The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Atlas #1
Published by Tor Books on September 28, 2021
Age Group & Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: queer main characters, Black main and side characters, Asian main character, Iranian main character
Format: eBook
Source: Library

The much-acclaimed BookTok sensation, Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six--now newly revised and edited with additional content.

• The tag #theatlassix has millions of views on TikTok
• A dark academic debut fantasy with an established cult following that reads like THE SECRET HISTORY meets THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY
• The first in an explosive trilogy

The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.

Trigger & Content Warnings: alcohol, manipulation, cheating, suicide ideation, murder, death

I feel like everyone and their mother has heard of or read The Atlas Six, especially back in 2020 when it first came out self-published and then later traditionally published in 2021 (feels so long ago considering ya know…). And yet, here I am, a little over two years later, finally picking up this book after constantly smacking the “Deliver Later” button at my library and putting this on multiple TBR lists.

Some of them have been there for nearly three years already, but we don’t talk about those! (I’ll get to them at some point. Maybe.)

The Atlas Six low-key made me question if dark academia is even for me, because this was a doozy to read and reminded me of some of my philosophy classes if they were maybe 10% more interesting (I hated them). In short, this was dense, and perhaps a little pretentious. I think I spent more time looking at how many chapters left in a section and whether it was worth continuing before I ultimately decided at 64%, “Okay, maybe this one isn’t for me.” Perhaps one day I’ll come back and give this another go, but with so many books out there, the chances of this is pretty small.

“But Soph, don’t you think that was a sign not to continue as far as you did, then?” Normally, sure. But despite how dense and sometimes pretentious the writing can be, it was also entertaining, especially with the dialogue and character dynamics, and that was one thing that made it hard to put down.

The book is told in six POVs and divided into multiple parts, with the first introducing each initiate: Libby Rhodes, Nico de Varona, Reina Mori, Parisa Kamali, Callum Nova, and Tristan Caine. All of them were recruited by Atlas Blakely to spend a year in training to potentially be part of the Alexandrian Society, where they’ll gain access to all the power and privilege that comes with having access to all the knowledge in the world. But out of those six, only five will be initiated.

While some may find them pretty unlikable (they’re all Certified Assholes after all), I personally found them messy and fascinating to read. The Atlas Six is very much focused on the characters, and their thoughts and relationships with each other as they study and contribute to the different subjects they’re being judged on prior to initiation.

But while I love a good character driven novel, this ultimately didn’t work out for me, because I’m also a fan of plot driven novels with good pacing. Blake’s novel does not exactly fall under plot driven. There’s a plot in the grand scheme big picture of things, but it felt like the characters were kind of… overshadowing the novel? (Didn’t think I would ever say this in my entire life.) And it was affecting the pacing as well because we spend so much time in the dialogue and individual musings that it was overall a very slow book. Each time I was contemplating continuing or not continuing, the biggest question was, “why am I reading this, really? It feels like there’s a lot going on, but in actuality, there’s not much going on!”

TL;DR version: I didn’t hate The Atlas Six and can kind of see the hype, but I also didn’t love it as much as I wish I could have. You might enjoy this if you like a character driven novel like me but also don’t mind slow pacing and dense writing that feels philosophical, but you definitely won’t like it if you like a book that’s quicker in pace and feels like a better balance of story elements.