Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

95 reviews

snowy05's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Murder

Minor: Kidnapping, Infidelity, Death of parent, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Grief, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, and Cursing

whailey's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Chronic illness, and Gaslighting

Minor: Toxic friendship and Toxic relationship

cluckieduck's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The hype lead me here, but all I can say is that I think this book was trying to hard to be something grand. A lot needs to be tightened up - it just kept going in circles, filled with redundancies rather than fleshing-out the characterization or world-building that was deeply needed. That being said, it was good enough that I'll continue with the series to see where it leads.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Suicide attempt, Violence, Bullying, Cursing, Murder, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Alcohol, Classism, and Stalking

Minor: Sexual content, Chronic illness, Infidelity, and Sexual harassment

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Grief, Terminal illness, Violence, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Abandonment, Cursing, Alcohol, Bullying, Child death, and Death

Minor: Child abuse, Vomit, Classism, War, Blood, Colonisation, Confinement, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

lynnannwalsh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Violence, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Murder

Minor: Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gaslighting, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Drug use, and Adult/minor relationship

hanarama's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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

4.0

Book at a Glance: 
• Dark academia
• Diverse, ensemble cast
• Multiple POVs
• CWs: murder, psychological abuse, suicide

Atlas Blakely taps six talented magicians for admission to the prestigious and secret Alexandrian Society. The Society has continued to care for the Library of Alexandria in seclusion across the centuries, and drawing from its vast well of knowledge to shape the world. The newest cohort will learn the price that such knowledge carries, for only five out of the six will gain full membership. 

This is the book that A Deadly Education wishes it was. 

While in retrospect, very little happens through most of the book, it did not feel slow. This is due to cycling through six opposing points of view. The characters are different enough from each other, and driven by different motivations that moving between them keeps things interesting. Because the reader is constantly learning new things about the characters and uncovering information through each, its possible to uncover the full picture ahead of the characters. 

The characters are complicated morally gray, and messy. Because they know that one of them will not move to the next level, there’s a lot of politicking between the characters. It feels like a political intrigue on a small scale. This may not be to everyone’s taste, but I enjoyed it a lot. 

The final reveal is predictable in some ways. Information in early chapters gives some hint, but Blake performs an excellent sleight of hand, drawing the reader’s attention away to the characters over the background. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Violence, Sexual content, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Murder, Bullying, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

sohma4uesugi's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

I had to force myself to finish this and I am exhausted. There is just so much without anything at the same time. The sentences are wordy and over the top in a way that is heavy and clunky. Instead of saying “she was shocked by his reply”, the text is that “she was aghast at the perversion of the transaction.” Just… why? Everything simple that should be easy and flows is so over the top that it falls flat beneath the weight of its self. 

There is no immersion into this world. My eyes kept jumping forward begging it to be over with faster. I would reread sentences several times and still be confused in the next paragraph.

Interesting characters were largely ignored and the uninteresting characters were heavily focused on. The artwork, though beautiful, strangely did not match the characters each section was named for, which didn’t make sense to me. 

It felt like whole chapters were missing and the ones that were there dragged on forever and a day. Anything interesting was just simply dropped the next page in infuriating regularity. The last two chapters of the book seemed like they were written for another work entirely, in that they were interesting and actually held my attention. 

To go from talking in tiring detail about the complexities of stopping time to calling someone a useless fuckboi just because they could in the next sentence was jarring and not in a way to bring humor or relief from the vast complexities the text tried and failed to reach. 

The concept was super cool and I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately, I did not. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Car accident, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Confinement, Death, Misogyny, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I read this book in two days. I'm still coming down from the high of finishing it, so I'm not sure if it was technically good, but I know I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters are spectacularly interesting. Reina and Callum could use a bit a fleshing-out; but Libby, Nico, Parisa, and Tristan were amazing POVs. Libby was obviously meant to be the audience avatar, since she is the first POV, and it's no secret that most of the target audience is likely to be women of academic background and/or anxiety/ MI.

There were definitely enough clues along the way where I saw the Ezra twist coming. I'm much more interested in the mystery of Dalton.

Faults few and far between in my opinion include: lack of depth to Nico's character, plot relying heavily on the miscommunication trope (although there is some reason for it), and a bit of pseudointellectualism since I didn't buy into the sci-fi explanations and philosophical arguments.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Death, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Murder, Sexual content, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

Minor: Death of parent

kayladaila's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Blood

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Bullying, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Gore, Death of parent, Murder, Mass/school shootings, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Abandonment, Alcohol, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Chronic illness, and Classism

kaytrain's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Suicide, and Emotional abuse