Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Atlas Paradox

This is a perfect magical dark academia book series. It is cerebral, with complex characters and concepts that tangle together wonderfully. I love all of the characters, even when I am frustrated by their decisions and opinions.

It managed to give more depth to Reina and Callum in why they do what they do, help flesh out Tristan’s mysterious powers, give Libby a great corruption arc, and help make Nico less of an annoyance and more of a naive fresh take on things.

I am very excited to see where things go from here.

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anton13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Reason it wasn’t a 5 star read was bc it was a bit slow to me. Now that could’ve been my fault for not being fully in the book when reading a lot of the time but still it felt a bit slow. Nonetheless the story was amazing and the twists and turns had me shook. I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive till next year before I get to read the third book but I’ll have to manage. I love this world and the idea that there’s magic and secret societies with so much knowledge. I can’t wait to see how their journeys will continue. And also the end😱😱 no way! I wanna say this: FINALLY!! And: it made me so happy and so intrigued for the next book.

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raichou's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Danke schön an NetGalley, dass mir dieses Rezensionexemplar zur Verfügung gestellt wurde.

Nach dem ersten Teil war ich so gespannt wie es weiter gehen wird und auch der zweite Band hat nicht enttäuscht.

Es hat einen Moment gedauert bis ich wieder in der Geschichte drin war, aber dabei hat auch die Charakterzusammenfassung am Anfang geholfen.

Eines der besten Dinge in Büchern,oder Geschichten generell, ist die Charakterentwicklung und davon findet man in The Atlas Paradox unmengen. Auch wenn die Charaktere alle Dreck am Stecken haben, fühlt man trotzdem mit ihnen und hofft, dass ihr volles Potential erreichen können.

Die Übersetzung ist gut gelungen und war flüssig zu lesen, auch wenn sich in dieser Ausgabe noch ein paar Tippfehler eingeschlichen haben. Das wird aber vor Veröffentlichung noch behoben.

Ich bin sehr gespannt auf den dritten und letzten(?) Teil!

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jeyjeyyy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Really liked the first one, this one not so much. Maybe my taste has changed, it’s been a year after all, or maybe it’s just not as good. For me this book is too pretentious, like it’s trying to info dump on purpose. If I wanted to read something hard to understand, I would read an actual physics book or a philosophy essay. This book is trying to be that, while being a fantasy book and a Secret History variant, but it doesn’t do it well. The characters are trying so hard to be morally grey and nuanced, but they’re just unrealistic and most of the time annoying. Nobody talks or behaves like they do. I get that it is part of the point, that power has made them insane and detached from the world, but it’s honestly tiring. The only relationships I liked (Tristan and Callum, Libby and Nico, Gideon and Nico) were overshadowed by stuff I had no interest in, and honestly, most of the links beteen the characters didn’t really seem to make sense or have any purpose. Too much unnecessary and uncomfortable sex too. This book wants to do too much and therefore does nothing well.
I will say, though, some quotes in there were really smart and beautiful, shame they had to be mixed up in what was mostly an inefficient and quite boring story.
Olivie Blake is obviously a smart and talented writer, I just wished this book had clearer purpose. It is also quite niche so maybe it wasn’t for me but yeah, I wasn’t a fan.
Ps: Shoutout to Belen for being the best character ever.

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sophie1_xox's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

Summary:
This book truly gave me mixed feelings. I absolutely adored the Atlas Six - the characters that you love to hate, the clever plot, the uniqueness of the setting. Dark academia vibes all the way! Just, something about this one didn't hit. It may be that I was reading it whilst starting full time work and therefore couldn't sink into it (I read half of the Atlas Six in one day whereas this took me 18 days). It may also be that I had not reread the Atlas Six beforehand and therefore was thrown off by essentially catching myself up throughout the first half. I don't know. At the minute, it's sitting at 3 stars for me. When the final book comes out, The Atlas Complex, comes out early 2024, I will do a reread and see if my review improves (it's unlikely to hit 5 stars though).

Characters:
Where to even start with the characters. I guess we should tackle them each one by one.
First, Libby. She is the one that I most related to in the Atlas Six and I feel like her character development was severely stunted in this one.

It felt like it meant to be a gradual turn, however suddenly seemed to do a complete 180 at the last second which felt really jarring.

Parisa didn't really have any development in this book which was super disappointing.

Her character in the first one really caused me to challenge my views on female sexuality and how she is not a worse person for how she chooses to exert power over others, compared with the rest of the initiates.

Reina had negative development. She spent the entire book,

since the first initiation task, angry at Nico without ever talking to him and if there's one thing I hate more than an unnecessary pregnancy trope, it's miscommunication.

Callum I really enjoyed in this book. The events of the first one really seemed to catch up with him and I love his self-awareness and witty sarcasm. He was probably one of the only things that kept me reading this book.
Nico was fine. Pretty confusing but his relationship with Tristan was fun and I love the

ending that he got with Gideon (about damn time!) although I don't know if there's supposed to be love towards Libby? Maybe that's the point and readers are supposed to be as confused as he is with regards to his feelings.

Lastly is Tristan and I enjoyed his character arc. Learning more about his specialty, as well as touching on some family issues and his feelings towards the other initiates was really fascinating to watch.
Atlas. WTF man. I don't even know how to feel about him.
Dalton was interesting but I have to say, I was super confused about everything that happened to him. Hopefully the next one gives some clarity on that.

Plot:
So I'm just generally confused as to what the plot is supposed to be. It feels like not much happened in 400 pages.

Was the whole point just to watch Libby get back to her timeline? Gideon's plot was interesting and there's the whole thing where they're basically gods but not?

I was super confused and honestly felt like I was reading just for vibes.

Overall:
This book was fine. I'm going to read the next one to see if it clears up any confusion. The character development in some places was great and in others it felt like it stagnated or reversed. The plot was very similar to the characters in that the last book set up Atlas as a bad guy but that is

very incoherent with the ending of this one.

Honestly, this felt like a trip and I'm hoping the next one doesn't drop me off a cliff for a come-down.

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