Review: The Atlas Six – Olivie Blake

Review: The Atlas Six – Olivie BlakeThe Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)
by Olivie Blake
Series: The Atlas #1
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 470
Source: NetGalley

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

My rating: One StarOne StarOne Star


The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few...

- Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.
- Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.
- Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.
- Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.
- Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.

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After seeing this book blowing up everywhere on BookTok, I was curious enough to try it out myself, especially after seeing that it had been acquired by Tor. In the past, recommendations from there have been hit or miss, and unfortunately, this one was a bit of a miss.

“Nature is chaos, magic is order, but they are not wholly unrelated.”

Every decade, six medeians – magicians – are picked by the secretive Alexandrian Society (yes, as in the Library of Alexandria) to compete for a chance to win a place. Former initiates have gone on to reach the heights of society, from CEOs to politicians, while some instead chose to stay and learn everything they can. While they’re competing against each other – only five will be inducted after a year – these six wildly different people must also work as a team to protect the Society. But as with most secret societies, what they have been told isn’t the entire truth. Figuring out what they haven’t been told may be just as illuminating as what they have been – if they can survive that long.

Each main character gets their own POV, which presents the first challenge. For the most part, I found all the characters interesting. Some of them are particularly stand out – heeeey Parisa – while others were obviously not the author’s favorites. The first two we’re introduced to, Nico and Libby, have just graduated from a magic university in NYC. Both adept at manipulating physical elements, they’ve been rivals from the start, and my romance brain kept waiting for it to turn into enemies-to-lovers relationship. But, alas, while there are some romantic relationships, that one is never explored. I also adored Reina and wished there had been more from her POV.

“What everyone else was seeing—illusions, perceptions, interpretations—were not an objective form of reality at all, which meant that, conversely, what Tristan could see… was.”

The introduction to the characters, and their first few days at the Society, are interesting, with a good mix of action and seeing how the characters interact. And then it starts falling apart. The world building is extremely uneven. There are magic families and magic companies but it’s not entirely clear whether “mortals” – non-magical people – are aware that magic exists. There’s bits of text which could be read either way, and while it’s a minor thing, it was disproportionately frustrating to me. Continuing with the dearth of world building, except for a few notable examples, the magic lessons are glossed over. We get the basics of what the characters can do, just enough to provide characterization. And this leads directly to my next issue.

The lion’s share of the book is focused on the characters and what they think of each other. There’s alliances and squabbles and seduction but there’s not really a ton of other plot. And don’t get me wrong, I love usually love character interactions! But it’s a ton of telling versus showing. One character’s falling for another? Better make sure another character explicitly tells us that in their POV! There’s several twists that are basically so heavily foreshadowed because of that telling that they’re ruined. There is a cliffhanger ending but, honestly, by the time I reached that point I was only mildly interested.

So, overall, this book didn’t work for me. While the characters and the beginning was strong, there wasn’t enough to make me want to keep reading.

Content notes: View Spoiler »

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