Hi Everyone,

Happy weekend! I hope you all have exciting plans whether it be relaxing or doing something active and exciting. I have a nice mix this weekend; I haven’t got much that I need to do today other than household stuff and then tomorrow I’m travelling home to the Midlands to go and see my friend who’s moved into a new house so that will be lovely.

Book 📖

Another book that I’ve read this month that definitely doesn’t need an introduction. The Atlas Six by @olivieblake is the first in a series and has been ridiculous popular with readers on Bookstagram. So of course I added it to my TBR, it then made it onto my 23 in 23 list AND I buddy read this with a friend.

Description 🔖

The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few…

– Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.
– Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.
– Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.
– Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.
– Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.

General Thoughts 🤔

I will admit that I fell victim to being influenced with this book and saw so much hype that I felt like I simply had to read it. On top of that; I like to make an effort to try and read outside of my comfort zone and The Atlas Six isn’t something I would ordinarily be drawn to.

My attention was caught quite quickly when I started and I was really enjoying both the concept and the characters. However my interest somewhat wavered about half way through and I started to struggle. I wasn’t hating the book, or even disliking it, I just didn’t feel like I was motivated to pick the book up and read it. Once I had got to about the last third, my interest was piqued again and I flew through that last section and I’m super glad the story did pick up because I ended up really enjoying it.

Characters 👫👭👬

What a group of characters to be thrown together. I loved their different personalities and backgrounds and following them as they tried to exist together in the same space; whilst also keeping in mind that one of them was going to be eliminated. A great balance between individuals having to work together but also against each other.

Libby was probably my favourite character. I can’t really describe in any great detail why, she was just the one of the six that I related to the most and I was most invested in.

Callum was my least favourite character because he was egotistical, annoying and ridiculously selfish. That’s all I have to say about him. Other than, maybe I loved to hate him, just a tiny bit.

Writing Style ✍️

I think it may have been the writing that caused my lull in the middle of this book. The plot moved slowly. Super slowly. I don’t mean a slow burn either, I genuinely mean that there were big chunks of text where I’m not sure anything actually happened. Unfortunately this is what made me lose interest before I was able to pull it back and become re-engaged.

However. I did still like this book and I think that was likely due to the concept (I liked the use of magic and I liked the fact that the characters were against each other). So I am not giving up all hope for a budding relationship between me and this author.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I was super excited to read this book and I was hoping that I would fall in love with it like I have seen so many other people do. Although I did enjoy it, I didn’t love it. I was close to DNF’ing at the half way point, but I’m really glad I didn’t and I persisted. I loved all the magic and I loved the relationships between characters and for those reasons, I think I will pick up the second book in the series and hope that the storyline moves a little faster.

😍😍😍😐😐