Atlantia by Ally Condie

Atlantia (Atlantia)

by Ally Condie

“Utterly captivating. A heroine unlike any I’d met before, a setting I’d never glimpsed, a story I’d never imagined. Atlantia is fresh, wild, and engrossing. I love Ally Condie.” —Shannon Hale, award-winning, bestselling author of Austenland and Dangerous

A New York Times Best Seller! 

Can you hear Atlantia breathing?

For as long as she can remember, Rio has dreamed of the sand and sky Above—of life beyond her underwater city of Atlantia. But in a single moment, all Rio’s hopes for the future are shattered when her twin sister, Bay, makes an unexpected choice, stranding Rio Below. Alone, ripped away from the last person who knew Rio’s true self—and the powerful siren voice she has long silenced—she has nothing left to lose.

Guided by a dangerous and unlikely mentor, Rio formulates a plan that leads to increasingly treacherous questions about her mother’s death, her own destiny, and the corrupted system constructed to govern the Divide between land and sea. Her life and her city depend on Rio to listen to the voices of the past and to speak long-hidden truths.

Reviewed by Amber (The Literary Phoenix) on

2 of 5 stars

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Oy vei this book was such a chore.

I read Crossed by Ally Condie recently, and didn't like it, and when this popped up on my wishlist, I repeatedly reminded myself that I didn't like her previous books.  I told myself over and over again that it was a bad idea.

BUT.  It's an Atlantis inspired dystopia!

I have such a weak spot for Atlantis.

Okay, so here's what what cool about this book.  Because it wasn't completely bad.  The concept of an underwater dystopian city is great, and it's not one I've seen very often.  If the air was poisoned, if there was something wrong with the sun, moving humanity underwater makes sense.  I would like to have seen more of the worldbuilding.  The idea is there - and it is strong and good - but Condie tried to make this more of a character-driven story and stopped talking about Atlantia early on.  We don't even specifically find out what caused the poisoning.

And I like character driven books, I really do.  But the character has to be good.  Rio is flat and unoriginal.  She has no original thoughts.  She talks to a person and immediately adopts all their ideals... until the next person comes along and she does a 360.  It's so frustrating.  I know there are people like that in real life, but a protagonist without her own convictions is really frustrating.

Don't even get me started on the romance.  What a joke.  It's like she felt like there needed to be a romance, so it got shoved in there awkwardly.

The final nail in the coffin, for me, has been the narrator.  If I read this in hardcopy, rather than an audiobook, it may have been better.  This is a siren story, and Rio has to hide her voice.  The narrator chose to take this quite literally, and every piece of dialogue spoken by the sirens (most of the dialogue) is spoken in a robotic monotone.  It honestly makes me want to scream.  It grates on my ears.

Atlantia has cemented it for me:  I'm totally off Ally Condie's writing.  I wish her well as an author and am happy for all her fans, but there are a lot of books in the world and I see no need to waste my time on novels I'm sure I won't like.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 29 January, 2018: Finished reading
  • 29 January, 2018: Reviewed