“We are empty and trying to fill, lighting ourselves on fire just to prove that we are normal—that we are ordinary. That we, like anything, can burn.”

The Atlas Six, by Olivie Blake

Summary

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.

My Thoughts

I’ve held off on reviewing these books individually because I wanted to read the entire trilogy and review it as one, and I genuinely loved it. I cannot more express my sheer happiness at the entire series. It’s such a fascinating dive into what it means to be human and how we find meaning in life. What do you do if you are told your entire life that you are special, but you really aren’t? What do you do if you are offered unlimited power, but you don’t know what the price is? Blake asks deep questions such as this and uses six, excellently fleshed out characters to explore it. I know this book wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I personally loved it. It was incredibly character focused, with the plot moving slowly for most of the first book, then picking up in the next two. It’s all about academia, and our cast of characters are very compelling. From anxious, powerful Libby Rhodes to the confident Nico De Varona, from seductive Parisa Kamali to introverted Reina Mori, from empathetic, arrogant Callum Nova to insecure Tristan Caine. They come from all over and truly push at each other in the best way, and that’s not even forgetting the amazing side cast: Gideon Drake, Dalton Ellery, Ezra Fowler, and Atlas Blake. This is a series about power, humanity, and remaking the world. It’s about being powerful and bored. It’s about human nature. It’s incredibly fun.

Book by book. The first book, The Atlas Six, starts out incredibly strong. Slow at the beginning as we get to know our characters. The summary above is only of the first book, so that you can avoid spoilers if you read it! It leads into the second book, also very strong with an explosive ending, and the third, which was probably my least favorite. I loved how the third book started, and while I agree with some ways that it ended, I also felt as though Blake wasn’t entirely sure how to wrap up some of her loose ends, and I don’t agree with how she did wrap them up. Some people have stated that the Blake’s characters don’t speak like real people, but I personally liked that part—it only added to the all-consuming, dark academia feel of Blake’s world of magical realism. Another interesting aspect of the writing is how Blake writes relationships; I remember reading an interview about how Blake didn’t want to use society’s normal expectations of sexuality in her novel. Instead, she essentially made an alignment chart. In an interview, she states: “On the X-axis is essentially volume. Who the character would consider sleeping with on a scale of ‘literally nobody in the entire world, irrespective of gender’ to ‘literally every person in the entire world, irrespective of gender.’ (For those of you in the audience who do have a gender preference, you would fall somewhere in the middle, e.g. ‘some people but not all.’) On the Y-axis is whether feelings are intrinsically bound to the character’s attitude toward sex, which ranges from ‘I only like one person on this entire earth and so help me if a hair on their head gets harmed there’ll be hell to pay,’ which is always an interesting sexuality to me, to ‘if you ask me to undress emotionally instead of physically I cannot fathom how I would enjoy it,’ which is also very interesting. ” I personally loved this way of writing about sexuality, and it made the dynamics between our characters fascinating; this is a character-focused book, after all, almost more-so than the plot. If you’re a very plot focused reader, I don’t know if this will be the series for you

This is a trilogy I will definitely be rereading in the future!

Book 1: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Book 2: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Book 3: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ (3 1/2)
Overall: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

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