Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - The Atlas Paradox

The first book in this series was book club’s choice of the month for September, when I read it and it ended on cliffhanger, I knew I was going to have to read the next one in series.

This book is based on the Alexandrian Society who are the caretakers of lost knowledge from the civilizations of antiquity, and they are a secret society for the magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, knowledge and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only six of the most talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiations. In the last book, we meet the newest initiates: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona are the unwilling halves of the unfathomable whole, who can control every element of physicality. Then there is Reina Mori, she is a naturalist who can speak the language of life within itself. Parisa Kamali is a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious and navigate worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova is an empath easily mistaken for illusionist and he can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through any illusions to a new structure of reality – it's an ability so rare that neither him nor his peers can fully grasp its powers. All of them now must pick if they wish to preserve the world or to destroy it. The Atlas Six is revealed for what it is, and it is headed by man whose plans to change life as they know it is already under way. But the cost of knowledge is steep and as the price of power demands each person to choose a side, which alliances will hold, and which will see their enmity deepen?

This is another book where I was ignoring the hype on BookTok and was glad to ignore the hype on BookTok. I still don’t get the hype of it. I think my main issue with this book is I hated all the characters; I am all for rooting for the main character within a book. Due to this book having all six POVs, there wasn’t a good person who you knew was going to be safe. Libby should have just actually died instead of disappearing. Nico was still two-faced but then took Libby’s people-pleasiness and then just was trying to be friends with everyone. Reina has finally got some personality but now she wants to be a God and create a new world. Parisa drove me up the wall with how bitchy she was – the mean girls called, and Regina George wants her personality back. She was all about being open about sex and things which is all great but then she has all these love triangles and still sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. Callum still gives me a headache and I'm confused with what his part was in his book expect for the fact that he didn’t die. Tristan was the only one with his head on his shoulders last book, but then he lost his head in this book because Libby was gone. It felt like some characters were more favoured so had more of a personality and then others were literally there to remind us of information we already knew. I felt like the storyline and world building was a bit all over the place especially with the whole time-travelling and let’s make a new God.

The book was a bit calmer, where I felt like everyone had lost their head in this book. I loved the multiple POVs, I just wanted more from them. I was more interested in Gideon’s drama which hasn’t really progressed since the previous book.

Gideon and Libby are probably the only reason I might pick up the third book, just to see what’s going on and if Gideon’s drama is every resolved.

Content Warnings

bookswithmaia's review

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

blueberry0531's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

cecilie26's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective 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? Yes

2.0

Okay, I don’t know there is going to be spoilers so I’m just taking it on to be safe.
Loved the book, though I didn’t fell in love with it as I did the first one.
It was a bit boring at times, for my taste anyway. The only thing that is nagging the hell out of me, is why Nico and Tristan didn’t go to Fowler and make him take her back. Or if I have misunderstood something about them not know Fowler a powers then why not see if Fowler really were a time traveler so they then could use him to get her back instead of hoping that she would make a nuclear bomb. I don’t know if I have missed something that would explain it since I heard it on audiobook, and was doing something while listening to it. So that may explain why. Otherwise I found the book kind of unnecessary since the plot was really meh. The characters were fantastic.that was also why I read it to the end. Loved all the characters- kind of. Liked the first book much better than this one though.

Content Warnings

ashleyreads88's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

The Atlas Paradox picks up where The Atlas Six left off with

Nico, Tristan, Callum, Parisa, Reina, and Nico's friend Gideo trying to find out where Libby is.

. There were so many twists in this book that I didn't see coming and I couldn't believe the ending. I loved this book and I'm excited to see where the story goes.

Content Warnings

hannahcstocks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

hello_lovely13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

vimes_48's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

1.5

This book should be the opening couple of chapters in the next book.
The Atlas Six opens - as so many trilogies do - with a compelling concept and a competent setup. Stuff happens, plot develops at a reasonable clip and we get a cliffhanger.

However, after that inevitable cliffhanger, we are left with this - hundreds of pages of… nothing. Our heroes do… nothing. For a year. We get to sit through a year’s worth of tangentially-related conversations between characters who have all fallen out for reasons that are not really explained and then the whole thing is wrapped up in the last couple of chapters. Cliffhanger resolved, the initiates submit their year of research - which is barely mentioned and we have no idea what conclusions they’ve drawn. Hopefully none of this research is leaned on as a deus ex in the third act. That would be poor form indeed.

This is all undoubtedly sold as “character development”, but I don’t really feel like I’m any better connected with the motivations or backgrounds of the characters than I was after book 1. I strongly suspect you could skip this book entirely, read book 3 and fill in the gaps.

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