Hey Everyone,
Hope you had a great weekend, my week was altered last week so I was unable to write up a blog post for Friday.
I finally caved and got the most talked out book that blew up in TikTok last year. And boy do I have something to say.
Secrets. Betrayal. Seduction.
Welcome to the Alexandrian Society.
When the world’s best magicians are offered an extraordinary opportunity, saying yes is easy. Each could join the secretive Alexandrian Society, whose custodians guard lost knowledge from ancient civilizations. Their members enjoy a lifetime of power and prestige. Yet each decade, only six practitioners are invited – to fill five places.
Contenders Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona are inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds. Parisa Kamali is a telepath, who sees the mind’s deepest secrets. Reina Mori is a naturalist who can perceive and understand the flow of life itself. And Callum Nova is an empath, who can manipulate the desires of others. Finally there’s Tristan Caine, whose powers mystify even himself.
Following recruitment by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they travel to the Society’s London headquarters. Here, each must study and innovate within esoteric subject areas. And if they can prove themselves, over the course of a year, they’ll survive. Most of them.
Published: January 2020
Published Edition: March 2022
Publishers: Tor Books
Pages: 384
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, LGBTQ, Sciene Fiction
Goodreads Star Rating:🌟🌟🌟🌟
Thoughts
As many people on TikTok, you find many popular books that continue to circulate and one of them is The Atlas Six. At first, I had no idea what this book was about and I certainly didn’t want to follow the trend of finding out. But, I saw the book on Waterstones website and I ordered it.
I found the plot to be very interesting, technically they are competing one another in hopes of being part of the five but knowing that the sixth member would have to be removed, by killing him. It felt very much like a game of poker or chess, each person offers a chance of sharing knowledge only for someone else to reveal a new surprise into the game. Personally, I felt the book was slow and it made me lose interest in the story at times, it never focused on the academic side but focused on the internal character development and it wasn’t until the last couple of chapters when the action drew my attention. There is a lot of scientific jargin coming from a couple of characters and as someone who didn’t have much of an interest in Science at school, I couldn’t understand much of it. I was able to understand some of it with the use of their powers.
This book reminded me too much of The Umbrella Academy and X-Men, all similar due to how they each have abilities. Some are physical and some are mental, as established at the beginning of the book. I liked the character deveoplment on some of them but others had zero. I hope that changes in The Atlas Paradox.
The reveal at the end about a certain character didn’t surprise me but fell very flat to have that reveal at the very end.
This book does give a lot of Dark Academia vibes, so if you have ever read any Dark Academia themed books before, know it is a slow to read and is a character development book.
I did enjoy the book, it can look the opposite with this review. I have already pre-ordered The Atlas Paradox that is set to release this year, I have some hopes that it would clear the air over a few things that wasn’t explained in this book.
Happy Reading xx
DreamingAndReading 