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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
slow-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:
No
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Incredibly intricately woven narrative, with Olivie Blake pulling on the threads at the perfect time, which made for a satisfying second book in the trilogy. My main issue is the overwhelming apathy throughout the entire 515 pages. I understand the characters aren’t meant to be likeable, in fact they are the epitome of characters you can’t help but hate, but the constant “he/she didn’t really care” lines grew stale in The Atlas Six and are now positively fuzzy with mould. (Had to get that rant out)
To me this was less interesting than the first one. It just seemed to drag on forever and failed to capture my attention in a real, meaningful way.
I feel like I expected to get some answers in this book, but it truly only gave me more questions. This has been a little unsatisfying to me to be completely honest.
I do love whatever the fuck Libby has been up to. I'm also insanely curious where the final book of this trilogy is gonna take us, because I believe this can still be redeemed.
I feel like I expected to get some answers in this book, but it truly only gave me more questions. This has been a little unsatisfying to me to be completely honest.
I do love whatever the fuck Libby has been up to. I'm also insanely curious where the final book of this trilogy is gonna take us, because I believe this can still be redeemed.
mysterious
tense
slow-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
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
medium-paced
I'm confused, man. I'm not confused about what did happen, I'm confused about the complete lack of anything happening. I waited for about 300 pages for the story to start, then I just waited for it to be over so I could write this. I feel like my time has been wasted.
Guys, nothing happens. The first one was enjoyable enough, even though it was essentially all set-up, and this one takes everything that was established in that one and scatters it to the wind. Every chapter is just another conversation I'm expected to believe is intellectual, given the 'dark academia' intent, but it didn't matter that I couldn't follow the pontificating about Jung and atavism--because none of it mattered to the story in the slightest. Reina and Dalton have storylines that are treated as important, yet they have no bearing on the story. Parisa does nothing but float around and antagonize people, and Callum is similarly useless. Tristan and Nico take the focus, I think, other than Libby, who had the only interesting plotline.
The characters are just perplexing. It's the same ones as the last book, yet their actions are incomprehensible. The central plot of the book is Libby being stranded in the past, and whatever Atlas and Ezra are fighting about (I still don't really know what that is). 99% of the book does not move those forward. Ezra shows up periodically to whine, without ever really elaborating on his motives aside from fuck Atlas, then he just. The others, like I said, just have these filler interactions marked by an increasingly complicated and nigh incestuous web of romantic entanglements that, again, add nothing to the plot. They certainly don't add drama, because I find it hard to care about people the author has made so boring and unlikeable.
The writing is similarly confounding, particularly the chronology. Important events happen out of order, and are narrated within the present of the narration in a way that makes it difficult to discern when they happened in relation. The events of the book are supposed to take place over a year, but it feels more like a month at best--with the first one, the passage of time was more effectively communicated.
And while I'm nitpicking, there's a chapter towards the end from the perspective of a side character who, AGAIN, does seemingly nothing to the (present) narrative. What she does is go on an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist tirade that is very out of place in the book. Don't misunderstand me--I'm not complaining about 'wokeness;' I agreed with everything that was said. But the rest of the book isn't about the foils of capitalism, at least not directly. It's about petty squabbles and pseudo-intellectual debates between people of privilege. If Blake wanted this chapter to land harder, she should've leaned into the social criticism much, much more. Maybe cut out a few useless Callum or Reina chapters to make room. Don't kill off the one character who is immune to the call of the archives and cognizant of real-world problems.
Why are these books named after Atlas, anyway? Shouldn't it be called The Alexandrian Six, and so on? Because if Atlas and his harebrained scheme (which is still not clear) are supposed to be more important... I'm not seeing how.
I'm not reading the next book. I think Blake writes beautiful prose and has a great mastery of both language and the academic disciplines her characters do. But this story in particular just doesn't hold water.
Guys, nothing happens. The first one was enjoyable enough, even though it was essentially all set-up, and this one takes everything that was established in that one and scatters it to the wind. Every chapter is just another conversation I'm expected to believe is intellectual, given the 'dark academia' intent, but it didn't matter that I couldn't follow the pontificating about Jung and atavism--because none of it mattered to the story in the slightest. Reina and Dalton have storylines that are treated as important, yet they have no bearing on the story. Parisa does nothing but float around and antagonize people, and Callum is similarly useless. Tristan and Nico take the focus, I think, other than Libby, who had the only interesting plotline.
The characters are just perplexing. It's the same ones as the last book, yet their actions are incomprehensible. The central plot of the book is Libby being stranded in the past, and whatever Atlas and Ezra are fighting about (I still don't really know what that is). 99% of the book does not move those forward. Ezra shows up periodically to whine, without ever really elaborating on his motives aside from fuck Atlas, then he just
Spoiler
diesThe writing is similarly confounding, particularly the chronology. Important events happen out of order, and are narrated within the present of the narration in a way that makes it difficult to discern when they happened in relation. The events of the book are supposed to take place over a year, but it feels more like a month at best--with the first one, the passage of time was more effectively communicated.
And while I'm nitpicking, there's a chapter towards the end from the perspective of a side character who, AGAIN, does seemingly nothing to the (present) narrative. What she does is go on an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist tirade that is very out of place in the book. Don't misunderstand me--I'm not complaining about 'wokeness;' I agreed with everything that was said. But the rest of the book isn't about the foils of capitalism, at least not directly. It's about petty squabbles and pseudo-intellectual debates between people of privilege. If Blake wanted this chapter to land harder, she should've leaned into the social criticism much, much more. Maybe cut out a few useless Callum or Reina chapters to make room. Don't kill off the one character who is immune to the call of the archives and cognizant of real-world problems.
Why are these books named after Atlas, anyway? Shouldn't it be called The Alexandrian Six, and so on? Because if Atlas and his harebrained scheme (which is still not clear) are supposed to be more important... I'm not seeing how.
I'm not reading the next book. I think Blake writes beautiful prose and has a great mastery of both language and the academic disciplines her characters do. But this story in particular just doesn't hold water.