Hello, everyone! Today I’m reviewing Gifted & Talented, the new book by Olivie Blake that will be published on April 1, 2025. I’m a huge fan of Blake’s work and have been excited to read this one. Read on to see if it lived up to my lofty expectations!

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You’re welcome! If only her father’s fortune wasn’t her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he’s losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world’s most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she’d been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?

***Thank you to Tor Books for providing an advanced copy of the book via NetGalley. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***

I’m not quite sure what to say about Gifted & Talented. Obviously, I enjoyed it. It is an Olivie Blake book after all. Do I think everyone will love it? No. It was very character-focused with a meandering, almost non-existent, plot. However, none of that changes that the story was absolutely brilliant.

The character work in Gifted & Talented was nothing short of spectacular. Blake has a real knack for writing messy characters and making unlikeable characters relatable. These people had PROBLEMS, and I loved every second of sinking deeper into their troubled psyches. They were pretentious, self-absorbed, and completely caught up in the expectations of greatness that surrounded them. Those lofty expectations were a major ingredient in their dysfunction, in addition to their tumultuous family dynamic and past traumas. The journey of their internal selves was surprisingly cathartic for me as someone once classified as gifted who has dealt with the overwhelming fear of failure that often accompanies that label into adulthood.

The writing in Gifted & Talented completely sucked me into the narrative. It felt smart and witty and held no punches in its commentary and dialogue. I loved the stream of consciousness feeling to it and the unique structural choices used to tell the story. Blake utilized her craft to really dig into a vast variety of timely topics. Some that come to mind include motherhood, the evils of capitalism, the nature of politics, and what it means to be ‘happy,’ among many others. There was no shortage of profound philosophizing and thought-provoking content weaved seamlessly into the character work.

I don’t want to say too much more because I think Gifted & Talented is best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible. However, I do want to point out the one thing that felt a bit like a weakness to me. The book is classified as a fantasy, but there weren’t many fantastical elements to the story. Furthermore, the ones that existed weren’t explained very well. For example, I never really got a clear understanding of technomancy. Was it really magical? Was it just another way of describing modern telecommunications? I honestly don’t know. I would have loved to get a better idea of how the magic of this world worked.

Overall, Gifted & Talented was exactly what I’d expect from an Olivie Blake book. The characters were all messy and complex. The writing provided a deep probe into their internal worlds and highlighted the subtle personal growth experienced over the course of the novel’s events. If you are looking for a great character-focused story with lots of family dysfunction and timely commentary, then you’ll probably enjoy this one as long as you don’t mind a slow plot and vague fantasy elements. Therefore, I rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

There you have it! My thoughts on Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake. If you’ve previously missed them, be sure to check out my reviews of some of Blake’s other work, as well (The Atlas Paradox, The Atlas Complex). Are you a fan of Blake’s books? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments! 🙂