Title: Atlas Six (The Atlas #1)

Author: Olivie Blake

Publisher: Tor 2020

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 375

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

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.

Goodness this was not good. I was super intrigued by the premise (I’m always up for a book about the Library of Alexandria), but this book did not live up to any of the promise. The plot moves incredibly slow with nothing really happening for about 80% of the book. I never felt compelled to pick it up and keep reading. That’s never a good sign. The characters are all pretty terrible. The jacket copy makes it seem that although they all start out as enemies, the six characters will come to care deeply for each other. They didn’t. They mostly hate it each other throughout the entire book. I just wanted to see some genuine affection for another person. If these six people are the best of the best, we are a species are doomed. They are all terrible. Libby may have been the least terrible, but she would have been a pain to live with and ended up with the corruption arc. That didn’t make any sense at all… I hated this book.

The Atlas

• #0.5 Sacred Hospitality

• #1 The Atlas Six

• #2 The Atlas Paradox

Next up on the TBR pile: