My book reviews for The Atlas Trilogy by Olivie Blake, including The Atlas Six and The Atlas Paradox. Please be aware that the review for the second book contains spoilers.

Each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to earn a place in the Alexandrian Society, the foremost secret society in the world. The chosen will secure a life of power and prestige beyond their wildest dreams.

But at what cost?

Each of the six newest recruits has their reasons for accepting the Society’s elusive invitation. Even if it means growing closer than they could have imagined to their most dangerous enemies— or risking unforgivable betrayal from their most trusted allies— they will fight tooth and nail for the right to join the ranks of the Alexandrians.

Even if it means they won’t all survive the year.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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The Atlas Six has been taking the book community by storm. If you’re familiar with my reviews, you know that I tend to eye books like this warily. Are they as good as people say, or is it just a load of people jumping on the bandwagon? As you know by now, I don’t hold anything back, so head on in to read my honest thoughts on The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake!

As an Information and Libraries graduate, the idea of the Library of Alexandria and other sources of lost knowledge being saved by a secret organisation is a dream come true. I cried throughout the film Agora, and it wasn’t just because of the soppy romance storyline. The idea of how much knowledge we’ve lost over the centuries is something that terrifies me. In The Atlas Six, Blake poses the question of what would happen if that knowledge hadn’t perished, if it survived. The Alexandrian Society are the keeper of that knowledge, and every decade, only six of the most powerful magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

There’s a catch, though. You have to walk away from your life, your friends, family, and relationship and move to the Society’s archives for a few years. You can still have contact with the outside world via communication devices, but you will be on your own. The prize isn’t just access to all that knowledge; it’s a life of wealth, power, and prestige “beyond your wildest dreams”. Would you do it? I know I would, for the knowledge alone.

The six initiates all have their reasons to go, and on the surface, they seem simple. Knowledge, power, boredom. You know, the usual things that drive humans to do anything. And they are all human, despite being the most powerful magicians on the planet, they are all so terribly human with their vulnerabilities, worries and desires. They are magnificently written, so multi-faceted that I found myself not veering towards just one or two characters but all of them save one (I’ll get to them in a moment). Their idiosyncrasies are plucked from real life, as are their responses to everything that happens to and around them.

I appreciated the diversity in their personalities, the way Blake included personalities that are anxious, introverted, traumatised and seeking approval, and developed some of those to be extroverted rather than the stereotypical introverts. Mental health affects everyone, and people of all personality types, not just the quiet types. Normally with a book with this many content warnings, especially related to abuse, leads me to point out that the author has used abuse as a plot device. I am thankful to say that this is not the case with The Atlas Six. While there are a lot of scenes that may be triggering for people, their inclusion is vital to provide realistic characters who have lived real lives. Not all the characters have histories filled with trauma; however, each of them has known difficulty and having finished the book, I have to wonder whether that was part of what made them ideal candidates.

The one character I could not get on with is the only one that I feel was created to be polarising, to be someone that we’re not supposed to understand. They are alien, their magical ability making them see the world completely different to everyone else, and their place in it repulses their fellow initiates and the reader. They’re almost like a sociopath, although due to their magic, I wonder if that’s possible, whether they’ve become so numb to emotions due to feeling them so often. I’ve given you a hint there as to whom I’m talking about; however, that’s as much as I’m going to say. I’ll let you discover more yourself by reading the book 😉

The Atlas Six has got a huge amount of hype, and as with any book that does, the first question I ask myself is “is it worth it?”. In my humble opinion, yes, it is, for multiple reasons. As I’ve mentioned, the characters are top-notch quality, and they could carry the book on their own. Throw them into a world that’s dark and gritty, a secret society that has so many secrets it’s secrets have skeletons. Blake takes readers to places that most books are afraid to go. There’s no sugar coating, not on the secrets of the society or flinching away from the hard issues that Blake includes.

This is a book about magic, and the world-building is fascinating; it’s like an open-world sandbox if you think of it in video game terminology. There is the possibility of anything, and some of the magic that takes place in this book is extraordinary. I am so in love with one of the initiate’s abilities, and I’d love to sit down with Blake to ask about the thought process on how she came up with that one. It goes beyond anything I’ve ever seen in a fantasy novel; Blake has pushed the boundaries of what we believe magic to be in The Atlas Six. She does a great job of making the realm of magic seem filled with endless opportunities. We see the initiates begin to test those possibilities in the novel, and that’s one of the ways that Blake also keeps it within the realms of possibilities.

The key to that is science, and magic and science walk hand in hand in The Atlas Six. There is a lot of scientific discussion and jargon, and I usually find that quite off-putting. However, just when it starts to get to the eye-blurring stage, Blake nips it in the bud. She seems to have a good handle on how much is too much. There are “information dumps”, as some people call them, but let’s be frank; this is a book about a secret society based on the Library of Alexandria. If you’re not expecting there to be that sort of thing in this book, then you’re probably reading the wrong book for you. 

The Atlas Six is a combination of its parts, and while I’m not quite on board with the hype (this was a four-star read for me, not a five-star), it was still a magnificent read because it was so different. I’ve read books about secret societies and hidden libraries before, and there is just something unique about this one. Blake has the magic touch when it comes to creating unique magical powers and then exploring what they could do in various situations. Her fight scenes are luscious and thrilling, and this book reminds me of a box of rich Belgian chocolates. Every single bite is dark and delicious, and now and then you’ll bite into one that will have something else inside. Whether you end up agreeing that this is the best book you’ve read this year or not, The Atlas Six is not to be missed.

Inside the Alexandrian Society alliances will be tested, hearts will be broken and all must pick a side.

Six magicians were offered the opportunity of a lifetime.
Five are now members of the Society.
And two paths lie before them.

In this thrilling next instalment, the secret society of Alexandrians is unmasked. Its newest recruits realize the institute is capable of raw, world-changing power. It’s also headed by a man with plans to change life as we know it – and these are already under way. But the cost of this knowledge is as high as the price of power, and each initiate must choose which faction to follow. Yet as events gather momentum and dangers multiply, which of their alliances will hold? Can friendships hold true and are enemies quite what they seem?’

This book was provided for free by Black Crow PR and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

Today I’m joining Black Crow PR for the Blog Tour for The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake, the sequel to the popular The Atlas Six! As usual, you can find my book review below; however, for this tour, Black Crow PR have something a little bit special going on. So keep reading to see what’s happening!

As a part of this blog tour, Black Crow PR are asking you to #ShowUsYourShelves on social media! Of course, I couldn’t resist joining in and here are my own shelves:

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Earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised to find that The Atlas Six was worth all the hype and, like many, was left desperately needing to know what happens next! At the end of The Atlas Six, the six candidates had been reduced to five, as required by the agreement they signed to enter the library. It just had not gone as they planned. Instead of killing Callum, as they had all agreed to do, Libby had been kidnapped by Ezra, her ex-boyfriend, and a magical construct of her corpse and a murder scene had been left behind. The huge flaw in his plan was that he did not account for Tristan’s ability to see the world differently, to be able to see through illusions and tell an animated construct from reality. He immediately knew that Libby’s “body” was false, and that was about where book one ended.

The Atlas Paradox once again showcases Blake’s talent for deception as the five remaining initiates return to the library for the second and final year, sans Libby. With Libby missing and Callum still alive, the dynamics of the five have been shaken up, and if there’s one thing that Blake proved to be her forte in book one, it’s interpersonal relationships. Any ideas you had about what might happen in this sequel, you may as well toss out of the window, because everything changes in the first few chapters of The Atlas Paradox with an initiation ritual.

From there on, new partnerships are made as new things come to light about The Society, the library and of course, Atlas Blakely. Once again, it was interesting to see the ways that Blake’s mind works and how she mixes magic with scientific and philosophical theory. She takes things even further this time, pushing at the boundaries of what we know or at least what we think we know. This is one book that will make you question a lot of things, and not just the characters’ motives.

You may be wondering why I’ve given this book a three-star rating if it’s so good. The problem is that the first book blew everything else out of the water. It showed exactly how good Blake’s writing could be, and personally, this one fell short for me. In comparison, The Atlas Paradox has many of the same ingredients that The Atlas Six did, it’s just a very different book. While I can acknowledge and admire Blake’s beautiful writing, it personally didn’t tick all the boxes for me like the previous book. I felt that this one was a bit too much theory-based for my liking, too much talking and not nearly enough action. However, Blake still kept me on the edge of my seat. I was still thoroughly engrossed in every moment, in every twist and turn and just like the first book, she wove each plot to a point that leads to something huge, which makes you need to read the next book.

I admit that I probably would have found this book easier to read if I was reading an e-book rather than a paperback as the font was ridiculously tiny (I’m not sure if that was just the case of my ARC or the final copy), but if I had read an e-book I would have missed out on the glorious art work by Clara aka Little Chmura. So it’s a toss-up depending on your accessibility needs and your preferences. I muddled through, but be warned, there is a lot more theory and philosophical discussion in this book than there was in The Atlas Six. It can get quite head-spinning at times, and unlike the first book, there are fewer breaks between these discussions.

One thing I was quite disappointed with was the name-drops of chronic pain and depression without any actual representation to back them up. Both in The Atlas Paradox and The Atlas Six, Blake has done a good job of representing trauma, and in The Atlas Six, there was great anxiety representation, too. So a lot of the disappointment comes from knowing that she isn’t an author who skims on representation, but rather missed the boat on these two. With regard to chronic pain, she goes into a lot of detail about how there needs to be a scientific balance to that individual’s use of their abilities, and then fails to show hardly any chronic pain representation throughout the novel. The character in question does show some physical symptoms; however, they are the same symptoms shown by other characters and described in much the same way. There’s a reason for this, which is a huge spoiler, so I can’t go into more detail, but my point is that there should have been more deliberate representation of chronic pain, and the lack of it is noticeable.

Only the extraordinary are chosen.

Only the cunning survive.

An explosive return to the library leaves the six Alexandrians vulnerable to the lethal terms of their recruitment.

Old alliances quickly fracture as the initiates take opposing strategies as to how to deal with the deadly bargain they have so far failed to uphold. Those who remain with the archives wrestle with the ethics of their astronomical abilities, while elsewhere, an unlikely pair from the Society cohort partner to influence politics on a global stage.

And still the outside world mobilizes to destroy them, while the Caretaker himself, Atlas Blakely, may yet succeed with a plan foreseen to have world-ending stakes. It's a race to survive as the six Society recruits are faced with the question of what they're willing to betray for limitless power--and who will be destroyed along the way.

Review to come in the future!

Thanks for reading my book reviews for The Atlas Trilogy by Olivie Blake!

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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