The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake: My Review
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake:
My Review
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Atlas Six
By Olivie Blake
SYNOPSIS
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.
MY REVIEW
My Rating: 5 Stars
I’ve read a lot of books including magic, and also a lot of books including youngsters being educated in said magic. So, imagine my delight when the NA trope and Dark Academia collided in The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake.
This book is unlike anything I’ve read in the genre, simply because the intellectual approach to the study of magic, including quantum mechanics, philosophy, ethics, and physics, blew me the heck away. It was high brow with an underpinning sexual tension which made this novel almost impossible to put down.
The author does an incredible job of crafting individual characters and developing them by the self-discovery of the learning journey they have found themselves on but also by facing them off and contrasting them with the other characters in this novel.
The writing was stunning and though the content could be considered thorny by the average reader I thought this was extremely well-done with regards to how the principles behind the magic and lore were explained.
My favorite character by far was Tristan, because I truly love an underdog. He didn’t realise just how useful he was, and all he wanted was to be useful. Watching him slowly fall for Libby was really interesting as well, especially with the added dynamic of Parisa and her persuasive mental magic which often intersects with her sexuality, giving her a real feminist power kind of vibe. The character of Ezra I found to be interesting, but only so far as to discovering his fate.
I want to know what happens between him and Atlas, as well as discovering Libby’s fate. I also can’t wait to discover who the five places in the Alexandrian Society go to in the end, and I’m extremely intrigued by the prospect of new kinds of magic being possible by these six Medeians as a collective. If you love Dark Academia, Magic, intense character dynamics, twisty plots, and mind-bending stories, this is definitely at the top of my recommend list!
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