I LOVED this! Spending more time with the Atlas six was so satisfying. We get so much more background and action in this book, which I loved. The multiple story lines and narrators was easy for me to follow which is helpful with so much going on. Left me with even more questions about the wilder world, the history, everyone’s abilities. This makes me so excited for the next book! The mixture of magic, science, history, and human nature was done so well. Highly recommend! Thank you to the publisher for the eARC through NetGalley

This book is everything I wanted it to be and more than I didn't know I wanted.

I did go back and re-read The Atlas Six and I have to say reading/listening to them back to back is the way to go, the transition from book one to this is seemless and carries over without any issues.

Let me get into the narrators for a moment, the cast for this audiobook is beyond talented, having multiple narrators for the different characters gives this an almost cinematic feeling, you can just sit back and listen to these talented people weave a tale, it's a magical experience.

This series is quickly becoming one of my favorites, the characters have grown and come into their own while learning to work with and almost trust each other.

I will say I can't wait to see where the relationships we have at the end of this book go and what kind of adventures our six can have in book three.

This is without a doubt a 4.5 star book for me and if I enjoyed it more than the first in this series, I have to say it answered a lot of the questions from book one (Libby I'm talking about you here) while giving us even more questions for book three.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an advance copy of this audio book, I have voluntarily listened to this and reviewed it, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I am very disappointed in this sequel! I enjoyed The Atlas Six and its dark academia vibe. I could tell at the end of the first book that the story was building up to something great. I mean you have a bunch of magical young adults training within The Alexandria Society given almost unlimited free rein and access to stores of magical books. The Atlas Paradox lost that magic for me.

Biggest pro: I enjoyed that the audiobook used a different narrator for each character. Since each chapter switches characters this made it immensely easier to keep them all straight. I had read The Atlas Six so I'm not sure if this was done with the first one, but it did help a lot.

Biggest con: The main reason I was so disappointed in this book was the extraordinarily slow pace. The first scene lasted for 14% of the book. I know this exactly because I checked because I was so bored. This book is a lot more character based vs plot based so the first scene goes through each character and their experience during this "duel" between them and another character. It reminded me a bit of MTV's Real World where a bunch of young adults are put together, drink, have sex, and complain to a confessional.

I think if you really enjoyed character based books this one may work for you. I just wanted more magic and plot.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for granting me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I truly enjoyed this audiobook! I love that it includes a full cast of narrators. It helps me keep all the characters straight. 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.

In regards to the audiobook, it was fine. I found that most of my issues with it stemmed from the audio player--Netgalley turns their audiobook's sound almost.. robotic? Maybe something for them to look into. Also, Parisa's narrator was way too quiet and didn't speak very fast, so during her chapters I'd have to go up to 2.5 speed (I usually listen at 1.95-2.0x).

Wow. Okay, why do I wanna smack these characters? So much could be avoided if they would just talk to each other!? How can you live with people for 2 years and form zero attachment. Where is their humanity and why do I not trust anyone anymore.

The end: Gideon ...all I'm gonna say is YESSSSSS! ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!

Well written, incredibly slow but doesn't feel like it, if that makes sense. Like the slowness builds my interest instead of boring me.

Will definitely read the next one and any thing else this author publishes.

It took me a while to get myself back into this world. I had forgotten so much from the first book. But a good author knows that we need to be reminded. We read a lot. We immerse ourselves into a lot of worlds. So, slowly, hints were thrown in that reminded of where we were. It was after this that it went a little downhill for me.

I remembered the dark wit and intelligence of the characters in the first book and that seemed at least partially gone in this book. No one was who they were nor who I had thought they would be. So, is this suffering from middle book syndrome? Does it just set up the third? I hope so. I will stick with it and hope the next book makes the slight slog that this was all worth it.

The follow-up to Atlas Six was one of my most anticipated reads for this year! There isn’t much that can be said about the plot without there being spoilers, however, this is a solid middle installment of a trilogy. The biggest downside was that at times the pacing felt a little slow for my taste. The story delivered the emotion I would expect from this series and I am looking forward to age next installment!

I listened to the audiobook. Each character’s POV has a different narrator and most of these narrators do an amazing job! There was one narrator who used similar tones/voices for side characters, so I had to pay closer attention to whom that character was interacting with as I could not tell from the audio alone.

I received an audiobook ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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.

3.75 stars
The Atlas Six was one of my favorite reads in 2021, so this book was definitely my most anticipated release for this year. My expectations for this book were undoubtedly sky-high, which is why I'm now left feeling a bit underwhelmed by it. This feels like the kind of series that was intended to be a duology but was forced into a trilogy by the publisher, and so it's hard to walk away from this book without feeling like a lot of things it tried to do simply did not matter.

Don't get me wrong; I did genuinely enjoy my time reading it. Like the first book, this book is really the embodiment of no-plot-just-vibes (but with the volume turned up), and the vibes of this series really do work for me. We got to explore some interesting new character dynamics and pairings that weren't touched on in TA6, and this book really went deeper into magic-based academic exploration, which I always thought was very neat. But beyond that, I think I'd have a hard time pinning down specific things I thought were well done in this book.

In general, I think this book suffers from trying to do too many things at once. While I felt similarly on my re-read of TA6, I thought that with that book, it could have made better if it had just been longer. With TAP, on the other hand, I absolutely do not think more page time would have helped this book at all. As it was just trying to keep track of everything each character was doing was confusing and disorienting, and I found myself grateful that it didn't have more page time to do more things.

As much as I enjoyed the academic topics this book explored, the things the characters were researching always felt so disconnected and all over the place, and so many ideas were brought up only to drop off without any sort of satisfying conclusion. I think this could have worked if all of their research topics were seemingly unrelated but then had a way of coming together by the end so it could feel like seeds were planted and then came to fruition, but the way things ended left a lot of threads unresolved and hanging in the wind.
Similarly, there was a recurring mention throughout the book about all 5 of our remaining society initiates needing to pick a singular topic for research during their second year, and yet despite how many times it came up, at no point did it feel like this was ever relevant to what any of them actually ended up spending their time on. In fact, it was even brought up at the end how useless this plot point was when everyone makes fun of Nico for bothering to compile his research at the end of their year (which even Atlas doesn't seem to care about). While I get that Olivie wanted to give some sort of structure or purpose to them staying in the house a second year, it was just another instance of an idea being introduced to really never amount to anything important.

I also feel like this book continues to struggle with trying to make 6 characters equally important to the story— not to mention having 4 side characters who are also critical to the plot. I feel like this isn't so much an issue of poor execution as much as it is an impossible thing to accomplish effectively with a book of this length in the first place. I know that Olivie is pretty much locked proceeding as such given how she structured book one, but it did feel in this book like some characters were resigned to be left more one-dimensional to try to give equal time to six POV's. It felt like this book was trying to give more attention to Reina and Callum due to them being a bit neglected in book one, but even then it felt like their development only amounted to giving them one specific character trait that shaped everything they did in every scene.

I think that Libby's chapters were really the highlight of this book for me, which was something of a surprise. Her story generally seemed to have the most clear-cut goal, and even though she was disconnected from the main cast for the entirety of this book (which is a thing I never normally like), I think it really worked well in her case to give her a chance to define herself and her motivations outside of other people. As much as I generally maintain that I don't need a plot in order to enjoy a book, I think that her chapters were an example of how this book might feel more cohesive if everyone else was tied to a main goal a bit more.

While a smaller thing, the general writing & tone of this book seemed a bit jarringly different from TA6. It seemed that this book was making a very intentional effort to be more 2022-esque snarky & quippy, which I wouldn't have thought much of in and of itself, but was a bit distracting given how much more serious the tone was in book one. Having done some comparisons between my indie published & Tor published copies of TA6 I did notice that they went back and added some similar lines in book one — presumably to try to make the tone shift less jarring — but it still felt line a major change in style between the two. It probably wouldn't have been as noticeable if I hadn't just re-read TA6 immediately before starting this book, but I did do that and I did notice it.

For the audiobook specifically, I have to say that I really disliked the narrator for Tristan's chapters. He had a way of reading every single line with the exact same cadence and inflection such that it felt monotone even without strictly being so. He also didn't seem to change the voice at all for different characters, which made it a bit difficult to keep track of who was supposed to be speaking at moments when it wasn't explicitly stated. Sam West (Callum's narrator), on the other hand, was absolutely phenomenal and this audiobook made me realize I want to listen to any and every book he has narrated.

If I were just rating this book on my general enjoyment it'd probably be around a 4.5, but this book was just too all over the place for me to feel it deserves such a high rating on quality. I think that a lot of my enjoyment came from my lingering positive feelings towards TA6, and so I know that this addition to the series probably won't work for everyone. While I'll undoubtedly be reading The Atlas Complex when it comes out, I can see this book being something that might drive away people who weren't completely sold on book one, or people who were hoping this book would resolve more unanswered questions from TA6. Nonetheless, I am cautiously choosing to have faith that this book just had a case of middle book syndrome and that Miss Olivie will have a way of wrapping things up nicely in book 3.

3.75

The writer is crazy talented. This book forces me to be present and the style is interesting. Great ideas, I’m in love with the world, but the pacing! The reason I appreciate multi-pov is that it’s a vehicle to keep the story interesting and moving quickly. Something that was done brilliantly in the first book. Here it missed the mark for me. I needed this book cut for pacing or more added to the plot.

I read this via audiobook and it was excellent. Makes the multi pov easier to follow that each has their own voice actor/actress.

The Atlas Paradox picks up some time after The Atlas Six left off. I usually start my reviews with a brief (spoiler-free) summary of what the book is about. However, I am unable to do that for The Atlas Paradox. Why? you ask. Well, I had an impossible time trying to figure out WTF was going on during the majority of this book when it finally hit me. Ah! It's about nothing! There is no discernible plot in this book. It's basically just these characters existing. The only story I could follow and enjoyed somewhat was Libby trapped in the past. Other than that, I wanted to punch Parisa and Callum in their smug faces. I felt bad for Reina, who devolved as a character. Aside from them, I didn't know what the heck was going on with the other characters.

I enjoyed The Atlas Six, but I cannot say the same for this book. I had no complaints about the laundry list of narrators: Alexandra Palting, Andy Ingalls, Caitlin Kelly, Damian Lynch, Daniel Henning, David Monteith, James Cronin, Munirih Grace, Siho Ellsmore, and Steve West. They fit the characters. Unfortunately, this book was not for me.

I was very excited to continue with this story after The Atlas Six. Without a murder plot looming, this story was different. It was a bit slower paced and we delve more into the characters’ lives. But it is still engaging albeit somewhat slow in places. If you enjoyed the first one, you’ll still like this one.

I hadn’t realized that this was a sequel and I tried listening to this one but was so confused. I do like that there are more than one narrator.

I really enjoyed Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six and was so excited when the publisher approved my request to listen to The Atlas Paradox. The Atlas Paradox is narrated by a full cast, just like The Atlas Six, and I think the narration is top-notch.

There's not a tremendous amount of plot in The Atlas Six, an issue many fantasy series' first installment face, so much of the story is building the world that The Atlas Six lives in and getting to know the 10 or so characters. It still managed to be compelling and I expected more, if not better, things from the second installment since it wouldn't have to contend with the world-building.

The Atlas Paradox picks up right where you left off in the previous installment, one of the characters has been taken to another plane and the rest of the initiates are left dealing with the aftermath. Somehow, what should be an exciting jumping off point for the story just stagnates. The initiates spend (in the audio version) hours playing some seemingly random game as their initiation process. The character that is on another plane has a more interesting story but you don't spend a lot of time with them. The plot doesn't move forward really until 75% of the way through the book, and considering it runs 18 hrs, that's a substantial investment to just read what more or less feels like a rewrite of the first book: five students sitting around wondering what their purpose is and trying to undermine each other or form alliances and requesting books from the archives.

Any character development from the first installment feels incidental in the second installment. There was so much manipulation and plotting by the initiates in the first installment and then it doesn't develop into anything more in the second--that might be fine if there were only a couple of characters to keep up with but in this installment we're keeping up with the motivations and plotting of 6 main characters, 6 minor characters. It's a lot to keep up with for so little payoff. Lots of second installments suffer from this problem; after you wrote so much about this world, how do you move the story forward? I don't think Blake quite found a solution to that problem.

Blake's characters are complicated and real and the writing is enjoyable, though she says "Atlas shrugged" a few too many times in the book for my taste. I just don't think the story has enough to it to carry it through 40 hrs of writing. Perhaps there is something really great waiting in the final installment but I'm not sure the payoff can warrant the length of the story regardless of how it finishes.

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. For those considering this audiobook, I'd highly recommend it. The production is excellent, each narrator is well-fitting and compelling to listen to, and the perspective shifts are brought to vivid life in a way that you can't quite get through the physical book.

Dark Academia is a series that I have found I really enjoy listening to! Olivia Blake is well written and these books are highly addicting.
I really enjoy that the different characters have different narrators in these! It makes the audiobook suck you in even more!

This was... just so boring LOL. The only parts I truly enjoyed were Libby's sections. Everything else was very bland and it felt as though this book was not needed. Instead of a trilogy, it could be a duology and just put all of Libby's parts at the beginning of the next book instead. I am happy about a certain duo having a cute moment towards the end and cracked a grin there, but otherwise... this was very subpar (and that's saying something considering I thought the first book was boring as well and thought this could liven things up).

The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake is a dark academia sci-fantasy and the second book in the Atlas series. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at eighteen and a half hours and is narrated by a full cast. This version also contains the short story prequel to the series, "Sacred Hospitality," at the end of the audiobook.

Six mages were invited to a prestigious magical society though only five remain at the Archives. A rival society is gaining in power. What will they do with all of the knowledge contained in the Archives? Will they preserve the current world order, or burn it down and rebuild?

This book felt like it had a lot less of the academia that permeated the first book. Is it still dark academia if the academics aren't the focus? This book follows their second year in the Alexandrian Society and they're mostly focused on their individual research projects. They'll theorize together every so often, so I guess the academia is still alive.

It also starts a little slow but once we got about a quarter in I was hooked. I listened to the back 65% in one day.

This story is yet again mostly character-driven. So if you like these characters, you will probably enjoy following them through another book. Libby especially has growth here, in dealing with the scenario she was left in at the end of book one. However, some of the choices she makes here won't really have impact until book three it seems. I'm very excited to see what she does and how she reacts to things in the next book.

We gain additional POV characters as well in Gideon, Ezra, and a few others. We get a lot more Gideon in general in this installment. I was glad to learn more about our favorite cinnamon roll dream walker. This also includes more Nico/Gideon time which always warms my heart.

I need the next book to see what my fav dumpster fire mages do next.

Tropes in this book include: time travel

CW: violence, death, alcohol abuse, depression

The publisher provided a audio galley of this book for me to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

Ok friends... I think I have to succumb to the fact that this series is just not for me. I know it's widely loved by many and I wish I loved it, but I just do not. I'm not invested in any of the characters and the plot is all over the place. Very unlikely I'll continue with this series but we'll see.

Be warned, this does end with another cliffhanger of sorts.

To note, I thought the audiobook itself was good.