B|t|B: Book Review -The Atlas Six, by Olivie Blake

Title: The Atlas Six
Author: Olivie Blake
Published: 1/3/2022

Hello my fellow Bookworms and page turners,

I’m back and this time with something where I don’t believe I am the target demographic, but it was enjoyable non the less. The Atlas Six is an intriguing dark academia/magical story with many twists and turns. This was originally self published and blew up on Booktok, which is where my friend had seen it and then lent me their copy to give a go.

The plot follows six incredibly gifted magicians who have been selected to join a secret society called the ‘Alexandrian Society’ which is an elitist group of magical academics who’s knowledge supports and sculpts the civilisations of the world. The only issue is, there are only five positions and six promising candidates (Callum, Libby, Nico, Parisa, Reina, and Tristan). Each of them have been granted preliminary access to the societies archives and have a whole year in which they will be judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death.

Seems like a simple enough plot right? well don’t be fooled!

This was a hard read for me, but not because the story was too convoluted or the story was bad. It was because the sheer weight in the writing threw me for a six, sometimes the amount of detailed information forced me to use parts of my brain that haven’t been used since Uni days. This was because, some sections were like reading someone’s thesis which in some cases makes it look like a lot is being said, but at the same time what is being said isn’t plot relevant but is relevant to the world or how a certain thing is perceived within it. The fact that this was also written from a multi-perspective view didn’t help with the density of some sections.

The pacing is slow an methodical which is one of its strengths as it builds a real sense of suspense, as it laid a number of potential threads to keep you guessing, which made the plot twist all the more harder to see coming.

I feel Blake did the best they could with the characters but six main alt-protagonists is a lot to keep track of. Each did have there own history, personality and personal relationships but as a whole in comparison to the world they built around them they were pretty flat and I didn’t really have a favourite which is a rarity.

The amount of Romantic shipping among the fans of this story must be rife though as everyone seems to be into everyone, there is a fair few sexual encounters through-out this books pages and its clearly more targeted towards women who like reading about terrible yet sexy people, I have to admit I kind of zoned out through these sections, and by the end it had become so complicated I had no idea who was into who.

In comparison to the convoluted romance, the magic system and lore in this was a piece of art. It was very complex but I found this to be the more compelling part of the world building that Blake has undertaken in this novel.

Overall it is an interesting story with a copious amount of Darkness, Romance, Academia, Magic, And Suspense (Drama’s) I will pick up book two, but purely because I’m intrigued with how the plot twist will affect the second instalment. (Due Oct 25th)

Until next time, read more books!