The Atlas Paradox

The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake Book Review

Second books in a trilogy are notoriously difficult. They often suffer from “second book” syndrome, a point of frustration for the readers who find the sequel installment pedantic, time consuming, and droll.

 Unfortunately, The Atlas Paradox does suffer from this condition, although it’s not as horrible as some other cases I’ve read. 

This book is the epitome of starting off strong, dwindling to almost nothing, and then ticking back up at the very last second. While the pacing is wild (not in a good way), I still read and finished the book for one reason: the characters. 

As a main storyline, The Atlas Paradox is hugely lacking. The first book, The Atlas Six, spends a great amount of time introducing the six main characters, side characters, the setting, building the world, and connecting all of these aspects together in interesting and complicated ways. 

As a very character driven reader, I loved it. I adored the focus on relationships, devoured every conversation and interaction, and found myself titillated when pieces of the universe came together beautifully. 

Which is why I was so excited for The Atlas Paradox. Surely, Olivie Blake would hit the ground running with book two seeing as she set up everything very painstakingly in book one and left the readers with a tantalizing cliffhanger. 

Wrong. 

Instead of beginning with a sprint, which I anticipated, Blake starts off at a slow place, more sedate than walking. This book is crawling, trudging the plot along at a speed that is beyond irksome as a reader. Nothing really happens in this book until the last thirty pages. 

Genuinely, nothing. 

The first 350 pages consist almost entirely of the characters having conversations with each other. The banter is witty, the dialogue is interesting, and the characters are intriguing, but none of these conversations move the plot along further than a few inches at a time.

 It is maddening that the entire book is just the characters talking without also progressing the actual story. 

Again, as a character driven reader I probably didn’t mind it as much as other people, but still found it vexing by the 400 page mark. Having engrossing interactions between characters is a fantastic thing, but not at the expense of your plot. They need to go hand-in-hand. 

Unfortunately, in this case, Blake focuses entirely too much on character interactions that the plot suffers as a result. 

The paltry remnants of a plot can be combined to say: the house is taking a toll on the five candidates remaining, including making Reina think she’s a god and turning Callum into an alcoholic. 

Nico and Tristan are still looking for Libby (who has been sent back into another time) but are largely unsuccessful until the last 30 pages. Libby befriends people in her new time period, but never forgets where she came from and is willing to do anything (including blowing things up) in order to return. Nico’s mysterious friend Gideon invades a lot of dreams. Atlas Blakely is plotting. 

That’s…pretty much it. 

Now, that might seem like a lot, but for a book that is over 400 pages and where most of the same plot points were already set up in book one, it truly isn’t. 

Elements are stretched out, conversations (while fun) go nowhere, and the characters, who at this point have known each other for two years, are still extremely combative and prickly towards one another. 

I’m a sucker for a slow burn romance or friendship as much as the next person, but even at this point I want to see the initiates get along and work together instead of avoiding and antagonizing one another. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, the only reason I like this book even a modicum is because of the characters themselves. Even though I did find their acrimonious rivalries childish and irritating, I still like the six main characters more than most other novels.

 I’m a sucker for flawed characters, especially mean ones, and almost all of the characters in The Atlas Paradox are cruel to some extent. 

So even if the first 350 pages didn’t move the story along, repeated the same measly plot points, and didn’t develop the characters beyond their bitter feelings, I still enjoyed it. It’s like reading a 350 page slice-of-life fanfiction of The Atlas Six where they’re all just living in the house and sniping at each other constantly. 

Is it good writing and storytelling? No, of course not. Did I still find parts of it enjoyable? Yes, I did. 

That being said, I did abhor Olivie’s choice to make Callum an alcoholic. He’s probably my favorite character, in lieu of him being the biggest bitch of them all, but she cripples him by making him drown himself in spirits. 

My theory on this is that Callum is supposed to be smart (they all are technically) and since the plot wasn’t moving along, she needed some way to stunt Callum’s growth and progress. Hence, the drinking. 

I hate this choice and I hate how Callum did almost nothing for the entirety of this book (along with Parisa and Reina) when he could have done so many riveting things and actually grown as a character. 

For all these reasons, I didn’t loathe The Atlas Paradox like some other people, but I did find the second installment to be a vast disappointment and a lost opportunity for what Blake could have accomplished otherwise.

 Through molasses-slow pacing, impeding her characters and their development, and erasing her plot, Blake wrote a novel equivalent in significance to fanfiction, ruining her chance to create something really great instead. 

Recommendation: Skim the first 350 pages for the most thrilling tete-a-tetes and then read the ending. You’re not missing out on anything substantial, I promise. 

Score: 6/10