The Atlas Six

by Olivie Blake

    This book has a lot of hype around it. Its beautiful, it has a nice weight when you hold it, it feels like a piece of art, and it had beautiful back and white images of the characters at the end of each of the six sections.

The actual story itself leaves a lot to be desired. The plot is about an elite society of magicians, and how six powerful individuals are invited every five years into this society to further develop their powers.

Two characters are life-long rivals (and that point is driven home one too many times) and the others don't know each other until they fly to the estate in England to study to enter the society.

The design on the cover is gorgeous with the silver illustrations highlighted on the mat black background.

All of the characters are fleshed out, and the point of view jumps to all six of them, which got a more than a little confusing. I felt that they were fleshed out for context, but then it went too far and brought in elements that gave nothing to the plot and were never brought up more than twice, and had such little impact on the story itself.

There were multiple points throughout reading this when I was wondering where this story was going. The big climax that was being led up to is printed on the back of this book. The readers know it the whole time, that only five enter the society, and the sixth dies. The characters don't know this and I feel like it would have been better if the readers didn't know until the characters themselves did.

There were outside love interest that didn't have a point of being in the story, everything was drawn out for a million miles and for no reason. Blake tried to explain everything at the end, but it was too little too late.

At that point, I didn't care what really happened with these characters, I didn't have a favorite character, they were all very unlikeable and I never really cared about who's perspective I was following. I didn't like how the only two female characters were portrayed as either awkward/annoying and underestimated her own power, or the type that uses sex to get information, while the four male characters were given other things to focus on.

It was not worth the read, it was a pain to get through and I won't be buying the next book or continuing this series. 

:) 

Reading Update

Life Update and Shawshank Repetition 

by Stephon King

    

    This week all I've been reading is Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and while it's really good and I've really been enjoying it, I'm ready to start something new. I want to read The Coward by Stephen Aryan next (I guess it's the month of authors name 'Stephen').

It sounds really good and it's been staring me down every time I walked into a bookstore, so I finally brought it home and am going to start it here soon once school work calms down a little. Personally, I've got some exciting things coming up with graduation and applying to jobs and the whole adulting thing, and hanging with some new friends and some trips coming up with some old ones.

It's getting warmer out so it's safe to say I'll be living my best life.

Well, thats all for this post!  

Enjoy the first day of spring!

:)

You've Reached Sam

by Dustin Thao

You want to feel something. Something meaningful and intense. You want to feel that thing in your heart and stomach. You want to be moved.

    First of all, we need to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of this cover. It has so much detail and I love it when the cover has the characters on it. It makes it look like Julie, the protagonist, is standing in the daylight and Sam is standing in the night and it's just great symbolically.

The quote above sums up what I think this book is trying to say. Of course it's about loss and how to carry on during the grieving process, but it's also about why we fall in love with the people we do. Everyone wants to feel something intense, in our stomachs and hearts, it's how we know what truly moves us, and when we are moved, we take action.

Sam truly moved Julie, and that was why she loved him and why this book is so heartbreaking. A lot of people will be able to relate their losses to Julies, but it's a beautiful message about how to carry those we've loved and lost with us.

One line that lightened this other side dark and heavy story was when the main character said "I saw myself in that baguette", I'm glad that line made it through editing.

It's beautiful inside and out and needs to be on your shelf or in your 'read' pile. 

This book is only 293 pages but tells a full story about heartbreak and loss that will bring you to tears multiple times throughout. Julie and Sam has their future planned out, they were going to leave their small town together and Sam was going to make music while Julie went to school and worked on a career in writing. 

They met three years before and fell fast and hard. But then, tragedy strikes. Julie is lost without Sam, and doesn't believe it when she gets a phone call from his phone number, When she picks it up, it's him on the other line. 

:)

Wuthering Highets

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Bronte

    I was in the mood from some classic reading a couple of weeks ago and Wuthering Heights, hit the spot. I love the classics for many reasons, I love their flowery language and in-depth descriptions (for what honestly). 

Above is the most on-point picture of a book I've taken to date. This story takes place in the English country side at two houses, one on top of a hill and one at the bottom, and in between is four miles of moors. I finished this book at a park, and with the temperatures rising above 50's it was nice being outside but it was still very dead and dreary looking, which was exactly the setting of this book. 

I would describe this plot as if Romeo and Juliet lived, but never married after falling in love, accepted the separation, and Juliet went on to marry a noble man, and Romeo couldn't stand it so he disappeared for three years. Upon his return, he marries the sister of Juliet's husband, Being in such close proximity to each other, but now unable to express their love, Juliet goes into fits and makes herself sick with longing and despair. Before she dies, she births her husband a beautiful daughter. 

Romeos wife hates him, and she dies after birthing a son, whose she entrusted her brother, who is willing to take him in a and raise his nephew as a son. But Romeo found out about the arrangements set for the son, which he hadn't know existed, and demanded for take care of him himself. 

The two kids soon fall in love, but that also ends in misery. 

Obviously, Romeo and Juliet are not the characters names, and the story is more complicated than that, but thats a good description, I'll say.

I found a lot of the characters annoying and dramatic, and the only one I really liked was Ellen, the nurse to Juliet and her daughter. She was the only one who kept her head the whole story. 

I got the urge to read this book while watching You, the Netflix original show, and now that I've read it, I see one of the characters a lot differently, and is shines a new light on her part in the show. 

I'm glad I finally got around to reading this classic story, I was supposed to read in high school four years ago, but better late than never. 

:)