Atlantia

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.