Olivia Blake’s ‘The Atlas Six’ is a dark academia following the first year of six Medeans (magicians) in seeking their induction to the Alexandrian Society, a modern library of Alexandrea that keeps the worlds greatest knowledge from public consumption. Each of the cohort were chosen for their extraordinary skill in a particular field of magic. 

The world building was really strong, though in some cases the explanation for why a certain person can specialise in a particular sort of magic (such as bending the physics of the universe or telepathy) was unclear, the rest of the it, if accepting this magic system just as it is and to be, was strong. It establishes a dynamic of elitism versus knowledge for the public good, however those in the society consider knowledge to be dangerous and therefore must be kept behind lock and key. 

‘The Atlas Six’ follows the six young inductees as they navigate the first year and aim to be one of the inducted five, the one deemed unworthy being eliminated. It establishes no definitive protagonist, however certain members of the six such as Libby and Parissa got far more character development than the likes of Reina and Callum, even though time in each of the six’s perspectives I don’t feel was that unbalanced. Also the large majority of the middle section of the book was extremely plotless. Somehow so many words were used by Blake and yet nothing happened but purposeless passages of studying (which I wasn’t as engaged in as past dark academia’s I have read as it was a study of the fictional rather than a knowledge I also pursue) and sexual desires, these romance subplots being tossed around with no plot purpose and only to incorporate a bit of ‘spice’ which I feel took away from the book. The opening and the conclusion were strong but just far too limited for the length of the book and how much of the middle was filler.