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A review by booksthatburn
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Did not finish book. Stopped at 64%.
I was initially drawn in by the premise, a group of magicians brought to the Library of Alexandria have a year to decide which one of them will be eliminated and which five get to stay for another year. The cast of characters is pretty diverse (though a bit of that initial feeling of diversity was dampened when I realized all of them seemed to have English as their first language, which instantly shrunk the practical candidate pool. Part of the story questions the validity and methods of the entire enterprise, so that leaves some wiggle room for explaining why the candidates aren't actually very diverse (only six total, and two are from the same school in the USA?). Additionally, this could have been the library of Atlantis or Boston and it would have had just as much relevance to the plot. The latest incarnation of the "Library of Alexandria" is physically located in London, in the UK. It became clear pretty quickly that "Alexandria" is just a name, and an indication of thousands of years of whatever this thing is (or at least a claim to that long legacy). There are vague descriptions of the category of study and experiments which the candidates are pursuing, but most of the story is actually a very intense and complicated web of power plays and personal dynamics between the six candidates and the two Alexandrians who oversee them (mostly one of them). There's a pretty intense sex scene about halfway through which I actually didn't mind, but it felt like a sudden shift in tone from the rest of the book.
The characters seemed initially pretty interesting, but there's very little description of how their powers actually work. There are discussions of magical theory which I enjoyed, but they were usually couched in ways where the magic is actually secondary, which made them feel unmoored from the world being built.
It's six (sometimes eight) people in a house, talking to each other and slowly changing how they feel about one another, which is not what I was expecting in a book about "magicians living in the Library of Alexandria".
Ultimately I stopped because it became clearly stated that the whole thing is a slow burn trolley problem, and I don't like trolley problem situations.
The characters seemed initially pretty interesting, but there's very little description of how their powers actually work. There are discussions of magical theory which I enjoyed, but they were usually couched in ways where the magic is actually secondary, which made them feel unmoored from the world being built.
It's six (sometimes eight) people in a house, talking to each other and slowly changing how they feel about one another, which is not what I was expecting in a book about "magicians living in the Library of Alexandria".
Ultimately I stopped because it became clearly stated that the whole thing is a slow burn trolley problem, and I don't like trolley problem situations.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Classism, Murder, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Suicide
Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Cursing, Grief, Sexism, Violence, and Gun violence
Minor: Child death and Fire/Fire injury