Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake

Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake

Olivie Blake has a prolific career. Since her first novel was published in 2017, she has released 8 standalone novels and three different series, including the wildly popular Atlas series. She has also published two Young-Adult novels under the name Alexene Farol Follmuth. Gifted & Talented was published in April of 2025 and I was unsure if I would pick it up at first. I've heard you either love Olivie Blake, or you do not. Gifted & Talented deals with bullying, coversations about disordered eating, mental illness, panic attacks, grief of all kinds, car accident resulting in serious injury, death of a parent, pregnancy, miscarriage, fire, injury, and classism.

Thayer Wren has three children, all uniquely gifted. When he dies unexpectedly, everyone wonders which of his three children will inherit his throne as CEO of Wrenfare Magitech. His eldest daughter is a genius and has started her own biotech company that believes it can cure mental illness - and she's not even thirty-one years old. Of course, the relationship between her and her father has been strained ever since (in his eyes) she betrayed him. And that was before she found out her ex-boyfriend planned on outing her as a complete fraud. Then there is Arthur, only son of Thayer and the second-youngest congressman in US history who is almost guaranteed to lose his reelection, and possibly his wife too. Lastly is Thayer's younger daughter Eilidh, who had already become the most recognizable ballerina in the world by the time a car accident left her unable to dance. She started working for her father after the accident and as such, is the only one of his children to actually be employed by the company they are fighting over. Taking her father's place would finally make everyone see her as a serious member of the Wren family.

As I mentioned before, I've heard you either love Olivie Blake's writing or you do not and I'm happy to announce, that I'm team love it. She writes with such an irreverence that I could not help but be entertained. The Wren children, born with silver spoons, are incredibly privileged but largely ignorant of the benefits they reap from that privilege. They are so different in their personalities and tone of voice, your relationship with each of them is unique. You dislike each of them for a different reason and yet, you don't really dislike them at all. With the exception of Meredith, I was annoyed at times but was still charmed by the Thayer children from the very beginning. Meredith took a little time to grow on me but I still ended up liking her. And all of that aside, Olivie Blake's writing is hilarious. I laughed out several times and even made my mother in law listen to a few clips. She is dry and sarcastic and I loved it. As for the premise of the story, a couple of rich kids fight over their dad's legacy, nothing new to see here. But you get to watch as each of them deals with their grief in a different way and not only the grief for their father, but grief for their inability to deliver what they expected from life, their grief for not receiving they love they deserved, grief from dreams unfulfilled or cut short. It was on the longer side but I didn't feel bored at all. It kept moving and by the end, I was charmed by all the Wren children. As Lu says, "give a mouse a cookie" and all that.

I'm giving Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake 4 stars out of 5. I liked it, I really like Blake's writing style, and I'll probably check out more of her books.

For more from Olivie Blake, check out her website at https://www.olivieblake.com/

Pairs well with a pistachio macaron and deciding if you'd rather be a washed up ingenue or a washed up prodigy.

My favorite quotes:

"The plane had been undulating wildly for several minutes, such that the oxygen masks had already dropped into the cabin, and Eilidh was ultimately impressed they did not require an additional fee to use."

"Jillian would marry this man and have an entire fleet of tactical children. She would go forth and take France."

"'It's funny,' she mused, 'I don't really want to kill him but at the same time, I feel like he'll respect me less if I don't at least try.'"

"'Oh I don't know about the one, lots of people have got away.'"