The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake

 Remember how I commented that I was disappointed NOT TO BE BLOWN AWAY by The Atlas Six?? (Hmmm maybe that was my comment on The Antidote?  Well, spoiler alert.) And, yet it ended in a bit of a cliffhanger and got all exciting near the end... so I read book two.  Yep. No.

However, I can always find a few quotes to enjoy.

There was no villain.  Atlas Blakely might have wanted Callum dead, but that didn't make him the bad guy.  Tristan might have betrayed Callum, but he wasn't the bad guy, either.  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 the rejected it and destroyed it and in the end, none of it was up to you.  This is just what you got.  Heartbreak was inevitable.  Disappointment assured.

Maybe that was my problem with these books.  Maybe I need a villain.  Maybe I'm too simple and want a fairy tale.  The reader is referred to ALL THE SARAH MAAS books I read earlier this year!

"Is this what I get for helping you?" she asked with a sigh of disappointment.

"Yes."  He leaned back in his chair.  "I'm afraid my stores of eternal gratitude require some replenishment."

Don't we all feel like this at some point?

"You're extremely predictable, you know?" Nico muttered in accusation.  "You even layer your scone the same way every time--"

"It's pronounced 'scone,'" said Tristan gruffly "and obviously I do it the same way every time, because I'm not an animal --"

I mean, come on! NOT an animal.  Geeze.

and holy shit, she was absolutely beautiful.  Was that part of the dream? Was this Death? Gideon had always wondered what Death would look like, should she exist, and now it was clear that she would look, you know, like that.  Like the kind of thing you walked toward even when you did not remotely want to die.  She was a beautiful, vengeful angel; a sweet and terrible release.