an absolute triumph. a triumph in every way. this book is like succession on steroids in a way. each character is so colorful and loud and themselves.

the familial tragedy is poignant. everyone set on a path that will inevitably lead to collision, and the fireworks of the explosion are breathtaking to look at.

i wish i had more words to adequately express just how good this was.

this truly may be olivie blake’s best yet. the only word i can use to describe it is a masterpiece.

The gifted kid to clinically depressed adult pipeline 🫠
Not surprised I loved this. As always, all hail Queen Olivie Blake.
4.5 stars
More detailed review to come!

When Thayer Wren, CEO of Wrenfare Magitech, dies, his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children come together to find out who will inherit the coveted Wrenfare throne...

Reading this felt like passing a car crash on the highway and feeling compelled to stare at the wreck. The wreck in this story being the emotional chaos and existential dread that each Wren sibling grapples with after the death of their (not so good) father. The siblings and side characters in this one were messssy, complex, and all shades of morally grey. And I LOVE me some good morally grey characters

Gifted & Talented was a lot.
Truly a family drama at its core, the story follows the Wren siblings as they essentially bicker over their dead father's company. One of my favourite things about Olivie Blake's writing is when it's so chaotic my brain hurts (Master of Death coded). As soon as I finished the story I just sat there thinking about it all the drama, the weird magic system, the abundance of huge words that I swear I've never heard in a sentence out loud.
Blake has this inane ability to write these horrific unlikeable and at some times down right despicable characters that you will somehow end up rooting for anyways. Meredith the genius, Arthur the politician and Eilidh the ingenue- have all in some way fallen from grace. They are left burnt out, depressed and lost. The only thing they share in common is mutual agreement that their father was like seriously shit (even if Eilidh did have youngest child privileges).
This story was seriously bizarre and not at all what I expected. Both narrator and writing style is unreliable and it's so much fun. If you are looking for a break from the monotony- I highly recommend giving this a try, once I started reading it I couldn't stop. The need to uncover everything that was going on past and present was overwhelming, Blake can just hook you in.
Do I still have questions? Of course.
But damn Gifted & Talented is a ride you just won't want to get off.

Such a great book. Reflects on the human condition in a really interesting way - loved the way magic was portrayed in this world. Managed to be hopeful while looking at super dark character emotions.

This was such a fun, fresh, page-turning new novel from Blake—exploring failed gifted and talented magical teens and their family legacy through the lens of a magical tech company was a total trip. The voice was funny, wry, and smart, and the characters well-drawn and sympathetic (even the ones I hated).

“You can have pride or you can have money, guess which one changes the world?”

Meet Arthur, Elidh and Meredith Wren, the Gifted & Talented children of a recently deceased billionaire (bearing an uncanny resemblance to the creator of Neuralink, Tesla, etc.) These nepo babies have magic, money, and a garbage dump filled with emotional baggage. As the trio processes the death of their father, they must navigate self interest, a future with no top cover, and reach self actualisation before they quite literally destroy the world. With an emotionally magical ensemble cast of relatable characters who ground the story and create secondary, romance driven plots, there’s something for everyone in this (very) character driven novel. No one does enemies with a side of lovers like Olivie Blake. Oh how I love her complex assholes!

If you like family drama and relatively erudite literature, this book is for you. It is a razing critique of wealth, resource dissparity and the hoops even the privileged must jump through to know success. Boasting an extremely unique narrative style, Gifted & Talented is good old fashioned pretentious fun.

For cinema fans, Succession meets The Dropout in this quippy, thought provoking story. I felt the book dragged a touch in the second act. Typical of Blake’s writing, readers may find this inaccessibly grandiloquent. This wouldn’t be my first recommendation if you’re easing into lit-fic or expecting traditional low-fantasy, but G&T was definitely my cup of G&T!

“Gifted & Talented” is a wickedly funny examination of three privileged and magical children who are trying to determine the succession of their father’s billion-dollar business – a sort of fantasy “Succession”. Blake is so good at writing completely self-absorbed, pretentious jerks; anyone who enjoyed her Atlas Six series will likely enjoy this one. My main criticism is that “Gifted & Talented” is much too long – it could have lost 100 pages, easily, and been all the sharper for it. As a result a few of the side characters and plots just aren’t as interesting as some of the main ones, and it results in some listlessness especially toward the middle of the novel. While “Gifted & Talented” will not be my favorite Blake novel, there were nonetheless some hilarious one-liners and witty character interactions that you come to expect from her work.

Gifted & Talented may be my favorite Olivie Blake book yet. I love her wacky characters, and in this book in particular I really liked the relationships between the three siblings and their love interests and friends. While there was a ton going on from page one, the book felt like multiple character studies as well as having a really engaging and action-packed plot.

I finished 'Gifted and Talented' and I think it might be my favorite Olivie Blake book. And I ADORED the Atlas Six books. It's about three siblings who come together after their father dies, to see who will inherit his multi-billion dollar company. It's everything we've come to expect from an Olivie Blake book- it's (purposefully and wonderfully) pretentious, complicated, and messy. All of the characters are terrible... but that's Blake's genius- she makes us root for them anyway.

It took me three tries to get into Gifted & Talented, and I should have dnfed it instead of pushing myself through on that third try. I was really intrigued by the premise and the comparison to Succession, but with magic, but found that the actual book was incredibly disappointing.

It felt sooooo long for a book that takes place over the span of about 3-4 days, and a lot of that was just unnecessary long sentences and flowery language. It was a drag for me to keep going because it felt like nothing really ever happened, which meant I never cared about the characters

The magic was barely present. Blake set up really interesting unique abilities for each sibling, but then those abilities were hardly ever used and barely contributed to the plot. The magic got talked about and was lurking in the background, but I wanted way more. We just kept getting reminded that it existed but Blake never actually did anything with it

I understand that Gifted & Talented is supposed to be a character driven story, but the characters were for the most part unbearable. They're in their 30s, but all acted like teenagers and were so annoyingly angsty with each other. Especially with the length and the lack of plot, it just got repetitive.

The plot was also entirely predictable and barely even existed, with the only minor plot twist incredibly easy to guess early on. Overall, I just didn't care about the book and had to force myself to slog through and finish.

I feel like I have a complicated relationship with Olivie Blake's writing. It takes me so long to get into the first couple chapters but once I hit my stride I'm zooming through and not able to put the book down. But I often find myself asking if I really liked what I read. She does excellent character work, and her plotting is really original.

All of that to say, this book was hard to put down, I found myself entranced with the story and where it was going. The characters, I hated most of them, but I wanted to know everything about them. Which, I think is the sign of good writing.

This author is a complicated one for me as a reader. Her writing is strong, the story plots are interesting, she crafts fascinating characters. Just some of the themes within the book don’t sit right with me.

olivie blake is definitely gifted & talented and it shows with this release!!!! from the dramatics to the characters to the writing, everything had me hooked. despite the long page count for this, i still wish there was MORE.

Tragically dramatic and full of surprises, this journey of the Wren children was a dark and twisty road to take. Loved diving into this one.

I love them all. They're so broken and soft with spikey edges. I loved the subtle magic and the familial longing.

This book is very hard for me to categorize. I love Olivie Blake's One For My Enemy. I enjoyed Atlas Six (though not as much). This one was completely different than both of those which made it hard for me to wrap my head around for awhile. The pacing seemed...slow at times but never boring due to the voice and narration and just strange goings on in the character's lives. Despite my hesitation, I never stopped reading, totally pulled into the three siblings orbit. I wanted to know what happened to them and what was going to happen to them, even if the near-frenetic prose was off putting at first. Eventually, I fell into it and by the climax, I was crying. If you ask me if I liked it, my answer would be much like the characters. It's complicated. There were parts that were laugh out loud funny, comical scenes that somehow worked against the all too real hellscape that is our current country/workforce. (The bits and observations about Meredith and her rise in tech were so dead on. And Arthur's politics made me want to cry with how accurate and silly it felt all at the same time.) There were other parts that were slower or less compelling that I read more quickly. The magic oftentimes was not explained or did not make sense but somehow fit in the story and world that Blake created. And like I said, I cried at the end completely unexpectedly. I think if you're a fan of Blake, this is worth picking up (though its not like One for My Enemy or Atlas Six). I think if you feel tired by the hyper capitalistic world we live in, this is worth picking up. I think if you want to read about odd magic that might be related to the 12 plagues of Egypt or might be causing someone to die and revive at very inopportune times, this is worth picking up. If you identify or enjoy reading about complex sibling and family relationships, especially the offspring of the wealthy, this is definitely worth picking up. It made a very deep impression on me, even though I didn't always enjoy what I was reading. Which says a lot.

I stopped reading after chapter 2 (3%). The voice wasn’t working for me; it is definitely a departure from her prior styles. I like that Blake has been given a lot of leeway to push the bounds of her craft. Hopefully, I will enjoy the next book more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

2.5 stars

While this book sounded interesting, I really struggled with it. And I never connected with her writing style. I also struggled to connect with the characters. The premise sounded interesting, but the execution fell flat. There was a lot of repetition, and characters weren't as developed as I had expected. There are some subplots that seemed unnecessary, and there was way too much complaining. I actually was a bit more impressed with some of the secondary characters than I was with some of the primary ones. Dialogue felt unnatural. I have never read any books by Blake before, and I'm not sure I will check out future books.

Full disclosure: I legitimately thought I was going to hate this book.

Why? It was a combination of the fact that I figured this was going to be about a bunch of pretentious assholes AND I know that <i>The Atlas Six</i> has some really mixed reviews.

BUT, I’m happy and completely surprised to report that I really enjoyed reading Gifted and Talented. It’s exactly what I needed in a post-Succession finale world.

SYNOPSIS: Succession but give them superpowers

I’ll start with a couple reasons to praise this book.

Olivie Blake hits the Succession/Royal Tenenbaums vibes just right without feeling like she’s completing copying either of them. The characters feel original without feeling like carbon copies or even mashups of the other characters. AND the plot manages to feel like its own things despite being very similar to <i>Succession</i>.

The characters don’t really need their superpowers to be interesting. There were times where I thought about how the powers just aren’t needed for the story to be engaging or for the characters to have a nice arc. And in some ways, I can see that being a reason to dislike the book, but I think it shows the strength of Blake’s writing in this book and that she has both a solid plot structure and character arcs.

And to add to those points before I move into the criticism, I think this book is fun. There were times that I laughed. The character arcs are emotionally satisfying. And I found myself looking forward to seeing where the plot was going.

It’s just enjoyable.

Where it lacks is that yes, it’s HELLA PRETENTIOUS. I’m a hipster so I have a high tolerance for this type of nonsense, but I can see it grating on other readers.

It’s also very word salad-y throughout the book. I feel like that often added to the pretentious charm, but I know some folks are going to be annoyed as hell when Blake doesn’t just say what she means to say.

This is my first Olivie Blake book, so I can’t really speak on how it compares to her other novels, but overall I’m very pleasantly surprised by this one.

Huge thanks to both NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.