In this book, I found that the characters got more and more insufferable. They seemed a lot more like angsty teenagers trying to put up a devil-may-care front but struggling with insecurities and loneliness inside. There's nothing wrong with that, but I felt like it kinda contradictd with their really vivid personalities that had been established in the first book. In knowing each of the characters more, I felt like they were all blending into the same almost psychopathic but “secretly lonely” archetype of a rebellious teenager.

The only character that stood out to me was one who was relatively on the sidelines. Belen Jimenez was the only character that wasn't entirely self-absorbed in this book and was actually motivated by something concrete that's not herself. I don't 100% agree with her extreme methods but can relate to a lot of her motivations, and can also see why constantly being ignored made her activism more and more extreme over time. I'm not sure if she had died in the end or if she had simply fainted? I really hope she's coming back in future installments.

For the most part, I was struggling to figure out what I was trying to look out for in the plot. In the first book, the gimmick was clear from the start - one of them has to die before their year was up, so the whole thing became a competition to see who that would be and what alliances were forged. In this second one, it's not so clear. We have the predicament that Libby was stuck on another timeline (something that I honestly didn't feel engaged with), and then something about Tristan trying to discover more about his powers, and then a bit about Dalton's mindscape and...? Everything just felt a bit disjointed and I didn't know what I was supposed to be paying attention to because there didn't seem to be a main thread to follow.

I also felt like the entire first Part of the book started off incredibly slow and low-energy for a sequel, especially when we're riding off the high of the first book's ending. I didn't mind the scene of the initiation ritual that much, but felt like we really didn't need so many chapters from almost every character's perspective about it. It felt like so so much filler. And that's kinda how I felt for a lot of the first 75% of the book - there was so much unnecessary prose and whole scenes that didn't further my understanding of the characters or the plot. Yes, we get that Callum is trying to dose himself into a stupor to numb himself from his own insecurities. We get that Reina has a complex about her family. We get that Parisa is beautiful and dangerous and almost-heartless (but not really because she has feelings too!). We just didn't need so many repetitive descriptions of that.

The plot finally crystallized somewhat at around the 75% mark and things started happening with more gusto at last, and that was when I started sitting up to pay attention. The ending was fine, but a tiny bit of an anticlimax for me. I kinda felt like the book ended just as things were finally happening that I wanted to find out answers to. It wasn't a complete dud, but I did feel a little frustrated that it ended just there without resolving a whole lot.

Overall, I think this book probably suffers from second-book syndrome, where you kinda need a lot of filler to drag out the tension of the overarching world and mystery so you can get to a (hopefully final) third book.

I feel like I need to reread it even though I just finished it last night. It's like a lot and nothing happened at the same time (the Paradox title feels very fitting). We got a bunch of information but it still feels like we're very near where we started off plot-wise. I can't wait to see how it all unfolds in the final book.

I enjoyed this significantly more than the first book! The characters were much more fleshed out and I actually felt more invested. Callum grew on me (like fungus, he's awful but I love him) as well as Parisa, and to some extent Libby. Reina still felt kind of flat compared to the rest of the cast (but I can see her potential more here), and Nico and his cohort still carried this book on their shoulders (particularly Gideon, I would die for that boy). Atlas was developed more, and Ezra continues to intrigue me (though I also despise him in equal measure). Generally a good improvement from the first book, and I felt a lot more invested in pretty much every character compared to the first book.

Libby's trip to the past was a great way to develop her more; seeing her interact with characters outside of the main cast and come more into her own was fun to read, and I like where her character arc is going. I'm interested in seeing how it impacts the present day.

It's still not my favourite series, but the potential is absolutely there, and I'm really hoping The Atlas Complex pulls through. The writing style was strong and the worldbuilding is intriguing; I do find myself pulled into the mystery and I'm interested in seeing where things go.

2.5 rounded up; Mixed feelings about this book – I like the concept of these mediens and the types of powers/magic they have. The society is surrounded by questions and mystery.

The characters are sooooo, so similar to each other, it's hard to like them at all because they talk the same, use the same vocabulary (f-bombs everywhere), and this repetitive responses/answer-question format that became a lot more annoying in this book (“yes.” “yes?” “yes.”). Their attitudes are also so similar, which might be understandable, considering their position within the society, but it definitely could've been differentiated more. I skimmed over a LOT of it because seconds in the moment felt like hours.

I was highly anticipating for Callum's character development because he was probably the most interesting out of all of them in [b:The Atlas Six|50520939|The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)|Olivie Blake|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579241117l/50520939._SY75_.jpg|75499539], in a good way or earning trust back, but he ended up being this drunkard with self-pity seeping out everywhere. Gahh

Unsure if I'll pick up the next book if the characters and writing is going to continue on like this ;-;

It was okay.

I didn't care about the characters as much as I did in the first one. Not a lot happened and I picked this up and down for about 3 weeks before the library hood went back.
The ending was good but I left feeling like I wanted more. I should have cared a lot more when I just didn't. At all.
2.5

This had elements I liked much better than the first book and elements I liked much less. So it was weird combo, inevitably ending with the same rating though.
I thoroughly enjoy Callum every single time he's there, he gets better and better with every chapter. I didn't love Libby's story, and Nico and Reina's spat seemed odd and out of place. I loved Tristan coming into himself more, but as a character he's still wildly annoying. I definitely wanted more of Parisa in this one, but I was glad that we at least got more of Gideon, who is such a joy. 
I don't know that I really like the overall plot, I think it is going in a direction that I worry can only leave me disappointed because of how vast the point of contention is. It's like waging war on the world - it always ends in disappointment. 

I gave the Atlas Six five stars. I was in love with so many elements of that story. The character building, the relationship dynamics, the magical realism. An interesting and complex plot...the book did it for me. We fast forward to the Atlas Paradox and we have an author who seems to have forgotten what story she is even telling. The strongest elements of this book were Libby, Nico, and Gideon. Their relationship and interactions kept me engaged. Otherwise the other characters have become so pointless and insufferable I was not invested in their story arcs. I was also not invested in what the heck Atlas is trying to do. Which is where the unsatisfying plot tag is coming from. I'm disappointed in this sequel.

It's the half assed horse drawing all over again.
I tried very hard to like this book enough to say that the characters are well developed, but there was barely any development whatsoever. It started off pretty well, gave the vibes of The Secret History with all of the character analysis - it was enjoyable, even if there was a slow progress with the plot. Yet, all that came out with all of that psychoanalysis was literal character assassination. There was no feel that they had any growth; it's one thing to write it and read it, the other thing to feel it. All that explaining was for nothing - they turned out like cardboard anyway.
I get that it's tough fleshing all six plus characters, but if you're already developing them equally, don't reduce them to names on paper.

This is very much a middle book - how effective (or useless) it is won't be known until I read the next book. The most interesting stuff mostly happens outside the society, with many many hints about interesting things to come.

The audiobook is (again) a pain to get into because each character has their own voice actor and, despite how good each narrator is (and they are), it's difficult for me to adapt to each voice in order to understand what they're saying. I'm positive I missed parts of the story due to shifting narrators.

3.5/4 stars still haven't made up my mind

some parts were really exciting, but a lot of them were also very slow which led to me taking very long to read it, which consequently led to me forgetting what was going on everytime I picked the book up again, which you know, was not ideal.
I'm becoming aware that this book and its predecessor are very controversial in the liking term, you either hate it or love it. I think if I hadn't taken 6 months to read it I would have a more consistent opinion of the book and its flow but yeah...
anyways callum redemption arc and libby villain arc confirmed let's goo!!!