Reviews

Atlantia by Ally Condie

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I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical when I first cracked open Atlantia. Condie is one of those authors that I remain on the fence about; although I thoroughly enjoyed Matched, the next two books were a bit dry.
And, despite the fact that Atlantia is about an underwater city, I also found it to be a bit dry.

In the beginning, Atlantia gave me a Divergent sort of vibe; it's an underwater city, built because things above water had become so intolerable (as far as conditions for humans to thrive), that a group of humans were sent to an underwater city to ensure the continuity of the human race. Over the generations, the population of Atlantia grew, as did the families within it. When each citizen turns a certain age, they can choose to stay in Atlantia or to go Above.

Rio, a girl who has always yearned to see the Above, promises that she will stay in Atlantia with her sister, Bay. Bay has never wanted to leave the city, and with the recent death of their mother, she is terrified of being left alone. However, (surprise!!) Bay decides to go Above. Because of the rule that only one of each family may go Above, Rio is the one left behind in the Below.

Confused by her sister's actions, she seeks counsel in her aunt, Maire, a dangerous siren who supposedly uses the power of her voice to control others against their will. From Maire, she learns things about herself and the well-kept secrets of her city; things that will change her perspective forever.

It sounds like a good story, doesn't it? At least, that's what I thought from reading the blurb on the back of the book. I think we should have a new saying: "Don't judge a book by its blurb." In fact, maybe we shouldn't judge the book by anything but the book itself. Judging it by anything other than that often leads to disappointment.

There was nothing inherently wrong with the plot. Although it had many dystopia elements that you've seen before (thus the Divergent reference above) it was fairly intriguing, and that kept me going. What I hated was simply the writing style.

If I could give this book an award, it would be the "Dullest Characters of All Time" award.

Rio, the narrator, is the MOST BORING OF THEM ALL. She's supposed to be *spoiler alert* a siren, but at the end of the book I still wasn't entirely sure what a siren actually was. And there was some emphasis of her being the "last siren." What is the significance in this?? I DON'T GET IT.

I don't know how to explain what I felt, reading through Rio's eyes. Her voice feels flat and emotionless, and she sees things through almost a tilted perspective. Her sentences were choppy and repetitive, like a kindergartener wrote them.

She’s going to tell me the story, and I’m going to listen. And I am afraid.

I am going to pick up this book, and I am going to read. And I am bored.

Seriously, where was this girl's spunk? I'm not saying she has to be one of those heroine's that refuses to let anyone stand in her way and eats men for breakfast, but she should at least be a little pissed off that her sister left her behind. Instead of being mad, she throws a Rio pity party.

What is my point...
Think, Sarah, THINK.
Oh right... So, in short terms, this book had a beautiful "feel" to it, Atlantia was serene and magical. BUT,
her characters were ill-developed and made me want to yawn.

Short and sweet! (Sort of.)

dlberglund's review

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3.0

After the Divide, people had chosen or sacrificed themselves to stay in the Above, breathing the polluted air and living lives with shortened lifespans. Or, they lived in the Below, a big water-proof hamster habitat under the water.
Parts of the books were musical and captivating, and parts were choppy and rough. I never quite understood parts of the culture, and some of the characters didn't come fully formed.
Interesting, and probably better than her previous trilogy, but still not actually great literature.

forsakenfates's review against another edition

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2.0

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.

turrean's review against another edition

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3.0

A dystopian undersea world. Some nice overtones of mermaid-ness (sirens, a "witch" who can "take" your voice, people who need the sea to survive). I'm also a sucker for twin stories.

I found it a bit slow going. Because the rules of the society were couched in religious terms, it made the story a bit dreamier and more remote, because you'd start looking for a rational explanation for events, or failing that, a consistently magical one, and then you'd say, Oh, right, religion.

So even though there is not every supposed to be

Spoiler

more than one siren in a family...well, maybe it's a miracle. Why bats that have spent generations in the undersea city (what are they eating??) can shift easily to seashore life. Miracle. Why Rio, Maire, and the evil villain's siren abilities are so different from those of other sirens. Miracle?

We are told that the religious beliefs of the communities were basically designed around what it was necessary for the Above / Below people to believe, rather than an organic outgrowth of existing belief. Sort of an Esperanto religion. People DO believe in spite of everything, but as a reader it was hard to untangle whether characters still sought to explain things in terms of miracles because of habit or because they still believed. I really liked the protagonist's explanation of why certain events fell out as they did -- she could explain things "rationally". Yet she still thought of her aunt's last gift as a miracle.

catholicamanda's review against another edition

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2.0

I know this has been said more than a hundred times, but this book is NOT about mermaids. I knew that before I borrowed this book from the library and yet I still expected mermaids from the title and the cover. So, there are no mermaids but there are sirens.

I love the concept for this book. An underwater city where people live basically in a bubble. That is cool. I would have loved a story about characters in this world except they didn’t want to stay. They wanted to go Above even though everyone who goes Above dies. I did not get that at all.

Then there is Rio. As a character, I didn’t care what happened to her. And Bay as well. It seems like as an audience we are supposed to care about Bay. I didn’t know anything about her. Rio has these memories of her that we get glimpses of but to me it feels as though Bay is just avoiding talking to her sister, telling her what is going on. It doesn’t seem like Bay really cares about Rio. And I really didn’t care what happened to either of them.

So Rio is supposed to be a siren. However, what exactly a siren is and how they came to be was never fully explained. It just happened. That kind of threw me out of the story. I like to know the why behind what happened. I just didn’t get that about the sirens.

I was really just bored and didn’t care one way or another what happened to the characters. Sure it was entertaining at points but not really enough to keep me really interested. I finished the book because I can’t not finish books. My sister might like this book because she enjoyed Matched more than I did. It just wasn’t a book for me.

This review first appeared at CatholicAmanda.com.

danielasunshine16's review against another edition

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1.5

I did not like this book at all, I found that the writting style was annoying it gave too many descriptions of things that didnt matter to the plot and it wasn’t enggaging enough. I loved the premise of the book but it was porrly executed at least for my taste.

charlottee96's review against another edition

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3.0

This is a great take on the mythical city of Atlantis.

amarylissw's review against another edition

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3.0

I remember liking Matched fairly well, then reading the rest of the series . . . which kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

However, Atlantia, as a stand-alone, seems to be a much better written story, in my opinion. The story itself, though not an entirely original idea, was interesting, and Condie took some new turns on it. I liked that, opposed to most books, we stayed Below, instead of exploring the Above. It was interesting to see how Atlantia worked, and although it was a fairly short book, I still got a fairly good sense of the world. Of course, it would be nice as to how the "miracles" actually happened.

The writing was beautiful in some ways, simplistic, sometimes a little too simplistic, in others. And though our characters seemed to go through great turmoil, I never really felt any of their emotions.

Even though the romance was hardly developed, I liked it. I do wish there was more development, but I'm also kind of glad that the whole story was not focused on the romance.

Anyways, if you liked Matched, you will definitely like this. If you didn't like Matched, you might try this.