The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

I'm almost immediately wary whenever a novel is touted as a 'must-read TikTok sensation with over 11 million views'. It's a clear indication that a hype machine in some shape or form has been working in overdrive. But, I was curious about The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake, and the subject matter itself appealed to me enough for me to make grabby fingers a while back when the opportunity to read the novel presented itself.

The premise is as follows: Six magicians are invited to compete for a place within a secret organisation known as The Alexandrian Society, where they will have access to centuries of hoarded knowledge. The only catch is that one of them will have to die.

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but as the story progressed, I felt as if the author was more concerned with the characters' cleverness than progressing a plot that feels as if it has enough momentum to carry me forward. We also see the story told from different points of view, which in itself is not such a bad thing, save that I felt that there was a lot of sameness to the characters' voices, so that for the first half of the book, while I was trying to get to know them, I struggled to tell them apart.

Small details, like the one character being South African, but none of his inner landscape even suggesting to me that he *was* actually South African, kinda annoyed me. In fact, I found most of the characters all quite bland and somewhat entitled. 

Sure, there was some interesting moral and philosophical talk that happened here and there, but for the most I felt that there was an awful lot of navel gazing, and I kept waiting for the exciting stuff to happen. Because, I mean, hello, magic. One sequence involving Parisa was quite thrilling and somewhat cleverly written, but for the most, not so much.

It's clear that Blake is a gifted writer, and there are moments where the prose shines, but I suspect the fault lies with me, the reader, for not glomping onto the text wholeheartedly. Evidently, The Atlas Six was thrilling for those thousands of other readers who are lauding this novel as a paragon of literary greatness. I'm not one of them.