Dramatic Disasters

I recently finished reading Gifted and Talented by Olivie Blake. This is OwlCrate's April adult book.

This exclusive edition features an exclusive redesigned dust jacket by@gukkhwa and designed by @lichen_and_limestone⁠, with stenciled edges by @lichen_and_limestone, a reversible dust jacket by @denvertakespics and designed by @lichen_and_limestone, foiled hardcover case design by @lichen_and_limestone, and end pages by @yewberries. The book is also signed by author Olivie Blake on an author page with an author's letter bound into the book as well as bonus content.

~POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT~

  Rating: 3.75/5 stars

"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?"

There are books that entertain, books that challenge, and then there are books like this one—the kind that pull you in so deeply that you have no choice but to give in to the brilliance. Meredith Wren, Arthur Wren, and Eilidh Wren—these are not just characters. They are forces of nature, each one carrying the weight of their privilege, their intelligence, their impossible expectations. The book doesn’t just tell their stories—it immerses you in their psyches, making you feel like you’re eavesdropping on the most intimate, biting, and devastating conversations of their lives.

The book felt electric. There’s a rhythm to the writing, a kind of poetic, hyper-intelligent banter that makes every paragraph feel like a scene from a screenplay. It’s as if Aaron Sorkin and Sally Rooney had a literary love child, but then that child was raised on dark academia, speculative fiction, and biting satire. The dialogue is quick, sharp, and demanding—so much so that I found myself flipping back a few pages just to make sure I caught all the nuances of what was being said. It’s a book that refuses to spoon-feed you; I loved/ hated that about it.

When I finished it, the first thing that came to mind was that this book could turn into one of the most intellectually gripping screen adaptations—if (and it’s a big if) a director was willing to commit to the complexity of the dialogue and the intricacies of the characters. The quick cuts between intense boardroom confrontations, confessions, and supernatural catastrophes would be cinematic gold. But here’s the thing—half of the magic in this book lives in prose/writing if you get what I’m saying. The internal monologues, the uncomfortable self-awareness of the characters, and the way the words themselves crackle with wit and tragedy-- might make it too hard for this to be a movie.

This book is about the Wren siblings—Meredith, Arthur, and Eilidh—each entangled in their crises, from corporate fraud to supernatural abilities and political downfall. The book is character-driven about power, privilege, and the consequences of ambition.

Meredith Wren - She is introduced as the CEO of a company whose flagship product, Chirp, is marketed as a biomantic breakthrough that can manufacture happiness. However, quickly raises questions about the ethics of her work and the legitimacy of her product. She’s the kind of character who would be played by a powerhouse actress—someone like Cate Blanchett (especially her) or Rooney Mara, who can radiate untouchable, intelligent, and devastating vulnerability all at once. Meredith is ruthless, calculating, deeply flawed, and yet I couldn’t look away from her. her moral compromises, her hunger for power, her deeply buried wounds—you hate, admire, and fear her all at once.

Arthur Wren - He is another beast entirely. He’s both the golden boy and the tragic figure, a politician who wants to do good but is drowning in his failures, his powerlessness, and his supernatural abilities. There’s an irony to Arthur—he’s supposed to be the one with influence, the one who should be able to change the world, and yet he’s the most lost of them all. His struggle feels painfully relevant; it’s like what happens when idealism meets an unmovable system.

Eilidh Wren - Used to be a ballerina, but now she’s stuck in a marketing job at her father’s company—except there’s something inside her, something she doesn’t understand. It’s not just strange; it’s terrifying. It feels old, otherworldly, something eldritch and apocalyptic. Like it doesn’t belong in her body or this world at all. Her story is the one that lingers. There’s something unsettling about it, something that makes reality feel thin, like it could crack at any moment. Goes to something cosmic and uncontrollable. Her chapters are where things start to slip—where ballet recitals blur into visions of apocalypse that happen to manifest, where time and space don’t behave the way they should.

The writing has sharp wit, a very dense prose, and an intellectual, almost literary style with modern speculative fiction elements. The writing is rich with internal monologues, biting humor, and great world-building, and the narrative is as much about voice as it is about plot. The sentences are often long and winding, packed with keen observations and clever asides that make the text feel both sophisticated and self-aware and sometimes very, very suffocating. The use of parenthetical and fragmented thoughts that Olivie gave the book a conversational yet intricately constructed feel, I can see that only a few groups of people will actually be able to put up with this, because to be honest, it’s exhausting.

The pacing leans toward slow development. However, the stakes will sometimes escalate quickly between chapters, particularly as each character is confronted with their own downfall since they’re all sitting on the edge. But to be honest, the structure allows for a gradual build-up.

The book challenges, but rewards, in my opinion. This is not a book you breeze through. It’s a book you wrestle with. You have to sit with the dialogue, re-read the interactions, and absorb the layers of meaning in every exchange. The intelligence in this book is relentless—it doesn’t dumb anything down, and it assumes its readers are sharp enough to keep up.

That being said, I can see how it could be polarizing. Some readers will love its complexity, its Sorkin-esque dialogue, and its deep dives into philosophy, technology, and morality. Others might find it too dense, too caught up in its own intellectualism. But for the ones willing to engage with it, to really lean into the world it creates, the reward is great!

It gets under your skin. It’s smart, ambitious, and it’s fearless in the way it portrays power, dysfunctional family dynamics, and the consequences of ambition. It’s literary fiction wrapped in speculative dark fantasy fiction, with a side of thriller and political drama. It’s the kind of book you finish and immediately want to discuss, dissect, and argue about.

Would I recommend it? Without hesitation. But I’d also say this: don’t expect a light read. Expect to be challenged. Expect to feel like you’re watching a brilliant film where every line of dialogue demands your attention. Expect to have to flip back a few pages to catch the nuances you missed. And most importantly, expect to hate the characters deeply.

Check out Gifted and talented, and discover what happens when a will turns into a war.