laura’s Reviews > The Atlas Paradox > Status Update

‘Nice knew he was swallowed up by some enormity—knew he was trading more and more of his strength for the chance to finally know whatever there was to know—but with each passing day, he was surer and surer. There was no ceiling to his power or his misery.‘ (2/2)

‘There had been communication between them, something genuine and unmissable and shared. Not like a meal or a secret; more like the way grief is shared. And it *was* grief. It was loss, though untraditional. The surrender of a future self, like parting from a lover he’d never get the chance to meet.’ (1/2)

‘There was no science here, only vibes.’ Well that’s one efficient, albeit cringy, way to describe it 😒

I forgot how dull the middle is... jeez

'What would it mean to create that spark of life? To have mastery over it? To birth it or destroy it at will? What mysteries of the universe could they uncover if they stopped associating all forms of danger with the inevitability of death?' My friend, I need you to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, LIKE YESTERDAY.

'In fact, there would be no such thing as chaos anymore—no randomness, no spontaneity. It was no longer a world made up of things, but of events, systems, paths of a larger design that the rest of them, ignorant as they were, mistook for something human: A will. Fate. A plan. The universe through Tristan's eyes would be orderly—and that, more than anything, was the closest thing Nico could imagine to omnipotence.'

'He wondered what Gideon was doing. Wondering if Gideon had found Libby, obviously, but also if Gideon had laughed that day or pondered something stupid that only Nico would understand. Nico was starting to miss the little things, the painful ordinariness of existing in Gideon's periphery.' Who read this and continued rooting for the enemies-to-lovers trope between Libby & Nico? WHO?? I personally never did.

‘He had told Tristan once that they all had the exact curses they deserved. He understood his own, that he felt everything because he wanted terribly, with all of his being, to feel nothing. Because to feel nothing would be to finally no longer feel pain.’

‘There was something wrong with all of them. That was the whole point. Callum had told Tristan that they were gods born with pain built in, and they were. That’s what kept them weak. Too weak to be the new Olympus, regardless of what Reina Mori thought.’ Something about this quote is nagging at me so I’m hanging on to it for future reference…

‘That had been Callum’s assumption—that Atlas, who had always been very clear about hating Callum, had chosen to punish him by forcing him to spend time with himself. Joke’s on him, Callum thought. Nobody knew better than Callum how terrible it was to spend time with Callum—except possibly for Tristan who had been willing to kill him. So there was that.’ He’s fucking hilarious, but still an asshole.