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A review by luluwoohoo
The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake
☀️☀️🌤️
The final book in this trilogy had many good chess pieces left to play, but instead the lack of focus and intention in the final half really let the whole series down.
Like the previous two books, 'Complex' is lush and indulgent and seemingly without plot for much of the page count. This worked for me in book 1, less in book 2 or 3 - the first half of 'Complex' was tolerable in an "I'm remembering why I like these characters" sort of way, but of all books to not stick the landing on, Blake missed the mark here by quite a longshot. She got too caught up in the philosophical/science tangents, which felt especially tedious with her particular writing style, to honour the important characters or their relationships (aka the entire point of this series) which had nice moments but ultimately fell by the wayside to whatever moral message Blake was trying to send us...which is that it's all pointless I guess? So why write three long-winded books to tell me that?
The character deaths I didn't hate so much - thematically they made sense - but the way in which they were executed and delivered to us were very unsatisfying. The whole ending was, which I fear was Blake's point, but I should be able to mourn a favourite character's death with proper procedure and not feel blindsided multiple times.
More egregious was the amount of time dedicated to Atlas, who I frankly failed to give a shit about since halfway through book 2, and the secondary characters who all got totally unnecessary POV chapters. None of that needed to be there to move the plot forward and didn't contribute to my understanding of the world, so they were wasted pages.
This book ultimately seems to suffer from a lack of direction and a failure to edit. The bones were good and I enjoyed some parts tremendously but for a series so focused on being intellectual and important, it didn't actually say anything in the end, which is pretty insulting to the readership who went along for the ride.
☀️☀️🌤️
The final book in this trilogy had many good chess pieces left to play, but instead the lack of focus and intention in the final half really let the whole series down.
Like the previous two books, 'Complex' is lush and indulgent and seemingly without plot for much of the page count. This worked for me in book 1, less in book 2 or 3 - the first half of 'Complex' was tolerable in an "I'm remembering why I like these characters" sort of way, but of all books to not stick the landing on, Blake missed the mark here by quite a longshot. She got too caught up in the philosophical/science tangents, which felt especially tedious with her particular writing style, to honour the important characters or their relationships (aka the entire point of this series) which had nice moments but ultimately fell by the wayside to whatever moral message Blake was trying to send us...which is that it's all pointless I guess? So why write three long-winded books to tell me that?
The character deaths I didn't hate so much - thematically they made sense - but the way in which they were executed and delivered to us were very unsatisfying. The whole ending was, which I fear was Blake's point, but I should be able to mourn a favourite character's death with proper procedure and not feel blindsided multiple times.
More egregious was the amount of time dedicated to Atlas, who I frankly failed to give a shit about since halfway through book 2, and the secondary characters who all got totally unnecessary POV chapters. None of that needed to be there to move the plot forward and didn't contribute to my understanding of the world, so they were wasted pages.
This book ultimately seems to suffer from a lack of direction and a failure to edit. The bones were good and I enjoyed some parts tremendously but for a series so focused on being intellectual and important, it didn't actually say anything in the end, which is pretty insulting to the readership who went along for the ride.
"I will spend my life orbiting yours [...] I consider it a privilege. Does that mean less if we never sleep together? If we never have babies and hold hands, does that have to mean less? You're in every world I exist in, your fate is my fate, either you follow me or I follow you, it doesn't matter which and I don't care. If that's not love then maybe I don't understand love."