The Atmospherians – Isle McElroy

Expectation: A dark comedy dismantling social media influencer culture.

Reality: A mix of ideas that don’t always meld together nicely but debut author Isle McElroy took some risks with plot and characterization that paid off.

My Take:

“The Atmosphere began with a simple observation: men are behaving badly. For thousands of years, men placed themselves at the center of society. Their chase for power, attention and wealth resulted in massive global disasters. Something needed to happen. Men had to be better.”

In essence this is the thesis of  “The Atmospherians,” a somewhat disjointed mess that somehow still works. 

Part satire of influencer culture, part commentary on the rise of the angry white male and part dark comedy with hints of pre-dystopia, it’s a collection of ideas — each strong enough to support a standalone novel — that when jumbled together don’t bite as hard as they could.

It’s the same case of “debutitis” that afflicts many other first-time writers who think — either individually or because an editor told them so — more is more. In Isle McElroy’s case, I believe the novel they set out to write was not the one that was published. 

McElroy explores so many ideas through Sasha, a disgraced lifestyle influencer, and her childhood best friend, Dyson, a failed actor, that you could create a BINGO card from the various hot topics.  

The author shows a keen observational sense, especially with how Gen Z and Millennials rely on social media swarms to guide their insights and outrage (an idea also covered fantastically in R.F. Kuang’s “Yellowface”), but the big thread between topics — The Atmosphere cult — failed to connect them. 

The first half of the novel, solely rooted in Sasha’s fall from grace at the hands of male rights advocates and flashbacks of her friendship with Dyson, was tight and concise. The middle lost focus, with too many ancillary characters, repetitive chapters and outlandish plots, which dulled the impact of some of the more interesting commentaries. But it finished strong with an interesting coda that wrapped up details with only a few shades of ambiguity. 

Usually a novel this vacillating would draw my ire, but I was regularly amused and impressed by how McElroy would swing from the fences. It takes a lot of audacity to make two cult leaders sympathetic characters while subsequently disparaging a target reading demographic, but they went for it — and I admire that. 

Still, this won’t be to everyone’s tastes. It’s angry and frustrating and scattershot, but if you look through the noise it’s clear that McElroy has the potential to become a norm-challenging commentariat. 

The audiobook narrated by Emily Tremaine was kind of blah. I had a physical copy of the novel (thanks Buzzfeed Books, RIP) and in hindsight probably should have done a hybrid read/listen as the chapters were relatively short, and I didn’t glean much from Tremaine’s interpretation of the text.

Rating (story): 3/5 stars

Rating (narration): 3/5 stars

Format: Audiobook (personal library)

Dates read: June 29 – July 10, 2023

Multi-tasking: Good to go. If you aren’t paying close attention, you’ll miss some interesting insights but overall this is easy to follow regardless of activity.