Atlantia

Really, this book isn't bad. It's just so boring. Nothing really happens until the last 30 pages, and even then, it's not all that exciting.

Essentially, it's fairly lackluster and nothing special.

This book was a bit of a disappointment. I was excited to read it and there was a lot in the story that had it been developed more would have made the story so much better. The characters were dull, predictable, and had awful names! The storyline was predictable and there wasn't any suspense or building of tension because the way everything played out was so obvious. And it really took forever to get to the point because we had to waste so much time listening to Rio plan getting to the Above.


If you really want a well done under-water dystopia story, play the video game BioShock. It has all the interesting elements of Atlantia but done so much better.

I listened to this audiobook while traveling and it made a layover fly by. I really enjoyed the story line and the setting, but I had difficulty attaching to the characters in this book. They seemed a little flat to me.

It's been a couple of days since I finished this book and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Rio and Bay live in Atlantia, an underwater city that was created back when the air on Earth was becoming so polluted people were dying from it. Atlantia depends on the people Above to provide them with food and other necessities they cannot provide for themselves down Below. Every year teenagers can volunteer to go Above and leave Below forever. It is considered a great sacrifice and only one person from each family can go. After Bay chooses Above after making Rio promise to stay Below (basically tricking Rio) Rio cannot do anything but find a way to get Above to her sister. Along the way she's confronted with truths she never asked for. Does it change how she feels about getting to the Above?

I feel like maybe every conflict could have been solved had there been better communication. Simple as that. So many unnecessary secrets and no one trusts anyone. It was a slow, slow read. It took so long to get to the actual plot that there were several times I just simply lost interest. There were too many questions. What was happening to Atlantia? What is Above? Why did Bay leave Below when she loved it so much? What's Rio's secret? Who is the boy who left with Bay? What really happened to their mother? What happened between their mother and her sister? Can Maire be trusted?

There were so many questions and when you finally get answers it's kind of quick and then she moves on because there is so much going on. And then it just kind of wraps up and there are still a few loose ends. It was quite unsatisfying.

The world of Atlantia was fascinating and the scope of the project, how far reaching it was....that was interesting, but we never really get much info on that except that they no long exist. I'm glad this is a stand alone novel because I'm not sure I feel invested enough in the characters to read another book.

I'm not sure what I was expecting with this book, but it definitely wasn't want I got. The premise was very unique. I loved the idea of Atlantia and the world above and the whole choice between staying below or going above, however I felt like we were thrown in this world with little to not thought or explanation.

The world building in the book was plain bad. I did not get a sense of what Atlantia was truly like, yes the Divide was clearly explained, but the actual workings of Atlantia and what it was like living there was extremely lacking. I don't think we ever even got a full description of Atlantia. I just feel like it was expected I already understood the world when I started the book.

While the world was way under developed, the characters were a struggle too. We barely knew Bay but she was clearly very important to Rio. The entirety of the plot is Rio trying to be reunited with Bay and figure out why she left in the first place. Then you had the side plot of Atlantia falling apart. But the characters seemed dry and I was not at all emotionally invested in them. I did appreciate however, that the romance was not a huge part of this book. True and Rio were cute together and I like them working together to figure out why Bay and Fen left, but their relationship wasn't the central part of the book.

This book had a lot of potential with the idea. But it completely fell short. The world was underdeveloped and the lack of explanation really hindered my enjoyment. I was unable to grasp Atlantia as a place and even the sirens were poorly explained. I'm still not really sure what exactly they are capable of. The ending also seemed rushed and then the book ended quite abruptly without really explaining the consequences of Rio choices in the Above.

2.5/ 5 Stars and only because of the potential.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

Atlantia is actually an interesting book. I always find the concept of underwater cities fascinating, and the world-building is beautiful too. There are lots of detailed descriptions of Atlantia, Above, and the connection between these two worlds. The details can be a bit too much sometimes, but still I find it gorgeous.

The problem is that aside from those things, I feel that the book is incredibly flat. The pacing is really slow. The narrative mainly focuses on Rio's thoughts and not action, so I don't get that much tension from the story. In fact, despite the internal thoughts, I find it hard to connect to Rio... or any other characters aside from Maire, for that matter. Rio strikes me as uncaring and selfish, so I couldn't bring myself to care about her. She does show some growth late into the book though, and I like how the ending is handled.

It's really too bad. I wanted to love this book because of its concept and the fact that the heroine is a siren, but it just didn't work for me.