📕 Title: The Atlas Six
✏️ Author: Olivie Blake
📖 Genre: Fantasy / Fiction
⭐ Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

BOOK BLURB

The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

REVIEW

I finally finished this book after initially abandoning it following a slog through the first fifty pages. I sat down and gave it another fair shot, but unfortunately I still struggled through most of the book.

I would have enjoyed this story more if it focused solely on Nico and Libby, who were the two most interesting characters because of their shared history and rivalry. I loved Nico’s relationship with Gideon and enjoyed that whole subplot.

Every other character paled in comparison, each of them insufferable in their own way, and I especially dreaded reading Parisa and Callum’s chapters. This is a character driven story, yet because most characters are so unlikeable it was a tedious read.

Despite being such a long book, since it’s split between the POVs of six different people there was sparse time for character growth. While it’s so focused on the characters there is little attention afforded to the actual setting: the library.

The world building is weak and I felt that the Alexandrian Society remained unfortunately underexplained, feeling like academia in only the loosest sense. Much of the interesting magical experiments and use happens off page, and the bulk of the book is about character tensions and relationships–which didn’t work for me.

The final section of the novel featured abrupt reveals and unexpected events, yet despite the loose ends I felt no desire to continue the series.

Overall, I enjoyed Nico and Libby’s relationship but otherwise this book was a letdown for me.