Okay, so I was initially not planning to review the other two books in the series after I did the first one - but then I read The Atlas Paradox, which is the second book and realized I still had a lot to say. Unfortunately, a lot of what I have to say is either nonsensical or contains minor spoilers, so I would say this book review is more for people who've already read the books!
The Atlas Paradox
"There was no science here, only vibes."
This book starts off interestingly enough, with the characters getting initiated into the Alexandrian Society. To pass the initiation, they need to face a version of one of the other five initiates in a simulation of sorts - and I'm not gonna lie this was one of my favorite parts of the book, probably my absolute favorite.
I loved seeing tensions between the characters at first, but then a problem I had with this as the book went on is that the tensions never resolved themselves. These very annoying a-holes of characters couldn't just get over themselves enough to get long for a solid 10 minutes? It doesn't seem realistic at all. Plus, they all treated my favorite character (Callum) horribly for the entirety of the book. None of the characters except for him were likable. Tristan, especially, was a complete jerk who basically amounted to nothing and yet kept building himself up as if he was something much more special than the rest of them. And why did everyone keep treating him like a victim. He was NOT a victim. He acted like Callum manipulated him, but completely and conveniently ignored that he was also naive and easily manipulated by Parisa. And no one held her accountable for that. I think it's so funny how none of the characters treat Callum with any empathy because they think he's not capable of feeling, when he is LITERALLY AN EMPATH?! This always makes me so mad. Even after his heart-wrenching initiation scene, they didn't treat him even a little better, whereas when something similar happened to Parisa in the last book, everyone was sympathizing with her and painting Callum as some sort of villain.
The only solid character development that happened was in Libby (and maybe Callum). Apart from that, this book made all the characters even more unlikable, except for Reina. Libby, who was annoying and insecure in the last book (at least, in my opinion) turned out to be a badass, strong character who puts herself first when it matters and does what it takes to survive. I really loved the turn her character took without taking away her compassion (because she still chooses peace while also prioritizing herself).
"Two versions of her existed at once: the Libby Rhodes who was enough and the one who never would be."
And Reina, I mostly loved her because in this book, she turned out to be just slightly more useful and ambitious than she was in the last book (where she was practically invisible), which went such a long way. And I love how she was just unbothered in general, doing what it takes to get with she wants without ganging up on any of the characters - she treated everyone the same. Like, I was lowkey loving the Callum-and-Reina alliance in this book. The reason I'm talking so much about the characters is because the book is very character-focused, and there's little concievable plot, so yeah.
On another note, the fracture between Reina and Nico just made me so sad because they were one of my favorite friendships. Regardless, seeing what the friendship meant to Reina and the deeper side of her made me stan her for life, essentially. She is the truest friend of them all, in my opinion, and this sentence shows it. My respect for her just skyrocketed.
"No, Nico, I would have lit on fire anyone with even the slightest intention of harming you, and that is the kind of friend I am, when I choose to be a friend. Which I have never dared to dream of doing. Until you."
The last two characters I actually want to talk about - Ezra and Belen. First of all, I didn't hate Ezra, but he was a weak and inconsequential villain who essentially lasted about half a book. So he really wasn't doing anything for me - but I was shocked he didn't have more of a role. This book switches so much between leading you to think these are the good guys, then realizing these people are, etc. I think it's cool though, shows the grey shades of morality. If only it was a bit less of a rollercoaster.
Belen - God, I just hated her. Oh, she was right about most of it - Libby led her on, lied to her, and basically blew up the world for herself. But Belen, c'mon girl, your grandmother just died, no one is forcing you to come with Libby. I just feel like the ways she tried to make a difference in the world were so flawed, but that's not even the problem. The problem is how she tried to manipulate Libby into staying with her forever, not even caring that Libby has her own life and can make her own decisions, etc. This was an interesting storyline though.
Some complaints about the plot/characters kind of: First of all, there are too many storylines. It's so hard to keep up with what each of the characters are doing, to a point where cliffhangers are not effective because I completely forget about that characters cliffhanger before we get back to it five chapters later. Which is why I can't even begin to talk about everything that occured in the novels. And since only like two of these storylines are genuinely interesting, it's like, well damn, can we just get back to this character now?
As far as writing goes, I don't understand the message Olivie Blake was trying to send with this book. What was she focused on scientifically, what did she want to say on a world-wide scale? It felt like she pored her anger out into this book, but failed to tell me how I was supposed to interpret it, in the sense that I wasn't even sure what the main point was. In the last book, she was very focused on time, wormholes, and other similar concepts, while in this book, she split it in half but also started talking about things like sentience, which I don't see how it has anything to do with the plot. Perhaps its some convoluted form of foreshadowing? Politically, she talked about what was wrong with the world, but didn't propose any ideas of how to fix it. So it was a miss for me.
One other thing related to the character's powers - I remember in the first book how she essentially summarized Tristan's powers as being able to see the truth. I understand as I further read the book that she meant this on a purely molecular and physical level, but it really got me thinking, that if he can see through illusions, can't he see through lies? Does his power not extend to the astral plane, because in the first book he was portrayed as one of those on the astral plane, while in the second book his power was portrayed was a physicality. Just thinking.
Just gonna start to end this review by talking about some of its tropes: It is not serving found family like it should. Where is the slow bonding, the building of trust, the prolific friendships, the "I would die for you!" I only saw hints of it, very biased towards particular characters rather than coming together as a cohesive whole. I really though this series would do it for me, but it doesn't seem like it. And I think one of the reasons this happens is because Olivie Blake apparently doesn't know what platonic relationship is. No relationship can ecist without being a romance/sex relationship or being insinuated to that. I think that at this point all of the characters have kissed or even more, which is just so tiring and unwholesome to read.
Another thing that I felt like didn't work was the NicoLibby enemies-to-lovers. I usually eat enemies to lovers up, but the entire first book and most of the second book just felt more like enemies than enemies-to-lovers. I didn't feel the affection, and though I can see them caring for each other, I can't see them actually ending up together. Some moments were really cute, but their relationship in general just seemed half-finished like it didn't got the entire way because Olivie Blake got caught up in something else and just decided to abandon the ship.
⭐⭐⭐
Anyway, as far as the ideas introduced for the third book, I'm excited! They still have to either eliminate someone or go back, so they're gonna be reunited with Libby this time, hehehehehe. To wrap it up, here is my character ranking for the first book:
1. Callum
2. Nico
3. Tristan
4. Parisa
5. Libby
6. Reina
And by the second book, this is what it became (I think it'll pretty much stay the same now):
1. Callum
2. Reina
3. Libby
4. Nico
5. Parisa
6. Tristan
Honorable mention to Gideon, who would probably be above Parisa but below Nico. And here are my endgames!:
Nico x Gideon
Callum x Healing
Tristan x Hell
Yeah, that's basically it. Only Nico and Gideon are cute. And Libby deserves so much better than Tristan.
Gosh, this is so much longer than I thought it would be. Off to read the second book!
The Atlas Complex
"You’d like to think it’s more romantic, wouldn’t you? Life and death, meaning and existence, purpose and power, the weight of the world."
Let's start this book review off with the end - the last sentence, it gave me chills. I'll let you find out what it is when I read the book. But anyway, it was right, because I didn't find what I was looking for when I read this book: What I was looking for was a) found family, b) comedy and angst, and c) a plot with one antagonist, and instead, I got a) six people playing kiss, marry, kill, b) just angst, and c) no plot but everyone is at fault and battling some kind of philosophical inner battle.
Honestly, though, I don't mind that last point so much - in fact, it's kind of one of the things I like about this book. The assertion that no matter what we do, how powerful we are, we are still just grains of sand (if I had a dollar everytime the author used that exact phrase), tiny and inconsequential. So I'm glad, that the author doesn't make anyone good, per say. Blake doesn't defend any of the character's actions nor specifically condemn them - it just is what it is. The only character I'd say she didn't do this for is Tristan, which is annoying, but whatever (still hate him, but hate him less now).
That's all I have to say about Tristan, let's talk about the others - specifically a little about Reina and lots about Parisa and Libby. I feel like all of their characters took a turn for the worse. I mean first of all, Reina, though I love how her character is written and her personality has some very flawed methods of trying to "fix" the world - I wrote in my notes that Reina was "undermining democracy," which probably had context to me when I read that section 15 days ago, but now makes no sense. What does make sense is my anger over the fact that Reina essentially tried to change the entire world to align with her beliefs and values - what gives you the right to choose? I bold that because it is a prevailing motif for me throughout the entire story. Well, anyway, after Reina has her little power trip, she ends up getting attacked once, losing all motivation, and basically becoming irrelevant for the entire rest of the story, which yes, fits with the lesson, but still- (side note: I love Callum and Reina's friendship in this book especially).
Next, we have Miss (sorry Mrs.) Parisa Kamali - I alternated between loving and hating her this entire book. First of all, why I hated her? Well, once again, she was a hypocrite. She had a scene where she was just murdering people in cold blood by essentially telling them to harm themselves or kill themselves, which is the same thing she got so disgusted by from Callum in the very first book (never getting over this). Yes, I understand character development is a thing, but c'mon. Parisa has such a power complex - thinking it's a competition between her and Atlas, being fine with her own morally gray actions yet getting disgusted by Dalton's animation thing and wish to fulfill his purpose despite her enabling him to do it (hated Dalton, but everyone did, so that's beside the point).
And then there's Libby, possibly the most infuriating fictional character out there. Just when I thought she was becoming a character I could love, she had to go and mess things up. Her absolute lack of communication with Tristan or Nico ("you wouldn't understand" as if no one else has blood on their hands or has made a difficult decision), her changing her mind in the middle of a lethal experiment, like why did you agree in the first place. Her treatment of Nico was terrible. I mean first, she accused him of leading her on, when he did nothing of the such and was already with Gideon, which she knew, and then her literally ***SPOILER*** killing him. She could've chosen anyone else, chosen herself, but noooooooo. Again, his death = not her choice. I felt so bad for Gideon, he was supposed to get his happy ending. And that stupid conversation she had with Belen at the end? What made her think she could do that? Whatever. ***SPOILER OVER***. But anyway, Libby is slightly Reputation-coded, lol. Epic comeback, but is her heart in the right place? We might as well call this book "The Downfall of Libby" (in my opinion).
Also, honorable mention to the character of Eden (I know she would hate having just an honorable mention but, oh well). I loved her character, she was thrillingly complex, and Tristan treated her horribly, another point against him (granted, she wasn't exactly great to him either, but oh well again).
Anyway, can we talk about the beautiful Tristan + Callum development? Their scenes pretty much carried the book - I cried when reading one of their text message sequences because I just love them (Callum) too much. And, that also leads me to conclude that this sums up the book:
“Ethical quandary,” said Tristan at the same time Nico said, “Paper airplane.”
Or perhaps it just sums up Nico and Tristan, an underrated and short-lived friendship. Oh, yes, and Callum and Parisa's friendship at the end was probably the best. As well as Nico and Reina - Nico casually texting "love you" at the end of his message to Reina gets me every time.
Gideon's dream gave me shivers and pretty much wrapped up the book, I think, and left this beautiful bit of hope (as well as that glint of blonde hair at the end ;)) that I took as a "happy ending":
"The sand can be counted. Which doesn’t mean that you have to. But it also doesn’t mean that you can’t."
I guess, all I have to say is, do you worry much about your soul? Well you, should, as this book so eloquently teaches.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Anyway, remember when I said my ranking probably wouldn't change? I was wrong:
Callum
Reina
Parisa
Tristan
Nico
Gideon
Libby
(Not that I hate Nico or anything, I love him, but he felt a little inconsequential in this book).
And here are my endgames!:
Nico x Gideon
Callum x Tristan
Reina x Parisa (maybeeeee)
Sacred Hospitality
Obviously, since this a short story, there is a really very little to say. I enjoyed it a bit too much - on Nico, Libby, and Gideon's part, it was such a nice break from the angst because we got to see them in a cute light-hearted situation. And I appreciated the progression of Max's character and the introduction of Mira's (do I ship them because of one off-hand sentence? Absolutely, yes).
As for Reina, her part was nearly non-existent so nothing from me here. Parisa's was longer, but it didn't feel like much real content to me, or anything I feel like I didn't know about Parisa's character so, I don't know. But I thoroughly enjoyed Callum's scene mostly because his commentary always hits, and we got to see a little bit about his family background, which is touched on only a little in the original trilogy.
Lastly, we have Tristan's, which I felt was redundant because we already knew about all of this and I think we even got a similar scene or mentioning or something like that, so yeah. But overall, I really enjoyed this short story.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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