“The day you are not a fire,” he said, “is the day the earth will fall still for me.”
“The day you are not a fire,” he said, “is the day the earth will fall still for me.”
I‘m speechless.
I never wanted this book to end.
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He thought: You are entering a cycle of your own destruction, the wheel of your own fortune, which will rise and fall and so will you. You will deconstruct and resurrect in some other form, and the ashes of yourself will be the rubble from the fall.
Rome falls, he wanted to say. Everything collapses. You will, too.
You will, soon.
“Our world is dying,” he said, and took a seat, ready to put himself to work. “It‘s up to us to set it right.”
“It was real for me!”
“It was real for me, too.”
Most of it.
Some of it.
More of it than he felt it wise to confess.
“Whatever you created would have to be—“
Perfect. Imperfect, but under perfect conditions.
Impossible, then.
Or was it?
The perfect team for what?
“For anything,” Atlas said. “For everything.”
He meant: Let‘s take this bloody mess and all its damn books and do something that‘s never been done before.
“It is the remarkable who suffer. The unremarkable are passed over, yes, but greatness is not without its pains.”
In his mind, Tristan manifested a new talisman; a new scroll to recount his new truths.
Part one: Your value is not negotiable.
Part two: You will kill him before he kills you.
“You're a fire hazard, Rhodes,“ he said. “So stop apologizing for the damage and just let the fucker burn.“
Here‘s my #independentbookstoreday haul. Our store had no swag left, but double points for their rewards program gave me a $10 coupon for next time. I‘ll take it! Most curious about the tagged book.
Happy Independent Bookstore Day!
This book was fudging phenomenal!!!!!!!! It was so good that the fact that the second book won‘t be out for another six months isn‘t even making me mad! I need this time to process and possibly only reread this book forever.
“Warfare is like a compromise. Both parties must lose a little in order to win.”
“Every single one of us is missing something. We are all too powerful, too extraordinary, and you don‘t see it‘s because we‘re riddled with vacancies? We are empty and trying to fill, lighting ourselves on fire just to prove that we are normal—that we are ordinary. That we, like anything, can burn.”
She seemed to mean one thing—If magic is the arrow and we are the archers, how much control do we have over its flight?—but appeared to have ultimately asked quite another.
Is magic the tool, or are we?
She understood, in a way the others did not, the existence of polarities, the mysticism of opposition: that acknowledging the presence of life meant accepting the presence of death. That knowledge necessitated ignorance. That gain meant loss. Ambition suggested contentment, in a sense, because starvation implied the existence of glut.
“We all have our own curses. Our own blessings.” Callum‘s smile faltered. “We are the gods of our own universes, aren‘t we? Destructive ones.”
“But she still loves me differently; falsely. She loves me because I put it in there. Because I made myself her anchor to this life, and therefore she loves me only as much as she can love any sort of chain. She loves me like a prisoner of war.”
“You‘re my girlfriend. You‘re important to me. You, for better or worse, ate my responsibility, and—“
“Ezra, listen to me carefully, because this is the last time I‘ll say it.”
She took three steps to close the distance between them, slamming the book shut on the last argument she planned to have today.
“I am not,” Libby said flatly, “yours.”
If this world felt it could take from Reina, so be it. She would gladly take from it.
Depending on how you viewed it, Persephone had either been stolen or she had run from Demeter to avoid being used. Either way, she had made herself queen.
“Someone always gains,” said Reina, “Just as someone always loses.”
The hype is so polar, had to give it a shot for myself.
“I am not good,” Dalton told her. “No one here is good. Knowledge is carnage. You can‘t have it without sacrifice.”
“You know why you don‘t understand me?” Parisa answered Reina‘s thoughts, stepping closer to lower her voice. “Because you think you‘ve figured me out. You think you‘ve met me before, other versions of women like me, but you have no idea what I am. You think my looks are what make me? My ambitions? You can‘t begin to know the sum of my parts, and you can stare all you like, but you won‘t see a damn thing until I show you.”
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Interesting characters and ideas, but underdeveloped world-building and a slow and unfocused plot.
“I know you‘re suspicious of me,” Callum said, before amending, “Of everyone.”
“I find people to be largely disappointing,” Tristan commented.
“Interestingly, so do I.”
The world was mostly entropy and chaos; magic, then, was order, because it was control.
“You‘re good, Rhodes,” he reminded her, leaping to cut her off before she got needlessly defensive. “You‘re good, okay? Just accept that I wouldn‘t bother hating you if you weren‘t.”
“Varona, that presumes I care at all what you think.”
Really, there was nothing more dangerous than a woman who knew her own worth.
“How long would it have taken you to start a war, do you think? Or to end one?” He paused, and Callum said nothing. “Five minutes? Perhaps ten? How long would it have taken you to kill someone? To save a life?”
[…]
He did not say: Four minutes, thirty-nine seconds. That‘s how long it would take.
“More interesting than the game is always the players, you know.”
I don‘t think I care for this. The magic seems to correlate with having lots of money, which is dull. Almost no one has any intellectual curiosity. 2 different adults noticed another adult‘s pimple, which is oddly Jr high. What adult has ever cared that another has a pimple? We‘ve all had them? Who is this for? Magicians, Ninth House, and Deadly Education were all more likable. Maybe it gets better, IDK.
I‘m so disappointed, y‘all - I wanted to enjoy this dark academia fantasy a lot more than I did. It just felt very unbalanced; a lot of time was spent in the characters‘ heads, some of the POVs were more developed (and so more interesting) than others, and very little time was spent on exposition so that I never had a grasp on the world it was set in or the magic system that existed within it. A generous so-so.
Book 61🎧 4⭐️
This one definitely lives up to its hype!😂I can‘t wait to read the second one!🤯
So mysterious😱
This was the magical dark academia novel I have been waiting for! Features similar elements to books like The Magicians, A Deadly Education, and The Starless Sea, but this book is more than the sum of its parts. The narration by a full cast really brought the characters to life, and the plot is pieced together perfectly so that some late book reveals have the intended impact. Apparently book 2 comes out later this year - can‘t wait! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My brain is still working it‘s way through all the little details that seemed trivial until the eye opening ending. This was dark academia at its best. Six elite medians (magic users) are chosen to be part of an elite society that protects a magical library full of dangerous knowledge. Be ready to question reality and the concept of time itself. I‘ll admit my nerd self was all in for the physics discussions even though it‘s not my favorite topic.
#weekendreading I started this book weeks ago but keep getting distracted by new borrows or new NetGalley opportunities. Goal for today is to finally finish it. I am really liking the premise and have no clue how everything is going to play out.
FairyLoot started an adult fantasy box. It's just the book, no swag or other things. They do customize the book though. I was able to get signed up and just got March's The Atlas Six. It has an exclusive cover, sprayed edges, and artwork on the endpapers. Very pretty!
I am almost done reading A good girl's guide to murder, anatomy: a love story and dating Dr. Dil. I'm thinking about reading the Atlas six next or maybe the invisible life of Addie LaRue? I also have peach blossom and spring.
Hello and welcome to another segment of WHY, YES, I DID BUY ANOTHER EDITION OF A BOOK I ALREADY OWN! 😁 I bought the original self published edition (on the right) last summer and absolutely loved it! Dark academia at its finest. But then! Tor became the publisher and released the edition on the left just recently. The new edition has GORGEOUS endpapers and brand new illustrations! How could I resist?! 💕📚💕
As much as I wanted to like this book, I just couldn‘t get into it. The characters are just completely unlikeable. I get what the author was going for here, but I really struggled to finish this. The best part was the twist and surprise ending, but that couldn‘t save this story for me.
Current read. I keep seeing this everywhere!!!
🎧 I enjoyed it!
Easy to read. This was the start of a great story. Atlas recruits 6 students to compete for 5 slots in an ultra clandestine Atlantassian society.
Dark academia.
The adult part of this story might be the random pointless shock & awe sex. That said … I‘d need to be in the YA age group to be excited about it.
I think I might have liked it more as a middle grade book.
Still, even with the slow pace it had a nice twist.
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Another freezing Saturday seems like the perfect time to just curl up under a blanket and maybe finish a book or 2. My reading buddy definitely seems on board with this plan.