A BOOKTOK PHENOMENON
The Atlas Six is a very popular book on BookTok, and it’s kind of hard to review.
Let’s start with what it’s about – it’s about six medeians (people who can do magic) who are selected every 10 years to protect the Alexandrian Library archives (basically gatekeeping the knowledge from the world) and enter a secret elite society in doing so, but also, that one of them must be eliminated. We learn about each of them in the beginning, through separate POV chapters, and I have to say, this is the part I enjoyed the most. Learning about these people was really interesting.
Libby and Nico are the best at their school and they’re graduating. They’re physicists (able to manipulate matter) and they hate/love each other basically, even though Libby has a boyfriend. Libby is stuck-up and moralistic while Nico is laid back and loves fun. Then we have Reina, who can manipulate plants, but who has zero desire to do any magic whatsoever. Then we have Tristan who is a son of a mafia lord but is incredibly insecure, and he can see through and create illusions. Then we have Callum, who can manipulate people’s emotions, and he’s someone important, a bored asshole prince who’s obsessed with Tristan. Finally, we have Parisa, who can read minds and who is the ‘sexy one’.
The other characters we see are Atlas – the person who’s recruiting the six into the program. Dalton, who is his assistant, who Parisa imprints on for some reason, and who seems to have a secret. And Gideon, a magic creature who is Nico’s roommate and who Nico tries to save. He can travel dreams.
The thing about this book is – while the ‘plot’ is about these six people being inducted into this program and one having to be eliminated at the end, what actually happens is, we read about the relationships forming in the group and create our own ‘ships’. I have not had such a big desire to read fan fiction since Harry Potter, and that was ages ago. Basically, you can be Libby/Nico, Libby/Tristan, Parisa/Dalton, Nico/Gideon (which is me), Tristan/Callum, and so on. The combinations are endless.
The reason why this book is so popular on BookTok is because most people who read it are young – it’s young adult – and that specific demographic loves to ship fictional characters. The author created the ultimate shipping environment and started playing with the different dynamics to give the readers what they wanted. To be honest, the only interesting part of the book was the relationships forming, and what would eventually happen in the end, who would end up with who. That’s it.
Everything else is a bit of a chaos. The world building isn’t very strong. The characters aren’t particularly unique themselves. The writing isn’t particularly strong either. The plot itself goes into different directions, which is okay… I don’t have a problem with the cliffhanger, which was certainly surprising (and it does present a lot of problems and questions for the next book), but I don’t feel strongly about continuing the series either. If I continue the series, it would be to find out if my ‘ship’ would end up together, and that can be done through reading fan fiction or watching someone’s spoiler review, and then just reading that part of Book 2 or Book 3. I feel like this is what stays with me after reading this book – that I don’t really care about what happens to most of the characters. I have my favorite ones – Reina, Tristan, and Gideon, but everyone else… I don’t really care. I would rather just read what happens on the fan wiki in order to figure out what happens than actually reading it.
Someone on Youtube said this is a really fun brainless trashy book, and I agree. It’s really fun to read, but it’s only fun because of the relationships. If you like a complicated reading with multiple main characters who constantly hook up together, and you love shipping fictional relationships, this might be your next favorite read. Other than that, I don’t see much point, to be honest.
It’s not a bad book, it just lacks some things that would have made it stronger. It could have had more world building, more layers, more looks at the society itself, rather than just conversations and hooking up. It’s a strong premise, but surprisingly unsatisfying execution.
If you like young adult urban fantasy with magic with strong dark academia vibes, pick up this book. It was still worth the read and I am glad I read it, but I am not sure if I want to continue the series.
Reviewed by Violeta Nedkova
