In my humble opinion, Ms. Blake could never do wrong. She’s such a way with words that her stories can’t help but come across as lyrics without the music, because it needs to be heard and paid heed to it. I love how she magically wove her plot line with the raw and authentic characters. So, I can’t help but fall in love with it more than I did with the last one. Overall, it was one perfect read for me. I’m already more than ecstatic to read the next instalment already haha

This is a continuation and we get deeper into who the characters are, what motivates them and more of the inner workings of their powers . I really enjoyed this even though I was confused by some of it. I love dark academia and this was such a stunning sequel.

Highly recommend

It’s hard for me to review The Atlas Paradox since it is the second book of the series. But all I have to say that this book was perfection. It takes place immediately after the first book. Nico and Libby are still my favorite characters. I literally screamed when I got accepted for an Arc. Thank you so much NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this amazing story. I already purchased a physical copy a for my personal library. The cover is absolutely gorgeous.

The Atlas Paradox picks up soon after the explosive ending that was The Atlas Six. Nobody quite knows where Libby is, but Nico, Reina, Parisa, Tristan, and Callum follow through with their initiation.

After initiation, the characters move around and pursue their interests of study, all with different goals in mind. Some of the five grow closer, while others fall apart.

Meanwhile, Libby is fuming over Ezra's betrayal as she finds herself in an unexpected place.

It's difficult to write an adequate review for The Atlas Paradox without spoiling major plot points, but I think the easiest way to go about this is to say that sequels are tough. I liked the direction this book took quite a lot because it brought about new dynamics and new stakes. I enjoyed the direction Libby's sublot took, and I found myself sympathizing with the characters far more than I did when I read the first book.

It's not the perfect book, but I had a good time reading it. I look forward to seeing how the story progresses in the next installment.

I listened to an ARC of the audiobook while reading along and it truly made the experience that much more enjoyable for me. All of the narrators are phenomenal at capturing the essence of their characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing me with an e-ARC and digital audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The Atlas Six was incredibly enthralling so I was ecstatic to get an early copy of The Atlas Paradox and continue following the lives of these six characters. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t live up to my expectations. What Olivie Blake does well is creating characters that are so unique, complex, and interesting and I enjoyed that aspect of the book. The Atlas Paradox, similarly to the first book, is slow-paced and character-focused. The first book ended on a cliff-hanger so I was excited to get to some resolution, but The Atlas Paradox felt like 400 pages of build up for a lacklustre ending that only sets up the third book in the series. At a certain point, you find yourself asking what’s the point? The How and the Why of this world and mission aren’t addressed until way too late in the book, I think the world/magic setup is poorly done. Overall, I do enjoy her writing and will be reading the third book in the series, this one was just incompatible with my preferences.

This book was a good follow up to the Atlas Six. Being the middle book in a series means we didn't get all the answers we were looking for but despite this the book was very enjoyable and has set the stage for what is to come next. The first book was a phenomenon and I don't think fans of it will be disappointed with this follow up.

How do you follow up a viral phenomenon? That is, at least in part, the question we must ask of The Atlas Paradox, Olivie Blake’s highly anticipated sequel to the popular dark academia novel The Atlas Six, a self-published fantasy debut that went so viral it won a publishing deal and dominated social media publishing discussion for months. Perhaps there was no way that anything that came after those kinds of highs could ever hope equal them, particularly not the middle novel in a trilogy, which can’t give us the answers we’re so desperately seeking.

To be fair, The Atlas Paradox isn’t bad. Far from it, in fact. It’s a deeply philosophical, extremely nerdy exploration of ethics and morality that ticks a lot of the boxes about what the whole idea of the dark academia sub-genre is supposed to be and do in the first place. Blake’s prose remains gorgeous, and her characters are realistically messy, running the gamut from sympathetic disasters to offputtingly self-obsessed jerks. But the pace of this book is positively glacial at times, and it’s often a textbook example of middle story syndrome, occasionally struggling to clearly articulate the reason for its existence. Thankfully, the novel has a killer (excuse the sort of pun?) ending that more than proves worth the journey to reach it, though it’s likely some readers will be annoyed about how long it takes to get there.

Thank you, NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review! I'd like to preface that I devoured The Atlas Six. It was fast-paced and I couldn't wait to see what occurred.

In contrast, I felt that The Atlas Paradox dragged a little in comparison. This may be middle-book syndrome, but I had a hard time getting through the first half of the book. It felt like there was very little plot progression forward. While I very much enjoyed spending additional time with our characters, it fell a little flat because it didn't seem like anything was happening. That being said, Nico & Gideon stole the show for me, and I am VERY excited to see Libby's arc in the 3rd book.

Overall, I would recommend this book to people especially if they enjoy a heavy character-driven plot. Both books so far feel the same, which was disappointing but also expected. With the reveal of the end of The Atlas Six, I was hoping for bigger reveals in The Atlas Paradox. We shall see what awaits us in book 3.

I truly enjoyed this sequel! Six gifted individuals with very different agendas! While I don't love all the characters I love seeing how they all play off each other.

This one picks up right where The Atlas Six leaves off and takes us through year 2 at the Alexandrian Society. The writing is absolutely brilliant!! So many twists and turns! There's danger, rivalries, and conspiracies!! I can't wait for the next book!!

2/5 stars

Thank you so much to Netgalley for granting me access to an eARC.

This might be the most disappointing reads of this year--I'm so upset that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did when I read The Atlas Six. I just want to say, before I continue on with this review, that I think Olivie is a very talented author and her writing is immensely rich and descriptive. I think my biggest issues with this novel stems from the way it progresses and it's lack of plot.

Very early on it became evident to me that there just... wasn't a lot going on. Usually I'm a big fan of character-driven novels, which is what I found the most appealing about TAS, but there was also a lot of plot-driven things that I really enjoyed in the first book that weren't even remotely present in the second book. Not only that, but the only characters that I was remotely interesting were Libby, Tristan, and Nico, and with that being less than half of the cast of characters we read about, it really wasn't a novel that kept my attention. Even if I'm reading about characters that I don't necessarily enjoy, I like to att least have my attention kept, and it wasn't kept in this book.

I'm not sure if maybe dark academia just isn't my genre, but regardless, it was a huge miss for me. I'll probably discontinue with this and just cherish the time I had when I read TAS.

4/5⭐️

Much like the book itself, this review is going to be all over a place and a little confusing but bare with me.

Man, where do I even start? I guess I’ll say that I did genuinely enjoy this book. It was slow for the first little bit but the second half was addictive. The plot was interesting, I never knew what would happen next and I was continuously on the edge of my seat. I felt like every page turned was an opportunity for some new relationship or plot point that I could never see coming.

That being said, Olivie Blake never fails to make me feel simultaneously smarter and dumber than I am. One second I’m like, “oh I get it, wow look at me go” and then I turn the page and go “what the hell am I reading here?” Similar to The Atlas Six, this book is not for those uninterested in theory and academic literature (it is EXTREMELY heavy in both). If it weren’t for the characters and storylines that I love, I probably would have given up because this book makes me think harder than a book you read for fun should. I often found myself having to stop reading and sit there for a few minutes to try and process all of the information I just read.

However, if Blake knows how to do anything, it’s write complex characters that were undoubtedly my favorite part of this book.

I know this is an unpopular view in terms of likability but ever since I read the first book, I liked Libby and I think it’s mainly because I see myself in her a lot (anxiety-ridden, academic performance reliant girl who just wants to be liked). I felt she got a lot of shit from other characters in the first book so I really liked how all of them acknowledged how her absence set them off balance in this book. The only thing I wanted from her in the first book was a backbone, and boy did she grow one in this book - this was the start of Libby’s villain origin story and I am HERE for it.

I also really enjoyed how Raina and Callum were expanded upon as characters in this book, since I found them a bit one dimensional and boring in the first. I kind of… like Callum now? I thought he was one of the funniest characters in this book, besides Nico of course who will always be a lovable idiot. Tristan is still meh for me.

Parisa is and always will be that bitch who I would do anything to be with. She is so smart and manipulative and unapologetic and UGH WOMEN.

Gideon, oh my sweet Gideon. He is the best, I love him. Even Parisa, who doesn’t like anyone, can’t help but like him. Also, NicoGideon supremacy.

The queer pining in this book was TOP NOTCH. The Atlas Six had a lot of references to queer relationships but this book really solidified a lot of them for me - Nico and Gideon, Tristan and Callum, Libby and Belen. Give me more. All I need is a Parisa/Libby endgame and I can die happy.

So where does that leave us? I have no idea. This book was confusing in almost every way but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Do with that information what you will.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me an ARC of this book! All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I loved Atlas Six, so I kind of had high expectations walking into this. Overall, I really mostly enjoyed Libby's story. I found myself hoping the other chapters would go by faster. Not a fan of Parisa or Callum at all this time around.

Personally, I found that this book was good but not as great as the first installment in the series. I feel like it was a good setup for the following (and final?) book, but I found that parts of the book could have been whittled down more and could have been more concise. The writing is still beautiful in true Blake fashion. A very soild 4/5 stars.

Fantastic! I love how truly immersive the world of The Atlas series is. Between our six main characters and three main side characters, there’s so much story to cover in this sequel—almost too much but thankfully there seems to be a third installation coming. The beginning is slow, allowing us to catch up and set the stage for each characters trajectory. Once that initial set up has passed, it’s nonstop plot until the end.

My favorite part was the switch up of character pairings. We truly get to see everyone react and, while they may not appreciate it, become closer as a whole. I absolutely loved it and impatiently wait for more!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off I want to thank TOR and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

NGL - writing this breaks my heart because I’ve been waiting for this sequel for over a year. Given how much I LOVED The Atlas Six this was probably my most anticipated book of the year. Unfortunately, Blake did not manage to write up to the hype she cultivated with this first book of the series. I don’t want to spoil anyone so I’ll try to be as specific as I can without doing so.

One of the things that sucked me into TA6 was the world building and character development. Not only was it incredibly well written and well paced, but it was engaging - more so than almost anything else I’ve read! The magic system was heavily rooted in science to the extent that I could reasonably see how the world we live in now could have been different with a few well placed technological developments. Granted I understand a decent amount about science but I never felt bogged down by Blake’s elaboration - I felt fascinated and respected! The fact that Blake managed to do a lot of describing without condescension was impressive and TA6 was better for it. Given HOW MUCH development occurred in The Atlas Paradox with certain characters learning new things about their abilities, I expected more of the same. That’s on me I guess, because what could have been more of what I loved from TA6 was just pretentious word vomit with no descriptive value.

What’s worse is that by the end of the book we have learned absolutely nothing about the characters we came to love in TA6. They just feel like hollow stereotypes with maybe one defining trait (if they’re lucky) that Blake puppets around to do things just for the sake of wondering what would happen if XYZ. Especially given how much I LOVED these characters, this is a huge disservice to the potential development that could have happened.

My past and biggest critique is that there is… no plot. Literally. If someone asked me what happened in this book I would say 3 words. Even better is the fact that those three words have NO larger purpose from what I can tell. They mean that we end up at more or less the exact same place we were left at the end of TA6 minus maybe 5 pages.

All in all, this book suffers heavily from 2nd-book-in-the-trilogy syndrome and it’s worse for it.

Just like the first book, this was incredible! I couldn't put it down and I am so excited to see it on the shelves of my store and that I can now publicky about it!

The Atlas Paradox is a different beast from The Atlas Six and with no murder plot looming over their heads, one of them lost in time, and study topic decisions looming, the Alexandrian Society initiates find themselves mostly existing quietly amongst themselves for most of this novel. The Atlas Paradox, then, is a naturally slower novel than its predecessor that can seem to wander aimlessly in places, but Olivie Blake's characters and their fascinating interior perspectives kept me from ever growing bored or unsure of this novel. While I do think it suffers mildly from second book syndrome, I had the time of my life with it and I can't wait for The Atlas Complex to drop to see how all of this comes to an end.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed Atlas Six and was excited to get the second book in the series, but I found myself disappointed in this one.

Without the murder plot of the first book, much of the tension drains out of the story. In fact, at about 30 percent in, I thought about just giving up on it. I really missed Libby and her role in the group and found the remaining members tedious a good part of the time. I finished but it was more of a struggle than I anticipated, and I'm not sure I'll go on with the series. Perhaps the final book will save it as middle books are often tough to get right.

A worthy sequel to the first with a slow ramp up to the action. As always, the vibes are impeccable and the characters are complicated and compelling. A very cool blend of science and fantasy, with some interesting food for thought on academia and elitism, though I wish the plot were a bit heftier. All in all, great fun.

Picking up immediately after the first book, this is a book written to be a movie. Not always a bad thing, but not my cup of tea. Good characters and pacing help a lot with the book.