A review by beckyyreadss
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is my book club’s choice for September. I've always wanted to join a book club and it’s all online which I liked. I couldn’t participate in August’s book of the month as I'd already read it. So, this is the first month where I was fully involved. If this was the book club’s choice of the month, I probably wouldn’t have read it.  

This book is based on the Alexandrian Society who are the caretakers of lost knowledge from the civilizations of antiquity, and they are a secret society for the magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, knowledge and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only six of the most talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiations. In this book, we meet the newest initiates: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona are the unwilling halves of the unfathomable whole, who can control every element of physicality. Then there is Reina Mori, she is a naturalist who can speak the language of life within itself. Parisa Kamali is a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious and navigate worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova is an empath easily mistaken for illusionist and he can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through any illusions to a new structure of reality – it's an ability so rare that neither him nor his peers can fully grasp its powers. All of these candidates were recruited by the dark and mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they have one year to qualify for the initiation and during the time they are permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects such as time and space, luck and though, life and death. There is a competition – only five with get through to the initiation ceremony and one will be eliminated. The six will fight to survive the next year of their lives and prove themselves to be the best out of the six. 

This is another book where I was ignoring the hype on BookTok and was glad to ignore the hype on BookTok. I still don’t get the hype of it. I think my main issue with this book is I hated all the characters; I am all for rooting for the main character within a book. Due to this book having all six POVs, there wasn’t a good person who you knew was going to be safe. Libby was annoying and she was too much of a people pleaser than focusing on herself. Nico was just two-faced and taking unnecessary risks. Reina was too quiet that I felt we barely got to know her and when she was there, she couldn’t control her powers, or she was talking about stuff we already knew. Parisa drove me up the wall with how bitchy she was – the mean girls called, and Regina George wants her personality back. She was all about being open about sex and things which is all great but then was completely shaming Libby for only having one boyfriend or not wanting to sleep around. Callum gave me whiplash with how manipulating he was and honestly was glad about the decisions the team made if the plot was going that way. Tristan was the only one that sort of had a head on his shoulders and a conscious but felt like his POVs was just Callum is two-faced, Nico is annoying, Libby is cute, Parisa is staring at me. It felt like some characters were more favoured so had more of a personality and then others were literally there to remind us of information we already knew. I felt like the storyline and world building was a bit all over the place.  

I liked how the book was a bit calmer considering it was a competition and they had to kill someone to survive. I loved the multiple POVs, I just wanted more from them. I was more interested in Nico’s friends side drama than the actual storyline that was going on. 

Libby is probably the reason I might pick up the second book. Just to see what’s going to happen with her and who wins this freaking competition. 
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