Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - The Atlas Six

Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

95 reviews

evebananas's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

The concept of this book had a lot of promise. The characters were very unlikable at the beginning and showed some growth and I ended up liking most of the main characters. The ending was extremely unsatisfying, and I find myself frustrated that I read nearly 400 pages of this without any closure at all.

Most unsatisfying was the complete lack of plot. The book constantly talks about how the characters are so important to one another and the whole overall "plan" but nothing ever happens. There's some drama, and some sex, and some more philosophizing about nothing. Nothing actually happens in this book. The characters don't actually form any important relationships with each other, and it's very clear that the author has some favorite characters. Reina has no importance, and might as well not exist. The writing is pretentious for no reason, and says nothing of importance while taking up pages and pages for a single conversation. I don't need to hear Callum wax poetic for the hundredth time with Tristan shrugging the whole time. There is no purpose to the conversations they have.

We also never really get answers about the magic system. Why do people have certain specialties but can apparently do other magic too? One character in particular is said to have a certain power that he hasn't even demonstrated in the scenes that the reveal references, and that power is never important despite being supposedly very rare.

Why does the Society set up this elaborate way to gain more magical power by killing one of these initiates when they could just kill regular medeians?

What's the difference between a medeian and a witch?

Overall, I would NOT recommend this book. There are far too many dark academia/fantasy books with interesting themes to waste time on Atlas Six.

Content Warnings

yananhai's review against another edition

Go to review page

tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

this book was truly a mystery for me. I didn't understand what was happening 90% of the time, and I really hoped that getting to the end would give me some answers, but it ends with only more questions to be (hopefully) answered in the next book.

I do understand why some people dislike the characters, there is almost zero development they go through (except maybe Tristan, but even that's a stretch). there is much more focus on building the plot and basis of the magic, and even that wasn't explained well.

this book did not do a good job in making me want to read the next one. so, I won't for now. maybe in the future, when I'm more in the mood.

Content Warnings

staceyinthesticks's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

caseymac's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

thestarsaresad's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I BREEZED through this book. This is the first book in a long time that I haven't wanted to put down and that I've thought about when I had to do other things. I love the author's writing - all the detail, all the reflection - honestly, how do people even come up with stories like this?!?! The plot twists were crazy! Initially, I was skeptical about there being multiple POVs, but I really did grow to enjoy seeing things through each character's eyes. I definitely need to get the second book NOW.

Content Warnings

vagrantheather's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Felt like the author conceived it in the same world as The Magicians. Libby's initial narrative is so juvenile that I planned to return the book to the library. Gave it a second chance and it does become a thoughtful, reflective, interesting book instead of a middle school writing level enemies to lovers. But I never quite fell in love with the narration. I love magic and urban fantasy, love dark academia, love dark fantasy. But this didn't hit. I didn't find the plot to be compelling, not was I vested in any of the characters. The author spent a good portion of time fleshing out their thoughts and reasons, but I didn't feel like I have a shit tbh. The twist at the end makes me somewhat curious, but it was basically the first time in the book I felt curious what would happen next, and I don't think I'm interested enough to pursue the next book.

Not to say it's an awful book by any means. I've certainly read MUCH worse. The writing quality is fine (if not beautiful), the characters are passably well developed (even if they didn't really grow at all), the concept is interesting (though the pacing needs work). The writing made me think of Erin Morgenstern, though less poetic, and I had similar issues with the pacing in her books.

Content Warnings

jadorelecafe's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

eule's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A book that I surprisingly enjoyed even though it was heavily focused on the character dynamics (multiple povs). If you love a scientifically based magic system, diverse characters and a mysterious plotline this book is for you. Sometimes it seems slow-moving but it is all worth it for the cliffhanger in the end. All in all, we can agree that all of the characters are extremely hot (Parisa!!!) and we need to support Nico x Gideon. I cannot wait to read the sequel (sadly my friend will have to read it first :()

Ps: Thank you to my friend Tyler for recommending and lending me this book. Love you ^^

Content Warnings

rinku's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I decided on a 2.5 rating for The Atlas Six. The world and the characters had so much potential, but this potential sadly wasn’t fulfilled. Instead, we get characters that feel flat, even though they’re supposed to be #deep, an uneventful story, and an irritating writing style. I can see why this is a book TikTok would hype since I probably would’ve loved it when I was 13 and in my edgy anime phase.

For the first third, I was still intrigued with the novel and the premise, even though it’s not the most innovative one: All ten years, the best six magicians of their generation get chosen to become part of the Alexandrian society that takes care of the Alexandrian library. We follow those six characters as they navigate this new task. I normally like those stories where different characters with different goals battle each other for one thing. We naturally have some between the characters here, but it felt a bit artificial for me because the characters are barely fighting with each other seriously. Still, I was interested in what would happen.

But after this first third, nothing happens anymore and there is no plot at all which got boring. Most of the time, the characters just talk to each other which wasn’t interesting either. Also, the things that did happen were quite predictable, like the fact that

Libby would break up with Ezra or that she wasn’t really dead, and that Ezra was her kidnapper

. Another big problem the novel has is its pacing which is really off. Weeks or even months pass in the course of few sentences, and in-between are mostly only dialogues. Add to this a confusing and often not chronological timeline where scenes are interrupted by others and the story gets slowed down even more.

The whole moral behind the novel is a bit weird as well. Why exactly do we need to keep all this knowledge a secret? The author made some anti-colonial and anti-capitalistic jabs here and there, but she never follows through with these ideas. If we do this, I come to the conclusion that everyone should have access to the library. From what we’ve seen this far, there isn’t any dangerous knowledge that is stored there and needs to be hidden from the public. An organization exists that criticizes this, but they do nothing besides introducing themselves to the main characters.

The ending really irritated me as well, and it’s literally just a chapter of a character telling us their backstory which was so boring;

we learn that Ezra can travel through time and once was part of the initiation with Atlas and faked his death to survive it, or something. Furthermore, it was not really surprising that Atlas is the villain and his plan of wanting to reset the world and create a new one was so cliché

. What I also dislike about the ending is that there’s just no feeling of closure because there was no story arc there that could’ve ended, besides

Libby’s kidnapping

, which is not remotely resolved.

Coming to the world building, it was quite different from what I’ve expected. I actually thought that the book would be a high fantasy one, and I think that this would’ve been more interesting. Still, I always like magic in modern settings and seeing how it’s used there. But this is all that is interesting about the world. We barely know anything about the place they’re staying at besides that it “looks British”, whatever that means. Other things aren’t explained enough and hence didn’t make sense, like the mind wandering or the different dimensions.

I also had a huge problem with the way the story was written, and I think that Tor should’ve edited the book more. Like others said, the writing is quite pretentious and tries to be complex and deep but lands more on the cringe side. There’s additionally so much talking about what happened and how the characters supposedly are, but we barely see any of it which was again boring. What really bothered me as well was how the author would write dialogue with no action beats in-between and simply write “(Name.)” behind dialogue lines. This just felt lazy to me, just like some of the info dumping throughout.

The story is very character-driven, but a problem is, like other reviewers said, that the characters are not as interesting as the author think they are. After spending over 500 pages with them, I just don’t have the feeling that I know anything about them. What was their life like before they went to the library? What about their families? What are their interests? I personally think that it would’ve been more interesting if there were other people/visitors at the library and not only them, but oh well. The characters I liked the most were probably Reina and Libby. The rest of them is just too edgy for me, and I especially disliked Callum. I also found it so terrible how mean they all were to Libby without any reason. What I did like was Parisa x Dalton, but their scenes together were honestly boring as well because the forbidden part of the forbidden relationship was barely there. Talking about relationships, I have the feeling the author really hates monogamous relationships, seen in the way she portrays the relationship between Libby and Ezra. This honestly made me cringe a bit.

There was still something about The Atlas Six that I can’t say that I disliked it. This something was probably the dark academia atmosphere and the general premise. I’m not sure if I’ll read the sequels or not since I don’t know if I can stand the pretentious writing style and characters again.

Content Warnings

risaleel's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

More...