A review by crypticspren
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • 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

A note on the audiobook - The actual personification of the phrase "too many cooks spoil the broth". The audiobook has a full cast that seem to have recorded in 412 locations with equipment ranging from high quality Rhode (lol, get it?) microphones to 2001 headsets wrapped in a plastic bag. The change in audio quality and narration quality (sorry to Parisa's narrator, but I had to skip her chapters and read the ebook instead) is jarring. Meanwhile Tristan, Nico, and Callum are pretty cohesive, aside from their lack of universal agreement on what everyone's accents should be... Libby was 50/50 - you got a definite shift in audio quality, but once she was a few sentences in, it stopped being noticeable. 

This is definitely a thrilling follow up to The Atlas Six! I enjoyed watching the Six experiment with their powers, though it would have been nice to see their relationships develop a little clearer. There are some obvious bonds of necessity, obvious hatred (though I only saw the logic in one of these), and a lot of complete personality overhauls for whatever 'magical' reasons (i.e. Dalton). I think this book is strongest in terms of plot and writing, and weakest in terms of character. However, it was definitely enjoyable and reading the 1990/2022 timelines in parallel was especially fun, particularly the later reveal of Belen's character, who appears in both timelines. 

I found Ezra to be an interesting character, swinging from hating him to respecting him and back to hating him regularly. His and Atlas' relationship is unusual to say the least, but for such a vengeful, vigilante, wannabe hero, I had expected their relationship to be explored more. Meanwhile, the big bad villain, Atlas, was positively... meh. It gave the same energy as a family feud dating back to an argument over the last slice of pizza.

Regardless, I am super excited to read more about Libby, Nico and Gideon, and Tristan. I'll be reading the sequel as soon as!