An entertaining enough read but I did not see much of the sharp and incisive satire of social media and contemporary masculinity that many other reviewers led me to expect. Great metaphors and descriptions but characters I just did not care about (note: I do not have to like the characters, but I should care about them)

Savage


This book is SAVAGE!! It doesn’t seem like it in the beginning. It’s snarky and intelligent in the beginning, but the savage comes later.

If you get the humor and not the insult, you’ll appreciate it at page one. This book was what I would shelve as “witty” and “dark humor.” I don’t think it’s for everyone.

But one of the characters, at least for me, really starts to come to her full FRUITION around 2/3 in. I love her. She reminds me of the MC in MY YEAR OF YEAR AND RELAXATION. They would loathe each other more than they loathed themselves.

The book is NOT trying to be the next FIGHT CLUB. It does play a quick homage to it. It is written for what is going on now. Fight Club was vastly written with political, societal, and psychological constructs.

THE ATMOSPHERIANS is as well but where the books differ is in its very real-life and current details. THE ATMOSPHERIANS will not age as well as the FIGHT CLUB.

Also, Fight Club is mentioned in the book, which would never happen in Fight Club.

Ha

And although the characters are cult-like, reformationist, the author was not trying to recreate Tyler Durden. The characters within this book stand on their own, and do not need alters.

Does the fact that it’s reminiscent of another book take away from the book or the writing or the characters?
Not at all!!
And it didn’t take away from my enjoyment either.
Don’t miss this one!

One of my favorites of the year!
Five Stars!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley and Atri Books for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

I didn't request to review this novel, but I'm glad I received the email offer! Satire isn't normally my cup of tea and this book was definitely a little outside my normal comfort zone, but I'm glad I was exposed to it.

I really enjoyed the unique/modern storyline. As a member of a feminist organization in college, I appreciated that toxic masculinity was addressed as well as cancel culture (which seems to be a more relevant issue by the day.)

I found this book to be quirky, clever, funny, and yet simultaneously dark at times. If you are up to date on social media and influencer culture, I think you'll enjoy this one even more!

The Atmospherians is a dark, witty, and a unique satire that I really liked! Some might think that a retreat for men to rid themselves of toxic masculinity is going to be a book of “man-bashing,” but this book is not that. It’s a book filled with thought-provoking ideas and critiques of our society put forth with beautiful prose. I thoroughly enjoyed this book,

Fitting for the social media obsessed culture and time period of today, The Atmospherians is a wicked, satirical tale of the dangers of both cancel and influencer culture. Former influencer Sasha has a fall from grace (completely hitting rock bottom) after a devastating encounter with an abusive online troll. When her former best friend, failed actor Dyson, invites her to lead The Atmosphere (billed as a rehab for masculine toxicity) with him in his new venture Sasha feels she is out of options. Brutal, harsh and at times tongue-in-cheek funny The Atmoshpherians is a 3.5 star read that will have you rooting for and other times rooting against the lead characters.

This is a very polarizing novel. You're either going to really like it, or really despise it. Keep in mind, "The Atmospherians" is a SATIRE. I enjoy this genre but I know that not everyone does. Satires are not meant to be taken seriously. The plot is very tongue-in-cheek, and humor is very dark and morbid. This is a solid debut by Alex McElroy. The writing style is razor-sharp and hilarious. Sasha and Dyson are not likeable characters, but at the same time, they feel 100% real and authentic. People are imperfect, everyone has personality flaws. This novel doesn't shy away from uncomfortable truths when it comes to toxic stereotypes of men and women. If you struggle with body issues such as eating disorders, this book might be triggering. Overall, I enjoyed this kooky novel.

Thank you, Netgalley and Atria for the digital ARC.

2.5 influencer stars

Sasha is an influencer who has created a huge following with her wellness plan. However, an online troll brings out the worst in her and her response causes the man to take drastic action. Her social media presence is wrecked, and she has to go into hiding.

Her childhood friend Dyson appears and wants her to jointly lead a new project called The Atmosphere. It’s a remote camp and promises the men who sign up job skills and restoration to being “good men.” Sasha decides she has no other choice but to join Dyson and she hopes to reclaim her online fame. Just how far is she willing to go?

Things take a chilling turn and they both realize that they don’t have what it takes to lead things at The Atmosphere.

I had a hard time connecting with this one and maybe that's because it is satire. It was a departure read for me, but not my cup of tea.

Sharp, witty, and pretty twisted, this is an odd book, but I kind of liked it. It’s a satire of our society, obsessed with online ‘likes’, performative lifestyles and ‘cancelling’ each other. Sasha is a healthy lifestyle influencer and after an ‘unfortunate’ incident with a troll (very reminiscent of Chrissy Tiegen’s current woes) gets well-and-truly-cancelled. Feeling desperate and threatened, she decides to help an old school friend, by becoming the face of a pseudo-cult/workshop for men to purge their toxic masculinity. This book is bizarre, funny at times, unsettling at others…. But definitely a unique take on our image obsessed world.

The world that Alex McElroy build's in the first couple hundred pages of 'The Atmospherians' is quite compelling. They're undeniably a talented writer, and I was hooked immediately into the story of an influencer named Sasha who loses all of her influence before starting a cult centered on bettering men with her closest childhood friend. Alex creates a bizarre parallel present to the world we currently live in, turning the toxic traits of masculinity up to 1000 and highlighting a lot of the issues caused by men today. There are interesting hiccups added in; from man-hordes (groups of men who collectively use their toxic masculinity to both accomplish things and cause dangers for those around them) to weird tech companies with ambitions that look to create solutions for the current state of "cancel culture.." Everything here works and is both interesting and well written. My issue with Alex's novel is that I didn't quite vibe with the ending that they came up with. The ending was telegraphed early on in the novel, but I found the reveal of the circumstances of the big conclusion both underwhelming and rushed. The book built well to this climax but the final few chapters felt underdeveloped and lacking in areas. A questionable epilogue that wrapped up the story also seemed tacked on and more like the start of a sequel than a fundamentally necessary ending to this particular story. There is enough in this book to enjoy, and I'll certainly look forward to whatever comes next from McElroy, but the final moments of their debut novel left me slightly disappointed. 3.5 stars.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review!
This novel just might not have been my tastes, and I did have a difficult time getting into it. I have a hard time telling exactly how I feel about it so a solid 3 star rating feels right.
I think it addressed some of today’s problems in a satirical way, which I can appreciate. It was a fine reflection on today’s very real society and toxic masculinity.
I had a difficult time relating to any of the characters or their internal struggles so that just might have been where I felt lost!
But this book was definitely unique, and I recommend it to anyone that is into dark comedy and literature that reflects world issues.

The cover of the book is the most enticing thing about this book. I can't stand "woke" culture, and books or any form of media that centers itself around it. I got less than 10 pages in and didn't even bother. It is currently in the kindling pile for when the apocalypse hits. Also, there is nothing wrong with diverse characters and those that have differing opinions than my own (that's what makes characters interesting, no? It's making the entire plot be about an agenda rather than some just being a part of the story.

You know that once I read the word "cult" in a summary I'm in. This satire made some really funny jabs at modern society but lots of it was also...ew. Overall, I liked that I was equally enthralled and disgusted--strange, I know. The characters are very well written and Alex McElroy's commentary on modern masculinity and influencer culture are spot on. I would recommend this to readers who loved Self Care by Leigh Stein. Lastly, I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but...come on, this one is just so contemporary and smart!

I loved this book! It is so different from anything I've read recently. A scathing indictment on the wellness industrial complex, influencers, and masculinity, McElroy's debut novel is not to be missed. We follow Sasha, recently "cancelled" and doxxed by mens rights activists online, she turns to her oldest friend Dyson whose solution is to start a cult for men only. It's a wild ride that will keep you guessing, and also make you guffaw out loud (GOL?)

I always find satire a hard wire to balance on, but this is one of the few exceptions. McElroy's writing makes you think without seeming like it's being shoved down your throat. They are making big statements, but their writing is so smooth and effortless that you often don't see it coming. The twists and turns the story takes are unexpected and wild and, at its best, utterly bizarre. I couldn't put it down and you won't be able to either.

This title was certainly unique! Rather too much vomiting for my tastes, haha, but the writing was good, the concept interesting (I do love cult stories.) I never felt attached to any of the characters, but this is really more a book about theme than character. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

I've read a LOT of books this year, and The Atmospherians, while not my favorite, is definitely a standout. I've never read anything quite like it. It's depiction of friendship and social media was very poignant and I will remember these characters long after reading them.

Sasha Marcus is a disgraced Instagram wellness influencer. She was on the verge of finding massive commercial success with her skincare program ABANDON - a program that actually encourages you to abandon all products in favor of cutting out harmful items from your diet, focusing on mindfulness, and ascending to a higher plane. In the name of skincare. Have a zit? Meditate on it. Drink a glass of water. Then it'll be gone.

At the start of the book, Sasha is in the worst place she's been. She responded to comment from a recurring creepy Internet stalker - a pastor and father named Lucas DeVry - in a not so charitable manner. As a direct result, Lucas DeVry goes on Instagram Live and shoots himself, blaming Sasha for his demise. Sasha immediately gets cancelled, losing all of her millions of followers and any talk show/media deals in her near future.

Her childhood best friend, Dyson Layne, comes to her rescue. He's been working on an idea for a cult - he comes right out and says that - called The Atmosphere. He wants to form a camp that rehabilitates men - men who embody all different forms of toxic masculinity, have disappointed their families, and are in dire economic and personal straits. He and Sasha will take them in for months and lead every aspect of their life, from eating and "emptying out" (exactly what it sounds like), exercise, and quasi-therapy. The catch is that they have no idea what they're doing, only that they want to be a cult. Sasha has no other options, so she agrees.

I really wish I liked this more than I did. Apparently it was supposed to be a satire of... cancel culture, cults, toxic masculinity, wellness influencers? I didn't get the satire/parody aspects of it - maybe the satire here was just too close to reality. I really, really disliked both Sasha and Dyson as main characters (perhaps that's the point?). Both are vapid, shallow, and self-obsessed, and I didn't sympathize with them at all. The plot went in all different directions. From Sasha's downfall to a surprise new gig she gets in the middle of the book, to the five year jump at the very end - it made it a little bit hard to follow. I just didn't connect with the different pieces of the story, any of the characters, or any of the satire. It's written similarly to books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, where everyone is depressed and detached - I did like that book, but knew that I was going into a relatively plotless book going into it. This book promised more than I felt it delivered. Thank you to Atria for the ARC via Netgalley.

This original satire offers a comic, sometimes absurdist critique of the seduction of corporate storytelling and the hollowness of trademarked "vulnerability." McElroy's gift is to push the familiar genre a touch further into Coen Bros.' level of absurdity, adding delightful terms and concepts to a genre dominated by ultimately more substantial novels (Severance, Oval, Oryx and Crake, Lakewood, Tell the Machine Goodnight, Erasure, Black Friday, etc). For example, is there anything more delightful to encounter in 2021 than the self-styled cult? Could the zombified man-hordes that converge upon women to, say, non-consensually change an intact tire, be any sillier an idea OR a more frightening one?

McElroy, like her predecessors, has a gift for the ridiculous concept that stands in for the chilling one. Unlike them, she also has a vicious, exact eye for the Ted Talk-fluent corporate cultures where the need, as referenced in the novel, for humans to shape our experience into story has been exploited to the point of invading even apparently well-intenrioned efforts.

Here, I am reminded also of Trust Exercises, Symmetry, The Sympathizer, Insurrecto, and even Little Fires Everywhere, all of which explore the moral problems introduced by the inherent instability of any narrative.

Naturally, the narrator Sasha is unreliable. We learn this fairly quickly, but it's never much of a surprise. Or perhaps Sasha is so shallow that her sincerity is never so valuable as to make a difference when its validity is questioned by the progression of revelations. She is a thin character who comes off the girlboss assembly line, fun to watch in a two hour comedy but kind of a bore over 7 hours of audio.

What made (most of) the other books I listed so memorable, though, was their strange openness. They have observations to make, as does the Atmospherians. Once made, however, the books continue, following observations with questions, boring sideways through deadends, to leave the reader in a place of wondering and thinking, set free to explore this new perspective on its own.

The Atmospherians, by contrast, continually delivers the readers into cynical knowingness. Smug Sasha, who treats every endeavor as an opponent to vanquish, unfortunately, wins the day. It's an amusement and one with strengths that suggest the value of future books from McElroy (I'd love to read a short story collection by her, a form better suited to very dark comedy), but one I would have been okay missing .

This book is mind blowing from the very first page. I absolutely couldn’t put it down. The book follows an influencer who falls from grace and, due to lack of options and the harassment from the public, decides to leave the city and start a cult with her childhood best friend. This cult, dubbed the Atmospherians, is composed of a group of men whom they plan on rehabilitating into empathetic, successful, happy members of society. Needless to say, things do not go as planned. The main themes of cancel culture and toxic masculinity make this book a very relevant and entertaining read. Definitely a must have.

Inventive, contemporary, savvy. This novel is all of the above, like a trip to to the cutting edge of modern issues. Laudable for its grasp and critique, the novel nevertheless seemed to me less engaging than hoped. So, insightful and smart and yet somehow dull at the same time.

This book was incredible. The best example I've ever encountered of extended satire, which I think succeeds because of how it blends in pathos and backstory to create emotional anchors alongside the absurdity of the ideas. Alex McElroy really is doing the damn thing.