I read this book when it was first published and I loved it. This new version does have extra content, some scenes are more fleshed out or give extra detail that makes it easier to imagine. This book is beautifully written, the words are lyrical the descriptions jump off the page. The magic system is deep and based in real life science and I love that. I can understand how some people might feel intimated or feel that it is too "pretentious" because of the words used. However I beg all of you to give this book a chance because it will stay with you forever.

I can definitely see what the hype is about. THE ATLAS SIX is a really well-written and smart book with magical libraries, morally grey characters and SECRET SOCIETIES. There's a really great sci-fi and dark academia vibe with this one that I really thought was so cool. Blake's writing is really good at getting a reader to ponder ethical and moral implications of the power that comes with knowledge being reserved for an elite few. I have to give props to Blake, because as I was reading, it was very clear that the author is wayyyy smarter than me. The writing did feel a little dense when it gets into the physics of it all, but I really enjoyed all of the complex personalities that made up The Atlas Six and all their abilities and varying motivations. I adored Parisa the most though. What a well-written character! Character growth is pretty subtle in this one, which fit with the overall tone of the book. I would have loved to see a bit more refinement on the world-building and magic systems at work here, as at times the focus was so much on the philosophies and science that I felt kind of lost while reading and unclear about what I was reading. But all in all, I liked The Atlas Six and look forward to the sequel! Thought-provoking and surprising, The Atlas Six is a really gripping novel about the intersection of knowledge and power.

I love dark academia books and this one had such a great concept. The only thing that didn't work for me was that the writing felt too pretentious and took away from the story for me.

I didn't finish this book, even though I really tried. The characters and plot (if there is any) are just painful to read.

I received an ARC of this book from Tor in exchange for an honest review.

It took me until about halfway through The Atlas Six to re-calibrate my idea of what I was reading. Despite getting the opening chapter, and the most attention to their thoughts and goals, Libby and Nico are not the only protagonists. Despite suggesting occult knowledge, dangerous rituals, and a Triwizard-Tournament-like competition, the book's biggest secrets are deferred to a sequel. Rather than giving us a post-college Harry Potter with more ambition, sex, and violence, Blake uses the competition as backdrop to give us six messy, complicated people bouncing off of and into each other for an entire novel. Once I settled into this way of looking at it, The Atlas Six became much more entertaining to read. Six characters is a lot to juggle, and by necessity three or four of them must fade into the background in each scene, but a steady rotation of points of view ensures that no one is entirely left out. That said, Blake gives us more background on Libby, Nico, and Tristan initially, and in particular reveals their fears as well as their dreams. In contrast, Reina is under-developed through most of the novel, never really making herself salient after her introduction, while Callum and Parisa are initially presented as callous smooth operators whose only weakness is being too perfect. The latter two are explored in more detail as the novel progresses, and while I am still unsure what lies beneath Callum's detachment, Parisa has both a hidden past and the potential key to the future waiting in the wings for the sequel. In a classic example of narrative economy, none of the side characters are truly irrelevant; figuring out their importance to the plot is entertaining, but secondary to watching how those outside the competition further tangle the lives of those inside it. Dalton in particular may as well be a box labeled "Secrets and Drama;" his lack of agency is likely plot-relevant, and successfully frustrating to read in a world where everyone else is constantly proving just how far they'll go to achieve their goals. Thematically, the book falls slightly flat when trying to give this messy striving a moral or philosophical bent. While it makes sense to leave the limits of the six protagonists' powers unexplored, doing so means that there is always the possibility of a deus ex machina reveal, and the stakes of the contest seem unclear. This lack of consequences (despite several attempts to impose them, either through damaged relationships or actual physical threats) makes it difficult to treat questions of sacrifice seriously, and any debate about the responsibilities of the powerful or the ethical implications of reshaping the world through magic falls flat in the face of characters who cannot help but warp space, time, and minds through their mere existence. However, The Atlas Six is not primarily a serious exploration of the meaning and costs of power, nor is it a puzzle-box whodunnit that lives and dies by the complexity of its secrets. It is above all else a character drama, and the moral qualms and quandaries of its protagonists certainly deliver on that front. About three-quarters of the way through, it became clear how much of a cliffhanger this book would have to end on, which made the ending feel both a little rushed and a little unsatisfying. Still, if you don't mind drama without end, The Atlas Six is a great way to spend an afternoon; even if you do, it's worth keeping an eye on the sequel (coming later this year) for a chance to get more of Blake's fascinating characters.

Three and a half out of five stars. An excellent character study that falls victim to sequelitis and defers many of its key questions about world-remaking power to future installments.

I am giving The Atlas Six 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars, because I struggled with my focus while reading it, but I also really wanted to know what happened. This was one of those books I thought about not finishing, so I read the end to see if I wanted to go there. I did. The ending made the beginning more interesting and made me keep picking up the book when my attention wandered. The problem is, my attention wandered a lot.

Every ten years the Alexandrian Society chooses a class of 6 possible initiates. Atlas Blakely has chosen Libby, Nico, Reina, Tristan, Callum and Parisa. Six powerful magicians. They are expected to work together, but they are also in competition. At the end of the year, only 5 will be inducted into the Society. The issue of the 6th person in the class becomes an moral question.

The strength of the book is the characters. And that’s also it’s weakness. We get seven character POVs and spend a lot of time in many of their heads. I liked the interactions and relationships that formed between the characters. Seeing them from the distance of memory, or padded by a lot of contemplation was frustrating for me. I think if I had read this 15 – 20 years ago, I would have loved the multiple character sturdies the leisurely pace of getting to know the characters. I still love character centered books, but I need more plot focus than I used to in order to keep my focus on a book. That’s not good or bad, it just is.

Initially The Atlas Six was self-published and then went viral on tiktok. Tor picked it up and is rereleasing it with new illustrations. I have not read the earlier version of the book, so I don’t know what, if anything changed. I’m very interested to see where Blake intends to take the story. It does end on a cliff hanger

CN: attempted murder, emotional manipulation, emotional manipulation leading to self harm, off page death of a sibling due to illness, murder plots.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Tor Books via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

I’m absolutely wowed by The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake. I burned my way through it in about six hours and I immediately want to go back and read it again.

This book is the perfect mix of magical competition and dark academia. The writing style and POV chapters really worked for me, we really got a chance to be in each character’s mind while still allowing them to keep a few secrets. I can honestly say I enjoyed each character and their POV because the author has made each one so individual and fascinating.

One of my favorite quotes: “You’re a fire hazard Rhodes. So stop apologizing for the damage and just let the f*cker burn.” Libby is my favorite and I’m so excited to see where her story goes in the next book because the foundations laid in this one are exciting. The Atlas Six has excellent vibes, prose and characters who are obsessed with each other in the best and worst ways. I eagerly await the sequel!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

For centuries, the secretive Alexandrian Society has guarded a library of magical knowledge. Every decade, six medeians (magicians) are chosen to join their ranks. These medeians are some of the most powerful, most talented magic users in the world, but even that isn’t enough to guarantee them entry. For one year, the six candidates live and study together to prove their worth to the society. At the end of it all, five candidates will be granted full admission, the sixth will be eliminated. With the opportunity for vast knowledge and a wealth of prestigious connections before them, alliances will form and be broken as each candidate vies to remain a contender, for each has their own reason for wanting the secrets the library holds within.

THE ATLAS SIX is a deliciously dark tale that demands to be devoured. It is a tale of deception and manipulation, a game of social chess. There may be magic aplenty to be found in the pages of this book, but the true tension comes from watching the characters poke and prod at each other’s emotional cores, trying to suss out weak spots that could potentially shatter an alliance or throw a rival off their game. As the stakes become increasingly evident, the players learn how far they will go and which relationships they’re willing to sacrifice in their quest to join the society. None of these people are really “good,” so it’s hard to say that you’re there to root for anyone, but it is spectacularly fun to watch this group go at each other with cutting words, alluring glances, and magic.

The magic specialties of the medeians come in a wide range, from the more physical abilities of manipulating gravity or setting fires to the mental abilities of telepathy or empathy. They are treated as more of a science than anything mystical, with as much thought given to the theory of relativity and electrons as to the more spiritual gut-feeling of the caster. Occasionally scenes were (ironically?) a little too academic for me, but there’s also combat scenes to balance out the more theoretical discussions of magic.

The addition of mental abilities also adds a dynamic to the ongoing social battle, as competitors are always having to be on guard to make sure they aren’t being subtly manipulated. I particularly enjoyed watching the telepath Parisa wield her powers. While her ability is to read minds, her true power is in knowing how to manipulate a person into making certain subconscious connections in their minds. Parisa plays a long game, planting seeds to make or break alliances as necessary.

There were a few small things I chafed against overall. One was the maddeningly vague world-building. I was at a complete loss as to how much mortals (non-magic users) know about medians – is magic a secret parallel world, or are people aware of its existence? I acknowledge that this background knowledge doesn’t really affect the story at hand, but nonetheless it bugged me to not to have a rudimentary context of the world these people existed in.

The other small blip was a loss of momentum right as the story hits its climax. Some Things Happen and instead of quickly winding down, we’re treated to a lengthy chapter explaining some background details we haven’t been privy to. These details set up the conflict for book 2, but also felt a bit tacked on to a book that otherwise had me tearing through the pages.

And THE ATLAS SIX did have me tearing through the pages. I read this one in three days, cramming it in to every spare moment I had. It’s easy to see why Amazon has picked this series up for adaptation: six sexy twenty-somethings manipulating each other with magic, sex, and everything in between? If that’s your jam, you will be hooked. Sprinkle on the mystery of what exactly the Alexandrian Society and Caretaker Atlas Blakely are up to, and you’ll find yourself reading as fast as you can to get answers and to see who will make the next move.

Thank you for allowing me a free read of this title. I have to confess, though, that I was anxious to read it and bought myself a kindle copy. I'll be getting a copy of the hardcover when it comes out as well! Thank you! A very well done work and well worth reading!

Big thank you to Netgalley and TOR for sending me an eARC ahead of the book's release date on 01/03/22. All opinions are my own.

2.5*

I'd previously read The Atlas Six back in October 21 in the hope of eventually reading the TOR version and comparing. Back then, I rated it 3 stars with the comments that it had the potential to be something remarkable, but at the time felt sparse and in need of a developmental edit to flesh out the plot, characters, world, and magic system.
I'm going to try and keep this shorter than
my other review for this book.
Despite being professional edited, unfortunately, this book still doesn't meet the mark for me. Many of the problems the original version suffered from weren't addressed. In fact, it feels a lot like the author doubled down and added even more navel-gazing as opposed to an actual plot, which it so desperately needed.

Characters
Granted, the characters did feel a little more fleshed out this time around. I found I didn't immediately dislike them all, which was a huge problem for me the last time I read this book. The chapters have been expanded on which make each of them feel like fully, more developed characters from the outset. However, this time, instead of hating them and then growing to like them, strangely, I initially liked them only to end up hating them. Except for Nico and Reina, who have always been my favourites.

The dialogue and banter is so much more fun and rewarding than their pompous ponderings. But unfortunately, the pondering far exceeds the fun dialogue. There's too much of one and not enough of the other. I feel the only characters that have snappy back and forths are Nico and Libby, everyone else seems to have drawn out conversations, contemplating every word and meaning before responding. It makes the conversations feel really slow and at times, boring. Aside from Nico and Libby, who for the most part actually talk like young people, everyone else is so obnoxiously up their own arses. They talk like dusty old Oxford professors from the 19th century. It's not natural. People don't talk like this, much less a bunch of honey twenty-somethings.

Plot
Again, what plot?
I don't really know what I was expecting, rereading the edited version of this. Maybe I was hopeful for some improvements on the things I and a lot of other readers took issue with. For instance the lack of a conceivable plotline. I'm a little disappointed to learn there's still no plot to this book. There's page after page of internalised musings or sciency reflections for each character in every single chapter. But none of these musings or reflections actually seem to fit with anything in the plot. It's just a lot of this person is researching this and this person is researching that but, like, why? Why are they researching these things? For what purpose? None of it makes sense. And the lack of plot just made the book feel boring. I started to flag around the 40% mark but powered through. I feel I lasted longer the first time around which only makes me think that the added parts to this edition weren't a much-needed cohesive plot or character development, but in fact, more musings and reflections.

It's trying really hard to be perceptive and sophisticated but really all it's doing is talking circles around its readers and tricking them into thinking they aren't intelligent enough to understand what's being said, so damn this book must be reeeally clever!
When really it's just not saying anything at all, because none of what is being said makes sense without context. Know a good way to add context? PLOT.

Another issue I had the first time around was we never get to witness the creation of the incredibly groundbreaking wormhole. Guess what, we still don't. *sigh*

Setting
I don't think I said too much on the setting in my previous review because I didn't find the world developed enough to be able to say a whole lot. Unfortunately, this is still the case. Other than what I think might have been some added descriptions of decor and interior design, little was added regarding the actual world in which these people live. I've read this book twice now and I'm still pretty clueless about how this magic system works, the integration of mortals and medians, the difference between medians and witches, and why the bloody hell there are mermaids and other magical creatures with so little context about how they fit with this world.
It's a cold, bare world out there, people. You'll find no succour here.

Writing Style
This is rather a difficult one for me, as I both love the writing and dislike it. The only way I can think to describe the writing is verbose. This is fine during interesting parts, such as action or dialogue, but when we're trapped in the rambling minds of the characters, with no anchor to the world around them, it can get a tad dull.
The writing is beautiful but undeniably too wordy. I think there's a very fine line between intellectual writing and pretentious writing, stroking one's own ego over how clever it all sounds.

I think the internal philosophizing of each character drags on way past its bedtime and doesn't add a whole lot to the story. I seem to remember I had this issue the first time I read this book, and this is obviously just the way the author writes, which is fair enough, but it seriously felt at times that a lot of words were being used to say not a lot at all. I'd read pages and pages of musings and realise it didn't amount to a whole lot of anything. The story hadn't progressed in any meaningful way.
It was just characters for pages at a time being like, wait here while I swill my wine and wax philosophical about political and societal issues that have no real bearing to the matter at hand.

So beautiful writing, also occasionally annoying as hell.
In conclusion? Fucked if I know.

And once again, I'm disappointed to learn the 'Netherlands is a Nordic country' still makes an appearance. Really would've thought a professional editor would pick up on that one. Seriously, the Nordic (or Scandinavian) countries consist of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. Whilst the Netherlands is part of the Low Countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, etc. I can understand if it was left in if the character saying this was mistaken, but Reina never muses about how incorrect this person is. So instead of making a point to show how misinformed the character is, it just makes the author look misinformed. I said as much in my last review and it irritates me enough to mention it again. Researching this takes no time at all.

Final Impression
I'll be honest, I think rereading this only served to harm my original opinion of the book. On my first read, I was a little disappointed it didn't meet its full potential but was left hopeful with the knowledge that a publisher had picked it up and might work through many of its problems.
On second read, I'm left more frustrated than anything else.
However, there's still a spark of hope. With an editor, hopefully, working through the sequel with the author, I have my fingers crossed that it'll be set on the right track from the start. With this hope in mind, I am interested in trying book two. But I've been burnt twice now so I will do so with reservation.

DNFed at 43%

I tried, I really did. Booktok convinced me this was some epic story with Harry Potter vibes, and to be honest I feel betrayed.

First thing first, there are too many POVs, to the point where at first I had trouble remembering who was who. Only two of them really stood out to me - Libby and Nico. Secondly, most of the main characters are just assholes. They're so incredibly obnoxious, arrogant, and simply not nice, and reading their chapters was a nightmare. I'm not saying that MCs should always be 100% likable, but personally, I need something that makes me feel attached or at least interested in the MC in order to feel involved, and that didn't happen at all.

The writing style is incredibly hard to follow, and there are so many quotes that are just too pompous - these characters talk in a way that is totally unrealistic, and the same goes for how they think. Most of them are so analytical and "cold" when it comes to other people, I almost felt like I was reading about robots instead of human beings.

The only two characters I mildly liked were Nico and Libby, and only because I felt like there was a possibility of them turning from academic rivals to lovers, which didn't happen in this book (another reason why I'm thankful I decided to DNF it). I also read that Libby will go through a corruption arc in the next book, and thanks but no, I don't need to read about the only decent character being corrupted and becoming as bad as all the others.

As for the world-building, it was sooo confused: magic exists alongside non-magical humans, but apparently it didn't influence history whatsoever. Also, the magic system is poorly explained, and most of the time I found myself wondering what were the actual powers of the characters. Nico and Libby were described as being so incredibly powerful, but I never saw it once (SPOILER: they did manage to create a wormhole at some point, which we readers should think is incredible, or at least that's what Tristan says, but the thing fell so flat it hurt. Tristan repeats many times how they achieved something no one had ever managed to achieve, and yet no one seems to care! It was so boring.

I don't know, this book just didn't do it for me.

Thank you Netgalley & Tor for allowing me to read this advanced copy for my honest opinion. It’s pretty much guaranteed that anyone who liked this book before, is definitely going to like this new edition. The addition of the small, minor details make all the difference in telling the story and I love that we’re still getting to have Little Chmura’s illustrations, because sometimes I truly believe adult pictures deserve pictures too. One last thing I’ll say is that I’m somewhat sad we will not be getting the self-published cover design and wish Tor would’ve tried to keep it the same with just more details as opposed to the new cover. But that’s just my preference and not something that I think takes away from the book.

As for the actual book, I love the pacing of this story, and I think it’s overall a great introduction to this world. After reading it, I felt like I was in one of the most academically sexy worlds I’ve read and this may be all I need to believe that maybe Dark Academia is actually a genre I would enjoy. One of my biggest critiques is that sometimes the writing felt a little removed, resulting in my only feeling like I’m watching the characters through glass as opposed to being immersed in the story. I understand that this first book was just meant to build up each character and they’re only starting to get to know one another, but I really hope we get more internal monologue from them and see more interaction between each other. I believe it would help the reader feel a little bit more invested in all the characters instead of a select few so we find ourselves rooting for and against each of them. I just felt kind of like I missed out on that “high stakes” feeling because nothing was really prompting me to feel a significant loyalty to the characters. All of this is not to say that this book doesn’t aim to accomplish this, but it’s approach is just a little less immersive than I would prefer. I believe the next book has been set up with great potential for this to happen and for that reason, I’m very excited to see what Olivie Blake has in store for us!

Honestly, I ended up DNFing this book - the characters were too sporadically written and yet not enough details were given to make them feel fleshed out at all. The girls were put into Virgin/Madonna/Ramona Flowers roles against each other, which felt so redundant and early 2000s.(c'mon Olivie, women don't have to be judged on their ability to manipulate/care about men). The men were honestly all interchangeable, to the point where I wasn't sure who was who and had to frequently check the chapter headings to see whose narrative we were listening. Very disappointed, especially as TikTok had hyped up TA6 so much and the premise is actually super interesting.

This book has been hyped up on every social media platform I can think of. For me, it absolutely lives up to it and I ate this story up. It seems like people have mixed opinions on the original self-published version which I did not read. As for the ARC from Tor Books, the plot was captivating, the pacing was spot-on, and I really appreciated the character development. I instantly got dark academia Kingsmen vibes. Some people dislike the six different POVs that the book rotates through, but I felt that it really moved the plot along. I loved to hate Callum and Parisa. Nico and Libby's rivalry was a bit annoying and childish in the beginning but the quips and insults got less so over time. Reina feels too understated in this book and I hope we get to see more development on her in the next book. I only wish that the writing could be more concise at times - the long sentence structures sometimes resulted in skimming over to get to the action.
This book hooked me though, especially in the last few chapters. I'll definitely be adding the second book in the series once released.

Six incredibly powerful initiates are chosen chosen to spend one year in a competition to see who will gain membership to the Alexandrian Society. One will be eliminated.

What I loved most about this story was the exploration of the pursuit of power. It is placed squarely in dark academia and given gripping human context. Humans don't seek power and knowledge devoid of their past experiences and Blake brings out the best in how death, neglect, abuse, and loyalty can shape our pursuits.

It also has a really interesting magic system, where the type of magic you can do is classified and able to be refined in a special college. Magic can often come about because of great pain or loss. This puts a whole new spin on the undercurrents and ideals behind magic users.

For those of you looking for a darker look at power, knowledge, and magic.... you've found it.

I expect this newly edited version to fly off the shelves, especially with all the hype this book has gotten on TikTok. That alone will make it an easy hand-sell, especially for the Gen Z/milennial crowd. I think the revisions go a long way to making this book a little smoother and easy to follow.

This book was amazing! The choosing of the players in what ultimately amounts to a game of wits between these six magical people who have been offered a chance to become members in a world changing secret society. Things may seem straightforward, however there are so many secrets kept and so many revealed that I know this will make for an excellent reread.

There are some characters I love. Some I thought I loved until I knew better. Some I thought I completely disliked until I learned more. And, of course, some I just do not care for and never will. It's these little distinctions that make me so crazy about this book. Not only are the initiates trying to figure each other out, figure the game out, but I'm in the exact same position as a reader. Which is something I adore!

I definitely recommend this! Dark Acedemia with a magical twist!

Trigger warnings for manipulation bw characters, some unsettling scenes and violence.

I was really looking forward to reading this book after all of the hype I’ve seen about it, however, it fell a bit short for me. I really like dark academia and secret societies, and I loved Ninth House, but I found the plot to be a bit slow paced for my liking.

I really liked the multiple POVs in this book, especially Nico and Tristians. This is definitely a very character driven book and it takes to the 50% mark to pick up pace in the plot. It also has a very unique magic system that I enjoyed learning about, although I found it a bit confusing at times. The end of the book had twists that I wasn’t expecting.

You would like this book if you like:
✨Dark academia
✨Morally grey characters
✨Lots of philosophizing and theorizing
✨Character driven books

While this book wasn’t my favorite, I would recommend that people give it a try because I know so many people love it.

The Atlas Six was a self-published novel by author Olivie Blake that apparently somewhat of a hit on BookTok and other social media, leading to it and its future sequels being picked up by Tor Books last year. As a result, Tor is releasing a revised edition on March 1, 2022, and I managed to be granted a copy on Netgalley to check out (ironically I had my request granted after I already had a copy of the original version from my eLibrary).

And well......I did not like The Atlas Six, as it manages to combine a plot structure that I absolutely hate with a set of main characters who I largely did not care for. The story features six main characters, two of which are largely unlikable throughout, and one of which never gets almost any redeeming features - and yet he's also not really meant to be an antagonist either so it doesn't really work. Nor are the other four particularly likable as a generally incredibly jaded bunch who just are miserable to follow, with them often keeping secrets for no reason that just further keeps them separated. And the story seems clearly to be leading to a major point, to some big revelation....except that revelation is either a bust or just really pushed off to the next book, making it all just seem like such a letdown.

The result is a book I can absolutely not recommend and I really don't get where the buzz came from here.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
In a world with magic of all kinds, there are those whose powers and talents are greater than others, such that they can do wondrous things. And for the secret Alexandrian Society, the keepers of lost knowledge for centuries dating back to the secret survival of the Library of Alexandria, those rare talents are the ones they seek to induct into their ranks, with rewards of wealth, powers, and prestige for those chosen among all the magicians of the entire world.

Well....for most of them.

Six magicians from around the world are chosen by the Society's caretaker, the mysterious Atlas Blakely, to be the next potential initiates:
Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, rival masters of physical magic who both can't stand and can't get away from each other;
Reina Mori, incredible naturalist, able to draw power from and speak to all living things, such as plants;
Tristan Caine, a boy with the strange power to see through all illusions such that he always sees the very truth of reality;
Parisa Kamali, a jaded telepath able to discern the thoughts of everyone around her on a whim; and
Callum Nova, an Empath of such incredible power that he's able to alter the emotions of others, who is largely bored with what he finds in others.

The Six of them will spend the year learning together in the Society's archives. There the six of them will learn far more about their powers, and themselves, than they ever could have learned elsewhere. In the process, the six of them will have to reconsider everything they know about their own lives.

But only Five of them will get the chance to come out again to enter the new world.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Atlas Six takes place in a world where magic is a well known part of the world, such that there are universities featuring it, magicians of all different types and stripes, and even magical creatures of various kinds poking in and about (sorta). That said, it's not a world all too different from our own, with greedy people in power taking advantage of others, with wealth and power making a big deal of difference in how hard some have to work, with one's past being nearly impossible to escape from despite how much one may want to do so, etc. And so, as the book alternates between the perspectives of our six protagonists, it's often easy to see where their views on the world come from.....at least for some of them.

And it's that caveat there that leads to my first big problem with the book: too many of the characters are unlikable, and their actions towards each other don't help the matter - moreover, while they each (well all but one of them) have redeeming traits in their backstories to explain themselves, the book's split of their point of view perspectives doesn't really give us enough time with each of them individually to really get to know those redeeming traits, especially when the book can often go long stretches before we re-encounter a specific character's perspective, with Callum suffering most notably from this (he also gets the least # of chapters). And here's the thing: the book could be trying to show an utterly crapsack world that its heroes will just make worse, or one that they will make better, but it doesn't really go in either direction, and so their being unlikable never really achieves any particular purpose.

So you have Libby, who's probably the most likable of the crew - a girl with physical talent who mourns her lost sister and feels she's had to fight and scrap her way for every magical award or achievement she deserves, who always has a chip on her shoulder.....and who 2/3 of the other characters in their perspectives constantly think about as being useless due to an inferiority complex and easy to break mentally, which just is ugly to think about. You have Nico, the boy who is Libby's counterpart and privileged aside from that...but who really wants to help a magical being friend/boyfriend (maybe?) keep safe from that friend's dangerous mother....except Nico never tells anyone about this basically, so this rarely goes anywhere since none of the others can willingly help him. Nor are any other such creatures ever shown elsewhere in the story, leaving it bizarre that they exist only seemingly in 1/6th of the story.

And these are your best characters. Reina's indifference to anything and hatred of being used is understandable but just makes her feel cold and hard to care about, as is the case with Tristan's cynicism and own inferiority complex that makes him just frustrating especially as he keeps getting manipulated. And ugh there's Parisa and Callum - Parisa at least gets a backstory that explains why she's a manipulative telepath who uses sex to find out secrets, but Callum is just a sociopathic manipulator of emotions who never gets any redeeming traits whatsoever, and whose actions are just sort of.....cuz. For a dude who's so used to others' emotions he's entirely cynical about them and yet has always restrained his abilities such that he didn't become a world leader or monster, he has no compunction about being a monster here, and basically no interest it seems in actually uh achieving any goal other than surviving.

So yeah you have six main characters, the most likable of which is constantly belittled in the others' chapters, and its just like why should I care about any of this. And the plot isn't any better, with the story clearly hinting early on that the Alexandrian Society and Atlas are up to no good with their own agendas at play, with the sacrifice of one of the six going to be something devastating....and none of that is really revealed here. There are secret societies that want to destroy the Society, but do we really get to know those here? Nope, other than done-before claim that the Society hoarding knowledge instead of spreading it is wrong, which well....is never really sketched out. You keep waiting for events to play out into a big reveal to take our characters somewhere, to make them have to cooperate or to fight each other.....

And well there is a reveal, but the reveal is so vague and so frustratingly non-answering any of the questions that it might as well say "Come back next book to find out why all this matters!" It's the worst kind of plot, the one that teases answers and then tells you to come back next book to get them, giving you no satisfying payoff whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong, The Atlas Six has a well done prose that's easy to read quite quickly, and its setup is done well enough. But there isn't really any interesting story here, or themes being discussed, or plot, or characters.....It's just an utter waste. I don't really get what people see in this....like I guess it's sort of like the popcorny thrillers that I sometimes deride modern Scalzi for, but those are at least fun and entertaining, and this just isn't really fun or entertaining at all.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book! I enjoyed it - it was a clever dive into the world of dark academia and secret societies. I've seen this book hyped up massively on Instagram and BookTok, so I was a little nervous to try it - but not to worry, it was great!

I enjoyed the different characters, and honestly couldn't pick a favourite - rare for multi-POV books. The characters were all deeply thought out and complex, which was great!

I did find the beginning quite slow, but it definitely picked up around the 1/3 mark, so I'm glad I kept reading. I was a little confused in certain sections, but it didn't really hinder my enjoyment of the book. Thank you for the reviewing opportunity!