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staceyinthesticks's review against another edition
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
Moderate: Death
Minor: Infidelity, Murder, Kidnapping, Cursing, Sexual content, Alcohol, and Violence
joshtheman's review
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
This book…
I almost can’t even. The characters are obnoxious, the plot almost trivial, and the pace is incredibly slow for what you get.
Not only do the characters never learn anything, they always seem to be sleeping with each other. No real rhyme or reason either. Often, they are not even attracted to each other, but still it continues.
This book was quite the disappointment for me. I’m sure it’s someone’s cup of tea, but not for me.
This book is for people more interested in reading about sex than having it. If that is you, power to you!
I almost can’t even. The characters are obnoxious, the plot almost trivial, and the pace is incredibly slow for what you get.
Not only do the characters never learn anything, they always seem to be sleeping with each other. No real rhyme or reason either. Often, they are not even attracted to each other, but still it continues.
This book was quite the disappointment for me. I’m sure it’s someone’s cup of tea, but not for me.
This book is for people more interested in reading about sex than having it. If that is you, power to you!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Blood, Sexual content, Gore, and Infidelity
aishallnot's review against another edition
Honestly don't like dnf'ing books half way through the story but I don't see myself getting interested nor picking up this book anytime soon. In the off chance I do, I would probably still be bored with the story. The beginning and some POV chapters were quite interesting but other than that the plot moves awfully slow for me. Gonna return to the library bc ik someone might enjoy it more.
Though I might look into spoilers to see if anything happens 🫣
Though I might look into spoilers to see if anything happens 🫣
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Sexual content, Infidelity, and Alcohol
jadorelecafe's review against another edition
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
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Death, Murder, and Mass/school shootings
Moderate: Death, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Mass/school shootings, and Murder
Minor: Car accident, Child death, Alcoholism, Bullying, Chronic illness, and Addiction
rinku's review against another edition
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
Graphic: Alcohol, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Infidelity
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Blood, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, and Sexual content
achay91'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Drug use
zarhara's review against another edition
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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death, Emotional abuse, and Murder
Moderate: Child death, Emotional abuse, Blood, Cancer, Terminal illness, Infidelity, and Sexual content
itsheyfay's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Kidnapping, and Suicide
Moderate: Death of parent, Gun violence, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Child death
Minor: Terminal illness
aliyachaudhry's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, Toxic friendship, Death, Murder, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Alcohol
alittleoverrated's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
3.75
Okay, I'll be quick here (I won't)
The book is for sure worth the read, it was a quick and easy read ( or listen if your me, the very wide cast for the audiobook was very nice and refreshing). You really do have to be in it for the characters though, because the plot is kind of lost in the sauce for most of the book. At times, it truly feels irrelevant that they are the most powerful magic users in the world, because your more wrapped up in the personal dramas. It reads much more like fanfic or a TV show than a novel, which I don't mind 95% of the time.
The premise and worldbuilding had me hooked from the beginning and then kind of failed to keep me there, or continue to expand or even explain things at time. I feel that this booked suffered from having a MASSIVE amount of interesting things going on but too many at the same time that none of them felt fully fleshed out or used to their full potential. I feel like I knew next to nothing about Reina because she was ignored half the book, Callum could have been infinitely more interesting and compelling if he would have spent less time being annoying, and a billion other stories felt very so exciting, but left to the side because we had to move on to the next characters bit.
Ultimately though, I did really enjoyed it a lot, the characters keep it interesting, the transitions between characters and the moments or realization a character has about another during their POV are always compelling.
But honestly, I read this book because someone said it had the best threesome scene they had read in it. It did not disappoint, though it would've been rated M not E if we are talking typical AO3 Rules. 10/10 smut.
The book is for sure worth the read, it was a quick and easy read ( or listen if your me, the very wide cast for the audiobook was very nice and refreshing). You really do have to be in it for the characters though, because the plot is kind of lost in the sauce for most of the book. At times, it truly feels irrelevant that they are the most powerful magic users in the world, because your more wrapped up in the personal dramas. It reads much more like fanfic or a TV show than a novel, which I don't mind 95% of the time.
The premise and worldbuilding had me hooked from the beginning and then kind of failed to keep me there, or continue to expand or even explain things at time. I feel that this booked suffered from having a MASSIVE amount of interesting things going on but too many at the same time that none of them felt fully fleshed out or used to their full potential. I feel like I knew next to nothing about Reina because she was ignored half the book, Callum could have been infinitely more interesting and compelling if he would have spent less time being annoying, and a billion other stories felt very so exciting, but left to the side because we had to move on to the next characters bit.
Ultimately though, I did really enjoyed it a lot, the characters keep it interesting, the transitions between characters and the moments or realization a character has about another during their POV are always compelling.
But honestly, I read this book because someone said it had the best threesome scene they had read in it. It did not disappoint, though it would've been rated M not E if we are talking typical AO3 Rules. 10/10 smut.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Murder
Minor: Car accident, Death of parent, Death, and Drug use
There is a coerced on screen suicide attempt, but it is ultimately not real, though feels very real at the time. Read at your own rick, but know everyone is fine at the end. If you would prefer to skip, the scene begins when Callum and Parisa plan to have a battle of the minds so to speak.