It is a truth universally acknowledged that a book authored by Kristin Dwyer will make me cry. Thanks for that, Ms. Dwyer!

I am not an outdoorsy gal (I’m genuinely allergic to trees), so I wasn’t sure how much I was going to connect with The Atlas of Us.

I should never have doubted the power of Kristin Dwyer.

Her electric prose drew me in and would not let me go. I read The Atlas of Us in a little over 24 hours, which I haven’t done in months. Found family is one of my favorite tropes and it was executed brilliantly. It was beautiful to read as everyone slowly but surely let down their walls. The little details made this book even more lovable, like the hierarchy of popsicle flavors, quirky nicknames, and Atlas’ ongoing battle with tents. I can tell that this story is deeply personal to the author, so I am honored that I was chosen to review the ARC.

To be transparent, I am giving this 4 stars instead of 5 because there was a little too much underage drinking and too many spicy moments for my comfort level. Still, it was a meaningful read that I appreciated.

Thank you to Netgalley and @epicreads for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a beautifully done representation of the stages of grief. Showing how people grieve in different ways but having the right people who understand you and what’s going on can help you break down the barriers and create strong friendships.
I was definitely not ready for this emotional ride but I enjoyed it very much!😭💜

Sometimes I am wary to pick up a book that I know will have an emotional impact on me. However, paradoxically such books always become my favorite. The Atlas of Us explores the depth of human emotion (in this case intense grief) and the resilience of human spirit. It is also about friendship, new beginnings and love. The main character is an 18 year old girl named Atlas (aka Maps) whose father recently died of cancer. Maps has the hardest time dealing with grief. She drops out of high school, has uncontrolled anger and sadness and overall becomes rudderless. She ends up in a program for troubled kids who set off on a month long hike in the Sierra mountains. There, on the trail her father dreamed of hiking again, Maps slowly learns her way back to herself and builds new relationships. I truly loved this book. It is raw, it made me cry, it also had a beautiful love story (both the love between parent and child and romantic love). Highly recommend. What a great way to kick off the reading year!

This book was beautiful and absolutely heart wrenching. And I expect nothing less from this author. I had the absolute joy of reading and obsessing over her first book, and I was so excited when I got the opportunity to read this one early on NetGalley,

Dwyer is consistent in her ability to merge the angst of being a teen and young adult, with grief. Her ability to poetically emphasize the pain and frustration of going through loss is unmatched, and I will autobuy her books every single time.

Atlas of Us is all about processing grief and finding yourself. It’s one part Happiness for Beginners and one part Dawson’s Creek. Every one of the characters we meet is a bit broken and on a journey to understand themselves and their relationships to others better, Atlas is processing her father’s death from page one and it’s heavy. But the beautiful way that her relationship with her father can still help her to grow and change, while also growing through her new relationships, is absolutely gorgeous.

And King, our swoony turtured MMC is great, He is caring and kind, he’s a leader and he see Atlas in such a beautiful light. He’s a character that will definitely stay will me.

Not to mention the side characters are also really intriguing, and her friendships with them give her a steady, solid ground for her to grow from.

Anyway, read this book and fall in love with this amazing characters. You will laugh and you will SOB but you’ll love it.

For those who need to know, there are a couple of open door scenes between Atlas and King. I didn’t have any problem skipping them.

Kristin Dwyer has outdone herself. I laughed, I cried, and I fell in love.

When Atlas's dad dies, she finds a bucket list of the things he wanted to do before he died. One includes hiking a specific trail with her. So, she spends a month of the summer working on the trail, paired with King, Books, Junior, and Sugar. It becomes a place where it all means nothing, but it also means everything. She runs from her grief all the while it's waiting to pounce.

This novel has found family and colored popsicle debates and messy feelings and so much freaking love that it felt more than some story I read in a book. Kristin really captured grieving and healing in a beautiful way. Readers don't have to have dealt with the loss of a parent or loved parental figure to enjoy this book. It's a beautiful portrayal of finding your tribe, too. Kristin expertly balances the humor with the heaviness of grief and the uncertainty of a budding romance. There is a bit of on page intimacy, swearing, and underage drinking...but it's a realistic portrayal of young adults being young adults. It's messy. And beautiful.

Rating:
4/5 ⭐️s

This book is perfect for readers those who loved Far from the Tree and Wild Bird.

I have to be honest that when I first started reading I was unsure if I would really be able to connect with the characters. As a book progressed, I begin to truly fall in love with each of them and their individual stories. Dwyer did an amazing job of weaving each of their tales as I continued to learn about them as the book progressed.

A book with found family will capture my heart every single time and this one certainly did. Excited to have found another author to add to my automatic buy list!

Kristin Dwyer does such great contemporary young adult. Her writing is absolutely visceral and her characters feel so incredibly real.

Oh my God, I can't remember the last time a book made me cry this much! I was not emotionally prepared for THE ATLAS OF US. I don't know if anyone will be. My husband found me sobbing on the bed at 5 in the morning after sitting up all night reading this pretty much in one go.

Both SOME MISTAKES WERE MADE and THE ATLAS OF US seem like they're going to be simple stories at first glance, but Dwyer manages to peel back our emotions and expectations layer by layer until we feel like we're bleeding out on the floor covered in tears and snot. She is an EXCELLENT writer who gets to the heart of people and not only understands the gray areas of relationships and human interactions but can write about these subtle intricacies very vividly. We all know few things are ever really black and white, but not many writers can skirt around the gray area of emotions as well as Dwyer can.

Fair warning, THE ATLAS OF US is a book about grief and navigating the terrible aftermath of losing someone you love. This novel hit me like a wrench to the face because my dad also passed away at too young an age. It's the perfect sad girl book for such a tragedy. But it's also a beautiful story about friendship, anger, love, and trying to pick up life's pieces after the worst thing ever happens.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and HarperTeen for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I can tell you that this is already a contender for my favorite books of 2024!

4.5 stars

"Everyone's messy, so. Be messy."

Wow, I FLEW through this.

Kristin Dwyer is a powerhouse storyteller and THE ATLAS OF US is evidence (again) that she can deliver a story with emotional heft in a captivating and conscious way.

The story follows troubled Atlas, who is forced into a month-long hiking trip after the death of her father. Only known as Maps to the strangers she's on the trails with, she navigates grief as the ghost of her Dad echoes throughout the forests and rivers. In tents and trails, she forms relationships with her nicknamed hiking companions, especially a serious but magnetic boy named King. The resulting journey that the author weaves a is profound story about loss, grief, and the way that we view ourselves. It's emotionally powerful and so beautifully written with rich and tender imagery that makes for a beautiful reading experience. I also think the book captures so well the phase of adolescence that Atlas is experiencing, as well as the emotions and thoughts of someone enduring loss.

Even with the deep emotion woven into every page of this book, it also manages to be clever and funny, with dialogue that's seamless and romance that's utterly swoonworthy. You can't help but root for these characters and empathize with their experiences. It's a world I didn't want to leave.

I also love that this book ends with the beginning, then circles around to that moment again, adding new depth as we go through its journey together. A really captivating structure and overall, just a really, really great book.

Read for:
-the color hierarchy of ice pops
-nature love
-nicknames
-mutual pining (and actual pines)
-looking at stars
-strangers who become friends who become family
-hurt/comfort
-boys in anime tees
-discussions about "Howl's Moving Castle"
-gas station food feasts
-HAND FLEXES (!!!)
-invisible string vibes
-"I stop asking my grief to make sense."
-sexy thunderstorms
-"I wish I could stop thinking about you."

Thank you to HarperTeen and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. THE ATLAS OF US releases 1/9.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, publishing on 1/9/2024. It’s a perfect YA- full of hope, hurt, learning, longing. A great coming of age story filled with so many beautiful lines.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperTeen for an e-ARC of this outstanding book!

This book burrowed into my heart and will be there for a long time. I think any reader, no matter their age, who has lost someone important in their life will relate to Maps and the journey her grief takes her on. There is so much to love in this story. Maps lost her father and is of course struggling with how to process such a profound loss and navigate life afterward. She is imperfect but her journey grieving the loss of her dad felt so real to me and mirrored much of what I experienced after losing my mom. For that I'd give the book 10 stars alone simply because I think it can help teen readers who have also faced significant loss, which is unfortunately a not small number of them.

This book is incredibly moving and sad, which might have felt like too much heaviness BUT that heaviness is accompanied by the BEST group of found family misfits all stuck together in the wilderness who support each other in the most heartwarming, funny, and beautiful way. I loved Books, Sugar, Junior, and King beyond measure and would go to battle for them.

I teach older high school students so this book is a perfect fit for my classroom library and I will be adding a copy! The characters do range in age from 17 to 20, so veering into that nebulous New Adult category, which might be something to note for teachers of younger teen readers.

Title: The Atlas of Us
Author: Kristin Dwyer
Genre: YA, Romance, Fiction
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ times infinity

When her father dies, Atlas begins to lose her way. She gives up on school, on her friends, on her family and on herself. In a last ditch effort to pull herself out of her grief Atlas begins working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. Real names are forbidden on the trail so now she’s Maps and along with King, Books, Junior, and Sugar she heads into the wilderness. What she finds there isn’t her old self, but a new version of her…and now she needs to figure out which one she really is.

I don’t even know how to start writing this review. How do you begin to talk objectively about a book and characters that you fell in love with for 336 pages? This book had absolutely everything. Adventure, self-discovery, found family, and romance. This will be a book I reread over and over and over again, finding and loving new pages with each reading. Seriously, I’ve already pre-ordered my real copy for my bookshelf.

There is not one single character to not like. They are all so REAL. Every single one of them. Their growth and self discovery throughout the pages was paramount. They broke down. They fought. They got angry. They screamed and cursed at each other. But they also laughed. And hugged. And were vulnerable. And let out their little truths and realities bit by bit for each other, hoping that they would still be loved at the end of their journey. You are rooting for each of them every single step of the way, even when they make their mistakes. Even when they seem unlovable.

While this book is YA, think about it as more YA adjacent. I get the same feelings from this book that I got from Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood and Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings: heartbreak and longing, angst and hope, and pure undiluted love.

There are no other words. This book is pure perfection. I wouldn’t change a single thing.

A very special thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins, and the author for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

After losing her dad, a girl goes on a life changing trail program in the Western Sierras where she will find a way to connect to her dad as well as find a family of her own and a love she never expected. When Atlas's dad dies from cancer, her world is stained in grief, and in a last ditch effort to pull her life together she starts working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. Her father loved it and it's a way for her to find him again. Using real names is forbidden on the trail so she becomes Maps, and on this new trail she meets new friends as they work together.... yet the closer they become the more she dreads returning to her old life. Atlas experiences healing on this trip as well as facing her grief, and then there is King, someone she is drawn to who keeps pushing and pulling her to him. King is hiding something but when she finds out his secret, can she still forgive him and want to be with him? This was a book heavy on dealing with grief. It's a slow read for sure but I think if you are looking for healing/emotional character journeys, this would be perfect for you. It really focuses on found family and support systems as well as the pains and struggles that we deal with when we are grieving a lost one. The romance was a nice touch and the story had an overall nice ending. Overall, I think if you enjoy slow reads with lots of emotional themes, this would a good one to add to your tbr.

*Thanks Netgalley and HarperCollins Children's Books, HarperTeen for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

The Atlas of Us by Kristin Dwyer is an emotional yet beautifully crafted story.
This new YA/NA contemporary had me thinking and feeling all sorts of different emotions.
A beautiful coming of age story with characters dealing with grief, loss, love and anger.
The way Dwyer writes her characters was very compelling. The characters are so relatable and imperfect.
I loved reading and watching their journey unfold. Kristin Dwyer’s prose is both evocative and thought-provoking.
I couldn’t have loved this story any more than did!

Thank You NetGalley and HarperTeen for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Kristin Dwyer knows how to weave in emotions in a way that hit you hard but doesn't feel like too much. I felt for Atlas/Maps so much in this book and could also relate to the feeling of being annoyed with yourself for being caught in your emotions.

Dwyer also nailed the setting and characters. I loved getting to know Maps, Sugar, Books, Junior, and King, and it was like I was on the hike with them all. The romance was a bit hot and cold for me, which was probably the point, but it lessened my enjoyment a smidge. I appreciated how the story resolved.

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to work in words the myriad of emotions this book made me feel, but it's absolutely no surprise that I read the bulk of it in one sitting. I'm talking didn't even leave my bed or look at my phone one sitting.

After the death of her father, Atlas joins this summer hike volunteer program as a tribute to him, and there she meets four people who will change her life forever.

This was such a poignant story about loss and grief and trying to fill the hole in our life our loved one once occupied. But it was also a deep dive into the mind of the bereft, and the ways in which Atlas dealt--or didn't deal--with the loss of her father. I absolutely adored her character arc, and how she ended the month-long hike not any less lost in the wake of the death of her dad, but more adept at leaning on people. At crying when she needed to, and knowing it was okay to laugh and love and live even with him gone.

I loved the nicknames aspect, and how everyone was allowed to be a different version of themselves--maybe the most TRUE version of themselves--beneath the masks of their fake names. King, Books, Sugar, and Junior all became family for Atlas to not replace her dad, but to lessen the sting of him being gone from her life.

Not to mention, Dwyer's writing is utter perfection, every word and sentence and chapter carefully constructed to fully pull us into the story and make us live these things alongside her characters. This one will stay with me forever.

“𝙃𝙄𝙆𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙃𝘼𝙎 𝘼 𝙎𝙊𝙉𝙂. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙝𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙢 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙥𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙨. 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙪𝙜𝙨 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙨.”

ummm, i absolutely loved this book. was it perfect? no, but i think that’s why i loved it so much. it hit me in all the feels at the right time. it was so raw and real and emotional. it took me back to 18 years old and all of the angst of being a new adult. i also want to go hiking now. 😂

“𝙄’𝙢 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙚. 𝙄 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙙. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙛𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙚. 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙣, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣.”

atlas/maps — ughh my girl went through it; losing her father to cancer at a young age and dealing with the aftermath. i’ve been fortunate to never lose a parent, but i feel like this story portrayed the loss so well. i couldn’t help but hurt for maps. i felt her loneliness and how she felt like she couldn’t get anything right. her growth on the hiking trail was amazing. i loved the blue group — books, junior, sugar and king. each one stood apart on their own, but i loved when they bonded and came together for each other. it wasn’t without a lot of tears, fighting and anger, but it was so worth it.

“𝙆𝙞𝙣𝙜’𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙖 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙚𝙚. 𝙄 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙪𝙥 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩.”

and then maps and king…ughh the small touches and secret glances. the longing and slow burn and want. but also the secrets. it was all so much and i felt it. i loved it. the popsicles, the journal, base camp, waterfall jumping. there is so much goodness in this book. a beautiful story about accepting grief and knowing that it’s okay to feel what you feel. it’s okay to cry, to be angry and to even be happy. i can’t recommend this enough.

content: vague open door, language, cancer/death of a parent

thank you to harper teen for an advanced copy. my thoughts are my own.

In a beautifully vulnerable and raw follow-up to her debut, Some Mistakes Were Made, Dwyer takes her characters and readers on a journey of grief, growth, and every kind of love there is. Dwyer’s incredible ability to create flawed, relatable, characters is front and center in The Atlas of Us.

Even lost and unmoored, I found Atlas's character compelling and real. It's not every day that a narrator admits to being a liar in the first chapter of a book. And while that should've translated into making her an unreliable narrator, it only made me like her more.

Some Mistakes Were Made felt like a gaping wound getting poked repeatedly until, after MUCH SCREAMING, it was eventually stitched back together. The Atlas of Us feels like watching someone put used gauze over a bullet hole and expecting it to heal on its own.

But, love is the medicine here. And that's why this book is so beautiful.

I'm telling you to read this book!

I really enjoyed this title! It’s a moving story about friendship and family and how our mistakes shouldn’t define us. Definitely going to recommend to my students!

This is a great YA! It’s on the more mature side (the characters are 18-20ish) and there’s some “adult” content, but nothing worrisome.

I liked this more than I thought I would. Dwyer captured the messiness of grief very well. I love following Maps and her group on the trail, and I also appreciated seeing the story continue after they finished. I will say that the romance was probably my least favorite part, but I didn’t hate it.

4.25⭐️