User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
i’m writing this fresh off the back of dragging myself over the finish line of the ordeal of this fucking book, finally being able to put my finger on it. don’t read if this book is your blood and soul, i guess, (which from the looks of it, it seems to be for around half of dark academia booktwt). spoilers towards the end.
here’s atlas six's problem:
none of the characters are as cool as the writer clearly thinks they are, and the book is no where near as compelling as it so desperately wants to be. none of the characters are interesting. most of them are assholes (and not even in a fun way, in a “when will this damn POV chapter end” way, except there’s no relief when it does end because you turn the page and the next chapter is the POV of a character who’s equally annoying.) and it’s not about things being pretentious - i pretty much expected that - it’s about it being pretentious without any substance.
it’s just obnoxious. “Neither. Beauty is nothing. Nothing anyone sees is real; only how they perceive it.” [this was in the middle of a conversation sparked by how her boobs aren’t symmetrical or something. the conversation continues as if she didn’t say this.]
“Funny how that worked; the innocent fragility of being human.”
“A flaw of humanity. The compulsion to be unique, which is at war with the desire to belong to a single identifiable sameness.”
“It’s not the meaning. Everyone wants a purpose, but there is no purpose. There is only alive and not alive.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
“Yes.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“Our fragile mortality,” Tristan said. “The inevitability that we will descend into chaos and dust.”
they talk like this. All. The. Fucking. Time. there’s a line where Tristan begs Callum to act like a person and stop acting like everything’s a performance, and he put into words more beautifully than i ever could the problem—except it’s not just Callum’s problem, it’s the problem in every character.
and literally half the time when someone says something #deep or #edgy or #thoughtful it literally.. it literally doesn’t mean anything. like it doesn’t mean anything in the context of the conversation or even wider themes it’s just like. a pretty looking sentence. you know those dramatic lines that people love to put in edits? this book's writing style is just all of the dramatic lines that people love to put in edits, for 300 pages. callum’s POV is particularly atrocious when it comes to this.
imagine any of these things being said to you irl. you’d laugh at them! perhaps it’d be more bearable if there was any self awareness about this, but nine times out of ten it’s played dead straight. i cannot take this seriously. i rolled my eyes so many times that my extraocuoar muscles are legitimately strained. i want so badly to see all of these characters to go to british state school so they can get bullied. dear god.
on top of that, none of these people like each other. i suspect the point was that they were meant to distrust each other and work for their own ambitions—but i literally don’t know what half those ambitions are beyond a superficial “power” and “something that interests me”. they “use” and “mistrust” and “betray” each other in this really surface level way too, in which there’s no actual cleverness to anything. take for example someone will be being used by someone else: in their pov they’ll think “they’re using me”, in that character’s pov they’ll think “i am using this other person” and then you’ll have character C who comes up to them and says “you know they’re using you, right?”. with tristan and callum i counted this happening like three or four times OK WE GET IT CALLUM IS USING HIM! can we please move on to the plot 😭 oh yeah, what the fuck are half of them there for?? like not just a vague power or ambition, like
substantially.the only plot i can fumble together is a vague “bachelor but for murder” that isn’t even followed through on. but alongside there being no plot, there’s also simultaneously no downtime. there are six pov characters and all of them have (at most) 1 semi-developed dynamic with any other member of the six when they don’t even spend this book doing anything else. what excuse is there for them to *not* have developed dynamics (or in some cases, personalities)? the author is a pantser and has favourites and it clearly shows. she definitely does not give a shit about Reina (you cannot fucking tell me she does anything of any importance or even remotely matters) and adores Parisa and
desperately wants the reader to think she’s interesting and cool, shown by how Parisa is
constantly shoved down our throat in every other scene no matter whose POV it is and somehow is still no more interesting at the end than she is at the start.
“It terrifies me how easily I can watch it corrupt.” apparently libby’s on a corruption arc and Blake has spoken about her specifically wanting to accomplish not writing good characters, so i’m looking forward to one of the only half decent characters becoming just as insufferable as the rest of them. i’m definitely not saying that writing characters who aren’t good people can’t be interesting or compelling—honestly i’d like to see more of it—but there’s a difference between that and just writing a bunch of characters who are pretentious, boring assholes with no compelling or likeable qualities and writing character who i give a shit reading about. further, i'm really tired of these really generic corruption arcs that have no real kick behind them. the appeal of a corruption arc for me is being able to see the seemingly rational steps a character (at least from their point of view) makes down the staircase, not them being a good person -> having a half-hearted moral dilemma for a few scenes -> is now willing to kill and do anything for an undefined and frankly generic “power”. how boring. how uncompelling.
what baffles me the most is that the main thing i’d seen about this book before starting was the shipping discourse. guys, there’s nothing to ship.
none of these fuckers like each other, and not even in an interesting way. nico and libby had a rivalry at the start, had no further development for most of the book until the very end. tristan and libby fucked and he was kind of into her more than he was parisa after that, i guess. parisa finds dalton and tristan vaguely interesting but her own insufferability ruins any of her dynamics and callum is clingy when it comes to tristan. nico spends a third of his chapters literally dreaming about some half-mermaid (?) gideon fucker with mommy issues, and they have a whole side plot and backstory that even at the end of the book doesn’t seem to tie into anything else. that’s it for ships, and i don’t get how people are invested in any of these dynamics in the slightest. they barely exist.
you know the audio that’s like “didn’t like the Godfather. just didn’t like it. it insists upon itself”. that is this book. it is so
heavy-handed and it’s clear Blake had a lot of interesting ideas for characters, but was completely unable to show it outside of literally telling us. repeatedly. without any ounce of subtly at all
i get this review probably comes off as really harsh and as though i hated the book. i didn’t. i just got to the 80% mark and found myself thinking “why am i reading this? when will this ordeal be fucking over? when can i get the satisfaction from one of these losers getting murdered?” and didn’t want to dnf before reaching the exciting ending some people talked about. it was not exciting. sorry.
it turns out the big beating heart of the question that fuels the plot of this very intellectual book is “murder bad? 🤔” wow. much to think about. much intellectual rigour. if i’m being generous, i could say “murder for power bad? 🤔” but that’s even less of a question lmao.
“She had more power now than she had ever possessed.” WHAT POWER, LIBBY?? WHAT? i would love to see it. i’ve seen you create one tiny black hole over the course of 200 pages, in a world where that doesn’t seem to be too extraordinary. i personally wouldn’t care to consider murder over that but YMMV i guess.
(side note: we’re told repeatedly that libby is mega powerful and could do so much if she just had confidence by basically every character. really cool, sounds interesting. once again, would have loved to have seen it.)
and no one even got murdered! 😭 you can’t beat me over the head with this moral dilemma for a good half of the book and answer it by having one of your characters be kidnapped and sent to some fucking time vault or whatever at the last minute.
jesus christ. what a waste of fucking time.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 ⭐️ shiiiit ok i get the hype now. i fucking loved this book. these characters are all literally gay for one another and i ate that shit up, left no crumbs. i’m attracted to every single one of these whores. these characters have a chokehold on me. had my gorilla grip throbbing. had my ovaries shaking. making me all nervous and giddy inside, i felt like i was on crack.
the writing? the plot? the characters develop? flawless. A bitch felt smart reading this 💅🏽 these are my new comfort characters. there isn’t one person i didn’t vibe with in this book.
libby? fucking adore this introverted queen. i saw so much of myself in her. cant wait for her corruption arc in book 2!!
nico? deserves the world and me
parisa? bad bitch and she fucking knows it
tristen? so down to earth guy and i’m in love
callum? smart ass mf, he’s so mysterious i love him
reina? gives me asexual vibes. plant mother that takes shit from NO ONE !!
here are my ships
libby and nico (or nico and gideon; i wouldn’t be mad about it)
parisa and dalton (i’m telling y’all that Atlas mf is mind controlling our home boy and parisa is gonna save him!)
tristen and callum (they connect so well and just GET each other)
my only problem with this book was that is was super slow and didn’t take until more than half way through to get my undivided attention. nonetheless it was a literary masterpiece!!!
Rating: really liked it
Generous 3 stars - This was a frustrating book to read.
Ever had an itch on your back that you can't scratch? That's how reading this book feels like. I love magical schools and libraries so this should have been a hit for me. The characters are incredibly unlikeable (not in a good way), too much telling vs showing and the story was all over the place.
The magic was interesting and there was a lot of potential so hopefully now that it has been picked up by a publishing company, the rest of the series will improve.
I might continue the series if the reviews are positive for book 2 but I'm not in a rush.
Rating: really liked it
The Atlas Six is a fantasy novel that understands what the people want and that is more dark academia stories with self-indulgent prose, impeccable vibes and aesthetics, and hot morally fraudulent characters who are constantly and agonizingly on the verge of either killing each other or fucking each other. That is, when they're not preoccupied with the pursuit of godhood (but more often than not they can multitask).
Rating: really liked it
My professional thoughts:
Lethally smart. Filled with a cast of brilliantly realized characters, each entangled with one another in torturously delicious ways,
The Atlas Six will grip you by the throat and refuse to let go. Olivie Blake is a mind-blowing talent.
My unprofessional thoughts:
NICOLIBBY NATION WHERE DO I SIGN MY REGISTRATION FORM
Rating: really liked it
all i gotta say is
zoo wee mama
Rating: really liked it
"The problem with knowledge, is its inexhaustible craving. The more of it you have, the less you feel you know."
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
As much as I love books that are so incredible that they rid my brain of any coherent thoughts, they make it very hard to write a review that makes sense to anyone but myself. So let me just make that clear right now; this book was amazing and you should definitely read it even if my review isn’t up to par.
⇢The Plot For some reason… everything and nothing simultaneously happened in this book. I feel like my mind was stretched and spread repeatedly, over and over, but if you asked me to explain what really happened in this book I would completely blank. Basically, magical competition, six competitors, dark academia, books, and a ton of lies to unravel. That’s all I can give you. (Note: That's all I can give you in the best way. As in you need to go experience this magnificence for yourself.)
“The moral of this story is:
Beware the man who faces you unarmed.
If in his eyes you are not the target, then you can be sure you are the weapon.”
What I can say is that the writing was magical. It was poetry-like prose, but not complicated enough to deter me from wanting to continue. You know how sometimes the writing is just
too much? Olivie Blake’s was just enough.
⇢The Characters “And so where there had once been six were now, irreversibly, one.”
The reason the plot was so hard to describe is because this book was definitely character-focused. My favourite. Obviously, as I mentioned, we follow six magical people, but the best part about this book is that they’re such well-written characters that when I think of them it’s not the magic that comes to mind first. It’s their struggles, their relationships, and just the way they see life.
Each of the characters are so distinct, but without being one-dimensional, which I think is a really hard thing to achieve, especially in the course of one sole book. Basically, if you like complex characters who you can’t decide if you like or hate because they’re so multifaceted, read this book. Please.
“Libby was a hero. Parisa was a villain. Their goals were overarching, appositional.
Nico and Reina were so impartial and self-interested as to be wholly negligible.
Tristan was a soldier. He would follow wherever he was most persuasively led.
It was Callum who was an assassin. It was the same as a soldier, but when he worked, he worked alone.”
⇢Libby I think Libby might be the most relatable character for me. She seems the most… human? Her motivations were definitely the most relatable and I think that a lot of teenagers especially can relate to feeling inadequate. I’m writing this review spoiler-free because I really want to convince people to read this book, but if you read it already, please freak out with me over the ending.
“Men, conceptually, are canceled,” Libby said to her knees. “This Society? Founded by men, I guarantee it. A man’s idea. Totally male.” She pursed her lips. “Theoretically, men are a disaster. As a concept, I unequivocally reject them.”
⇢Nico Can’t start with Libby and not talk about Nico next. Those two… I don’t know what they are, but they’re
something. Nico’s character is still very mysterious in my opinion. Obviously, we know some of his motivations but I think we still have a lot to learn when it comes to his potential and true feelings.
“They were binary stars, trapped in each other’s gravitational field and easily diminished without the other’s opposing force.”
⇢Reina Reina… another mystery. See what I mean about not being able to talk about what happened in this book? I definitely think there’s more to come for the Reina/Nico/Libby power trio, and I can’t wait to learn more about Reina’s skills. I think she’s one of my favourite characters though, unproblematic queen.
⇢Parisa Ugh, how do you casually discuss perfection? Okay, in all seriousness, Parisa both scares me and intrigues me. There are just so many layers to her that it constantly feels like she’s winning even when all evidence points to the opposite? All in all, I am simultaneously terrified and obsessed.
⇢Tristan Tristan might be the most complicated character in this book, and that’s saying something. We know so much about him because emotionally he seems like an open book but then there’s just so much we don’t know?? HOW?? All I know is that this man needs therapy from someone who isn’t named Callum. Seek help, Tristan.
⇢Callum Ugh, I saved the worst for last, because no thanks. I don’t know, I do feel bad for Callum but also, not one bit. I feel like the only time he seems mildly real is when he’s with Tristan, and even then, I just don’t trust him. I’m assuming in the next book the characters are going to have to work together more so maybe we’ll see him finally open up?
“Now Callum’s mistake was obvious: he had thought to prove himself strong, but nobody wanted strength. Not like his. Strength was for machines and monsters; the others could not relate to faultlessness or perfection. Humans wanted humanity, and that meant he would have to show evidence of weakness.”
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
My The Atlas Six Playlist: my the atlas six playlist
my carrd ❦
BOOKISH PRODUCTS: USE MY CODE JAZ10 ❦
BOOKMARKS, BLIND DATE WITH A BOOK ETC: USE MY CODE JAZ10 ❦
BOOKMARKS AND CANDLES: USE MY CODE JAZ10 ❦
Rating: really liked it
EDIT: I know that this book is getting a traditional release, but I don’t know if any of the following has been changed. Please note that I’ve only read the original self-published version!
Where do I even start with this review...
I heard from everyone how amazing this book is. BookTok, Tumblr, YouTube, Twitter...it was very much advertised as a dark academia fantasy, which is right in the intersection of Thing I Love. If you look at the reviews on Goodreads, you have to scroll down a bit to find anything less than an outpouring of love. So you can imagine my disappoint when this book did not meet that mark.
I'm staring at my keyboard trying to figure out where this book went wrong, and how to summarize it succinctly. The themes of this book include the pursuit of knowledge (and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing), interconnectedness between the characters, and ~time~ as a vaguely whimsical science. The only theme we actually see payoff on is the flexibility of time, and the end of the book drew that together in a way I found surprisingly interesting. With everything else, The Atlas Six fell completely flat.
We know almost nothing about everything in this book. The characters are lackluster, and the author has clear favorites. That's fine to an extent, but I as the reader shouldn't know that, especially if the plot hinges on them being on relatively equal footing. Reina was vastly underserviced by the plot. These characters aren't given any room to breathe and just let the audience get a feel for them: there's no downtime where we can watch them interact naturally and play off of one another so that we can get a better feel for their personalities and relationships. This made one of the other themes feel completely irrelevant. How am I supposed to believe these characters are interconnected, "deeply inextricable," as the book puts it, if it's constantly emphasized that they go weeks without interacting? There's only one group scene in this book iirc, and it's at the very beginning, and for the most part, summarized retrospectively.
"Room to breathe" is another thing we just don't get here. For a book that's so interested in building atmosphere within dialogue, it has a difficult time with that in other areas. I don't know anything about the building these characters are staying in, from what the rooms look like to where they have their dinners. The magic system is equally spartan. There's the occasional tidbit thrown around about physics, and energy, and the different types and strengths of medeians, but we receive no other information. All characters seemingly have control over specific domains of magic - sure - but can also wave a hand and produce other kinds of spells. There is no explanation given for this, and we see so little of the "class time" that the book places a lot of symbolic emphasis on that nothing else is elucidated. Even the idea of "balance" is unclear, and the first plot twist is given away on the back of the book. We never even know why a character must die! The idea is simply talked around until the subject gets changed, without a direct answer.
The biggest problem here, by far, is the lack of an editor. On some level, I can understand this, given the book is self-published. Yet many of the errors were so glaring that they interfered with me being able to understand the book. If a fight scene is going on, and characters are being shot at, that's something that needs to be introduced and reacted to from the beginning of the scene, not near the end as a "by the way they've been avoiding bullets this whole time." At one point, we're told a character can shapeshift, but the previous scenes they were supposed to have been shifted in make no reference to this fact, and even have the character refer to their body as having hands and palms when they're supposed to be a bird. This concept, by the way, is given no relevance besides the fact that it is supposed to be a "twist." It is never used again.
An editor would also have cut way, way down on the pretentious philosophizing in this book. Look. I love a little pretentious back-and-forth. But it has to be /earned/. It has to be relevant and have meaning. Asking questions that go unanswered is not a shortcut to making your characters sound smart. Half of the time, the conversations were essentially groups of non-sequiturs, where Callum would ask something, then reply to himself with a seemingly random question or response, while Tristan quietly reacted. For every 1 line that introduced something new, there were 3 that felt edgy and lifted from other media. It made reading more than 20 pages at a time an absolute chore, because I was tired of abstract musings.
Honestly, 2 stars is generous. This is primarily a 1.5 read, with the end being a little more interesting. It's not unsalvageable, but The Atlas Six needs a serious overhaul with a very studious editor. On a more positive note, the book itself was gorgeous, especially the illustrations. I did like the relationship between Parisa and Dalton. Reina is wonderful and deserves much more. I'm so glad to be done
Rating: really liked it
I have no idea what just happened?
Rating: really liked it
this book is everything
‘a deadly education’ wishes it could be.
so much more interesting world-building, more compelling characters, and really more relatable writing. and while im not sure i quite understand all the undying hype for this book, it definitely is fun to read.
the magic system is really cool. it has a very tangible scientific element that i feel heightens the ‘dark academia’ genre. and the characters are so fascinatingly flawed. not particularly likeable, but very complex.
if i could change anything to make this more enjoyable for me personally, it would probably be the pacing. man, is this slow, with not a whole lot happening. its 100% character-driven and i tend to like my books more focused on plot.
but putting that aside, this is a very detailed novel with really intriguing layers and narration.
↠ 3.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
I never feel more Me than when I have an unpopular opinion on a beloved bestseller.
It's how I made my millions in the first place - and by millions, I mean "tricked people into paying attention to me, only to trap them in a vicious content-creation cycle of semi-funny reviews and a lot more lit fic about annoying women than originally planned."
So sometimes, I like to return to my roots, and pick up whatever young adult fantasy behemoth starring a green-eyed and/or British and/or misunderstood assholey teen boy is stealing the hearts of the public.
I didn't intend to dislike this one, though. I promise. First of all, it's not even YA, and secondly, it's DARK ACADEMIA. I pray at the altar of Donna Tartt. I gamely agreed to pretend its annoying copycat little sibling was in the same hemisphere. I have a countdown to the Ninth House sequel tattooed on my lower back.
And yes, as it turns out, tattoos are not a good countdown strategy. You live and learn.
But this...
Guys, this wasn't good.
And I waited for the alleged "good version." I wanted to read this back when the self-pub original was the only one available, and yet I took the time to allow Tor to edit the ever-living bejesus out of it.
But here we are even still.
As this progressed I could not believe how much of it was conversations between a different duo. Just this guy and this guy. This girl and this guy (who are sleeping together). This girl and this guy (who might want to sleep together? And did once I think?) This guy and this guy (who have kind of a sexual tension as well). This girl and this guy (who are constantly "engaging in enemies to lovers banter," except the banter in question is two annoying high-school-theater-kid brats shrieking I HATE YOU at each other and if I am not even rewarded with an enemies to lovers arc, I am DNFing this series with so much personal anguish it will cause a ripple effect in global politics).
In other words, I kept waiting for the plot to happen, and yet as I noted down at increasing intervals - 28%, 42%, 54%, 66% - IT NEVER ARRIVED.
On top of that, I hated the writing so much it ruined my other current reads (of which there were approximately 11 - I was in one of those I'M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER anti-slumps wherein all you can do is read). It's the kind of goofy faux-intellectual pretentious drivel - to speak honestly, and don't yell at me for simply stating my truth like the non-sinner I am - that makes me lose my mind.
For some reason I feel like I'll end up reading the sequel. But that's probably the past version of me who made her name in unpopular opinions talking.
Bottom line: What were you guys even talking about!
------------
currently-reading updatesneed dark academia injected into my veins rn
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reading books by asian authors for aapi month!
book 1: kim jiyoung, born 1982
book 2: siren queen
book 3: the heart principle
book 4: n.p.
book 5: the hole
book 6: set on you
book 7: disorientation
book 8: parade
book 9: if i had your face
book 10: joan is okay
book 11: strange weather in tokyo
book 12: sarong party girls
book 13: the wind-up bird chronicle
book 14: portrait of a thief
book 15: sophie go's lonely hearts club
book 16: chemistry
book 17: heaven
book 18: the atlas six------------------------
i can't stop thinking about this book and i haven't even read it yet
Rating: really liked it
DNF @ p.100After giving
The Atlas Six another try, I realized that I can't make it beyond the 100 pages, that I can't stand any of the characters, that I won't read it (or enjoy it, for the case) and there are tons of
actually good books out there waiting for me to discover them.
I'm glad I don't have Tiktok anymore (because I spend more time there than actually reading and nope) to see the hype and try to read it, lmao.
This book goes straight to my
big hype, big lie shelf.
Look, I really tried. The premise was promising so I said, "why not? I haven't read many good dark academia books" and precisely
that was a mistake.
The characters were unbearable, arrogant and
flat. Yes, you heard/read me. They don't have personality beyond of try to impress everybody with... what? I didn't actually see what they can do. They're just a bunch of brat and stupid kids who think they can have whatever they want and not face the consequences.
I spoiled myself the book and it was... Great. I mean, I didn't know what to expect but the so called spoilers made me dislike this book more than the beginning. On my previous updates, I kinda forced myself to like it??? Callum and Parisa were assholes to me; I hated them since the very first moment. Libby was an annoying bitch and Nico was fine but even he was annoying to me.
If you liked this book, good 4 u. I couldn't even force myself to read it anymore. I can't give it another try when I know I dislike the characters and don't give a shit about them. I don't care for them.
At all. This book it is supposed to be character driven, right? Well, you might say that in the first 100 pages it's impossible to know it, but you can. 100 pages of pure suffering and hell was what I was given with TAS.
I read a review of someone saying
"Read Vicious for a well character driven book" and hell yes. Vicious is way better.
In any case, I won't give this book another try. No, I'm not sorry. I'm tired, haha.
Rating: really liked it
(yes, i brought a book to disney lmaooo)
oh, the last half of this truly cast a spell on me and i could not stop reading !!
i am begging for book two immediately !!
(and happy valentines day to you all) :]
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Rating: really liked it
when it’s nearly spooky season and you can finally start reading dark academia again >>>
Rating: really liked it
AMAZING. BRILLIANT. SENSATIONAL.
it's like getting my mind fucked, but in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE. i felt the RUSH as i was reading this. the philosophical discussions, the physics theories, the dialogue and character dynamics are well-executed. dare i say it's never been done before? hmm, yes actually. IT'S NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. the characters are compelling and intriguing. their personalities are distinct from each other and they all have their own unique way of thinking. never did i question whose POV i was reading because they are all so different from each other. i love every character interaction because any and every combination of characters produce an interesting dynamic, which i am a sucker for. the psychology of each character, the depth of characterization.. oh boy do they have a Lot to unpack, and i am hERE for it!!
i enjoyed reading this so much (even though there's "no plot") because of the fabulous writing and the impressive execution of the story. this was just stunning, exceptional, and utterly mind-blowing. i can't even begin to imagine the amount of research that went into this. physics is one subject i do not enjoy but the concepts were laid out so concisely, i'm starting to think i don't like physics because of my professors.
anyway, the themes were on point. the vibes immaculate. the writing excellent. the characters amazing. the execution brilliant. i have 316 highlights and 72 bookmarked pages by the end of it, and i don't usually highlight and bookmark so that's saying something! this is easily one of my favorites books of the year. simply incredible. i love what olivie blake is doing here.
to oversimplify the book, it's a diverse cast in academia and they're ALL sexy, smart, powerful, and gay! they have philosophical discussions, psycho-analyzing sessions, and sex (while questioning their morality and ethics, of course). drinks on the house! we're all having a wonderful time here, me especially. oh my god i just love this book so much!! also, the illustrations are beautiful. this book is OUTSTANDING. i love it here!
