The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle

4 Stars

I originally began this book as audiobook but gave up on it at around 15% as I could no longer stand the voice that was narrating it. So instead, I bought the kindle version. I couldn't put this book down despite a number of flaws (which I will discuss soon) and I will be reading the next two books in the trilogy. 

Now, for a premise of the book. There is so much going on in this book that I don't even know where to start. The book has a few central characters which all start to be completely different from one another and it seems that their paths shall never cross. There is Dr Kate Warner who is working on a cure for autism in a research centre in Jakarta, Indonesia. There is then the clocktower agents who work as a counter-terrorism centre also in Jakarta. At the beginning of the book, well up until about 25% I think? There is also what I thought to be another main character who is working in some type of research centre to earn a wage for his family whom work on a farm. 

Up until around 35% of the book, I was a little confused as to what I thought was all these random storylines going on. I suppose a number of people would have probably given up on this book due to the confusion and lack of intertwining. For me though, each storyline was quite interesting in its own way that I wanted to carry on. Autism seems to pop up in a lot of books recently and they all seem to talk about a cure - this did get on my nerve a little bit as there will never be a cure for autism, only management. Get over it. 

Eventually the story does start to come together and all the storylines make sense. The ideas that Riddle put forward to as a somewhat theory to our ancestors and where we come from are very interesting. Also, another good idea on Spanish flu and Atlantis. The flaws within this book though was the randomness on story development at the beginning of the book and that their was so much going on. There were some good twists and you need to have a very open mind as some ideas are rather far fetched. 

Overall, I did enjoy the book as an overall and once I got past the flaws. A very good debut novel by Riddle and some very interesting ideas. I'm not massive on sci-fi books, but if it catches me like this one, I'm there. I will read almost anything once. 

Happy reading :)