Olivie Blake’s “The Atlas Six” is boring.

This book had potential. An interesting world, a good start, and also this is "Dark Academia". It should have been a good book. As a result, one boredom.

In the world of the book, magicians secretly live next to people, and some probably influenced history. They come in different types, someone can change matter, and someone can read minds. There are also magical creatures. It also turns out that the Library of Alexandria did not burn down, it was hidden from prying eyes.

In general, the world of the book is interesting, but the author revealed it poorly. That's why there are questions: "How do magicians get along with people and influence history? How do magical creatures like mermaids live in this world?". Just writing: "Well, once a magician pranked this guy or this character is probably inspired by a magician" is not enough. These are the pieces of the puzzle, not the whole picture.

The story tells how six outstanding magicians compete to become a member of the Alexandrian Society, but what price will they have to pay?

The book is divided into eight parts (to be honest, I don't understand why). But in short, it sounds interesting right? Well, this is one of those books where the author comes up with a beginning, an end, a few cool moments, and then this: "Oh, yes, I need to connect it all somehow." Really, if you think the book is about a battle of wits, then no. 90% of the book nothing happen, except that the characters drink, think and say how smart they are (except for one, he just doubts), have sex, come up with non-working tactics, and also remember what happened the other day. And Nicholas is also trying to protect his friend. There are also problems with time. Then a month goes by and you don't feel it, then the character remembers something the other day and for so long that you forget that it's a memory. And a very dumb final twist. This is literally a Deus ex twist, which there was not a single normal hint of.

Now about the characters. Their designs are good, they convey the character of the character. But they are very boring themselves. They are cardboard, they are one-sided in terms of character. They give you a whole paragraph or a moment where it reveals which character is poor and unhappy, what a sad past he has, how he doubts himself, and you don't care, because before that the character was more uninteresting than drying paint. This is how they behave throughout the book (and only this way):

Callum – a pretentious narcissistic sociopath from the anime.

Tristan – doubts everything and everyone and himself (and looks like Will Smith from After Earth)

Parisa – a nymphomaniac who can read people's minds.

Libby – an emotional Bella Swan

Nicholas – wants to help a friend.

Reina… Japanese? In short, a background character who sometimes does something.

And they are trying to convince us that they are the best magicians. But I haven't seen other magicians with the same abilities as them, so if these are the best, I'm afraid to imagine what ordinary magicians look like.

And I forgot that the characters are about 20-30 years old. Because they behaved like teenagers who are trying to be adults.

The author's writing style is very bad. It's hard to read, it's bulky, pretentious, and for Dark Academia it lacks atmosphere. The descriptions turned out to be meager, and even then there are very few of them. But there are plenty of "philosophical" speeches here. Especially from Callum. It's like a child trying to write like an adult.

In total, this is a boring book. It has a boring plot, boring characters, a poorly revealed world and a very bad writing style. From Dark Academia, there is only the name.