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A review by picklesoup
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
4.0
Rating: 4/5
This book surprised me. I was never planning on reading this book but eventually the hype and constantly seeing this book on book Twitter finally got to me and I got curious. Needless to say that I enjoyed this book much more than I had anticipated. I went into this book with little to no expectations, so that is probably a contribution to why I enjoyed this as much as I did. Now, before going into a deep dive review, I will say I can see why this book might either be a hit or a miss for something people, which I will go into in the plot and characters section of this review.
Plot: Every ten years, the Alexandrian Society recruits six powerful and talented magic holders to compete against each other to gain a position in this secret society and gain knowledge that was once lost to the world. However, not everyone can have access to this, one must be eliminated. The description of this book sounds so enticing and makes the book seems as though this will be an intense book with lots of plot conflicts and tense situations. However, this book has absolutely no plot. This book is very much a character-driven story with little to no outside sources driving the story forward. I feel as though this is the main factor as to why so many people might not enjoy this book, while others do. If you were to ask me what happens in this book, I wouldn't be able to tell you what happened. If you were to look at any other fantasy book, you'll easily be able to locate the inciting incident, the main conflict, outside factors that push the characters towards this big conflict, what happens when everything goes downhill, and all of that jazz. You can not locate any of this in this book easily. Which can be a huge turning factor for many and can make this book seem boring.
Characters: Now this is where the plot is. We follow six different characters and watch all six of them maneuver around the society and try to prevent themselves from getting eliminated. While we see others' POVs more often than others (poor Reina got like no screen time) it was the highlight of this book. With six very distinct characters, it made it fun reading about them. Each one of them has a very different background and extremely different personalities from one another, so it's hard to get bored when reading these characters. I can't go in-depth with each character cause we'll be here all day, but just know that each character all has their agendas that get entwined with each other, which causes these extremely complex characters to read about. There are times when I'm not sure what their agenda is due to how manipulative and cunning each one of them is in their own way. We have these extremely powerful people with dangerous powers and even dangerous minds who make it excited to see what they'll do next. No one here I'd consider a good person, while some might seem more innocent than others *cough*Libby*cough* doesn't mean they are good people. I feel like Olivie Blake did a good job portraying the flaws of each character and how humanity is very far from perfect.
World: This world is definitely an interesting one. It's set in our world but magic exists since the beginning of time. Having there be universities dedicated to perfecting your magic, being shown with Libby and Nico as both of them fresh college graduates from a University in New York City. Despite this being a very magic-heavy world, I feel like I still didn't understand much of the world. There are witches, and medians, which I'm not 100% what the difference between the two is due to it never really being explicitly saying what the difference is. Some can shapeshift and so much more that I can't touch upon cause it is such a wide variety. However, despite this very magically intriguing world, I feel like I didn't get as good of a grasp of it as I would've hoped to. This also goes for The Society itself. In a way I understand why Olivie Blake didn't go into detail about the society after reading that ending, however, I still would've enjoyed it even more if we got more of a solid foundation of the magic system and the world of this story, it's such an interesting premise but wasn't executed correctly.
Needless to say, this book is definitely something you either fall in love with or you end up hating everything about it, after reading it, I understand now why I see so many mixed reviews of this book. I enjoyed it however, it was a nice break from a lot of science fiction books I've been reading lately and it was much easier to read than I had anticipated. I will be reading the sequel once it releases and if I can get my hands on it. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a no plot just vibes type of book, a complex and wide cast of characters, and an interesting magic system and the world!
This book surprised me. I was never planning on reading this book but eventually the hype and constantly seeing this book on book Twitter finally got to me and I got curious. Needless to say that I enjoyed this book much more than I had anticipated. I went into this book with little to no expectations, so that is probably a contribution to why I enjoyed this as much as I did. Now, before going into a deep dive review, I will say I can see why this book might either be a hit or a miss for something people, which I will go into in the plot and characters section of this review.
Plot: Every ten years, the Alexandrian Society recruits six powerful and talented magic holders to compete against each other to gain a position in this secret society and gain knowledge that was once lost to the world. However, not everyone can have access to this, one must be eliminated. The description of this book sounds so enticing and makes the book seems as though this will be an intense book with lots of plot conflicts and tense situations. However, this book has absolutely no plot. This book is very much a character-driven story with little to no outside sources driving the story forward. I feel as though this is the main factor as to why so many people might not enjoy this book, while others do. If you were to ask me what happens in this book, I wouldn't be able to tell you what happened. If you were to look at any other fantasy book, you'll easily be able to locate the inciting incident, the main conflict, outside factors that push the characters towards this big conflict, what happens when everything goes downhill, and all of that jazz. You can not locate any of this in this book easily. Which can be a huge turning factor for many and can make this book seem boring.
Characters: Now this is where the plot is. We follow six different characters and watch all six of them maneuver around the society and try to prevent themselves from getting eliminated. While we see others' POVs more often than others (poor Reina got like no screen time) it was the highlight of this book. With six very distinct characters, it made it fun reading about them. Each one of them has a very different background and extremely different personalities from one another, so it's hard to get bored when reading these characters. I can't go in-depth with each character cause we'll be here all day, but just know that each character all has their agendas that get entwined with each other, which causes these extremely complex characters to read about. There are times when I'm not sure what their agenda is due to how manipulative and cunning each one of them is in their own way. We have these extremely powerful people with dangerous powers and even dangerous minds who make it excited to see what they'll do next. No one here I'd consider a good person, while some might seem more innocent than others *cough*Libby*cough* doesn't mean they are good people. I feel like Olivie Blake did a good job portraying the flaws of each character and how humanity is very far from perfect.
World: This world is definitely an interesting one. It's set in our world but magic exists since the beginning of time. Having there be universities dedicated to perfecting your magic, being shown with Libby and Nico as both of them fresh college graduates from a University in New York City. Despite this being a very magic-heavy world, I feel like I still didn't understand much of the world. There are witches, and medians, which I'm not 100% what the difference between the two is due to it never really being explicitly saying what the difference is. Some can shapeshift and so much more that I can't touch upon cause it is such a wide variety. However, despite this very magically intriguing world, I feel like I didn't get as good of a grasp of it as I would've hoped to. This also goes for The Society itself. In a way I understand why Olivie Blake didn't go into detail about the society after reading that ending, however, I still would've enjoyed it even more if we got more of a solid foundation of the magic system and the world of this story, it's such an interesting premise but wasn't executed correctly.
Needless to say, this book is definitely something you either fall in love with or you end up hating everything about it, after reading it, I understand now why I see so many mixed reviews of this book. I enjoyed it however, it was a nice break from a lot of science fiction books I've been reading lately and it was much easier to read than I had anticipated. I will be reading the sequel once it releases and if I can get my hands on it. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a no plot just vibes type of book, a complex and wide cast of characters, and an interesting magic system and the world!