“This was just the world. You trusted people, you loved them, you offered them the dignity of your time and the intimacy of your thoughts and the frailty of your hope and they either accepted it and cared for it or they rejected it and destroyed it and in the end, none of it was up to you. This was just what you got.”

A great continuation of the Atlas Six. Book 2 focuses more on the second year of initiation and picks up right after the events of book 1. While Blake has very in depth character writing, the world building leaves much to be desired. With the passive way society functions are mentioned I would really like to understand the workings of the world a bit more but sadly it is not elaborated on much. This can be overlooked as the character work here is still phenomenal, despite some of the absurd dialogue.

Characters are even more fleshed out than before. Their struggles and pains all feel real even if they’re somewhat disconnected from each other. Libby’s struggles in particular are the most interesting as she has to deal with a lore dump from her ex-boyfriend on-top of being trapped in another time period. Though some characters believe she is alive, not much is done to return her to the correct time until the end of the book.

There really isn’t much plot to this book. Everyone is trying to live their lives in the best way they can, but as we know from the first book, they are all severely flawed. Some characters have great moments, but not much happens in this book until the end. It was explosive and had high ramifications that we will have to see pan out in the final book.

Blake’s writing style is not for everyone as she jumps around in the story quite a bit, which can be confusing, and there are a lot of “woke” topics that are blatantly presented. A more “tongue in cheek” approach would be more digestible, but honestly would not fit with the characters and how they are portrayed. My enjoyment of the series so far comes from the development of these characters, so I’m easy to please. They all still have a distance to go and I hope Blake can deliver in the third and final book of the series.