A Lazy Reader's Review of "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.
Review Here's what I did like: Olivie Blake is genuinely very good at writing dialogue. There were several times where I was very drawn to and impressed by a scene based off its dialogue.
Okay, on to the issues that I had with this book.
I'll start with characters seeing as this book is very character-driven. This book is filled with a large cast and each chapter takes place from the perspective of one of the main characters. I think that this is ultimately one of the biggest reasons as to why this book didn't work for me. Know, I enjoy a large cast of characters that each get their own POV chapter. I mean, hello, I'm a huge ASOIF nerd. But I think that Blake was unsuccessful in giving each of her characters "air time". It was clear that her favorites were Parisa and Callum as their chapters were the most extensive and even in chapters that were't their POV, they show up and have a big impact on said chapter. So characters like Reina get the short end of the stick. I also think that this was what stifled the characters from having any kind of substantial growth by the end of the book.
Now to the plot. Where was it? By the time I reached the 50% mark I questioned: "When does the actual story start?" Each chapter was just so consumed with having each of the characters interact with each other, which is very important don't get me wrong, and left no room for the actual story to progress. I understand that this book is the first of a trilogy, but by the end I still wondered what exactly happened and what could possibly happen in the next two books. Where is all of this going?
The writing. As I said before, I genuinely think that Olivie Blake is a good writer, a great one, even. But there were several times throughout the book where it was just too much. It seemed that in every chapter the characters had to say something prolific and "deep". It was exhausting because it added absolutely no value. And, I really hate to say this, but this book was littered with purple prose. Given the context of this book, I felt like there was no need for such flowery writing. If a character always has something "poetic" to say every chapter it becomes irrelevant and stale. It no longer becomes important. I found myself reading a paragraph or a chunk of dialogue and wondering by the end if it truly added any substance. Most of the time, it didn't. Her writing, at times, felt so very pretentious. Like every single think that her characters thought or said was something groundbreaking and it could've been if only she didn't add it in every single chapter. I am genuinely so tired of these "dark academia"-esque books that are so clearly "The Secret History" wannabes. I could see it clearly. The almost animalistic pursuit of knowledge and how, in the pursuit of the picturesque "aesthetic", it drove people to kill (even though nobody actually died in the end, but that was the whole point of the synopsis???). These authors always miss the actual point of the book and much of Donna Tartt's writing and instead focus solely on the impactful one-liners.
I wanted to like this book, I really did. But, unfortunately, it fell so very flat in several of its most important aspects. I will not be continuing this series.
Comments
Post a Comment