The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake REVIEW

Started: 13/02/22

Finished: 22/02/22

Spoilers: No

Big thank you to Netgalley and TOR for sending me an eARC ahead of the book's release date on 01/03/22. All opinions are my own.

2.5*

I'd previously read The Atlas Six back in October 21 in the hope of eventually reading the TOR version and comparing. Back then, I rated it 3 stars with the comments that it had the potential to be something remarkable, but at the time felt sparse and in need of a developmental edit to flesh out the plot, characters, world, and magic system.

I'm going to try and keep this shorter than

my other review for this book.

Despite being professional edited, unfortunately, this book still doesn't meet the mark for me. Many of the problems the original version suffered from weren't addressed. In fact, it feels a lot like the author doubled down and added even more navel-gazing as opposed to an actual plot, which it so desperately needed.

Characters

Granted, the characters did feel a little more fleshed out this time around. I found I didn't immediately dislike them all, which was a huge problem for me the last time I read this book. The chapters have been expanded on which make each of them feel like fully, more developed characters from the outset. However, this time, instead of hating them and then growing to like them, strangely, I initially liked them only to end up hating them. Except for Nico and Reina, who have always been my favourites.

The dialogue and banter is so much more fun and rewarding than their pompous ponderings. But unfortunately, the pondering far exceeds the fun dialogue. There's too much of one and not enough of the other. I feel the only characters that have snappy back and forths are Nico and Libby, everyone else seems to have drawn out conversations, contemplating every word and meaning before responding. It makes the conversations feel really slow and at times, boring. Aside from Nico and Libby, who for the most part actually talk like young people, everyone else is so obnoxiously up their own arses. They talk like dusty old Oxford professors from the 19th century. It's not natural. People don't talk like this, much less a bunch of honey twenty-somethings.

Plot

Again, what plot?

I don't really know what I was expecting, rereading the edited version of this. Maybe I was hopeful for some improvements on the things I and a lot of other readers took issue with. For instance the lack of a conceivable plotline. I'm a little disappointed to learn there's still no plot to this book. There's page after page of internalised musings or sciency reflections for each character in every single chapter. But none of these musings or reflections actually seem to fit with anything in the plot. It's just a lot of this person is researching this and this person is researching that but, like, why? Why are they researching these things? For what purpose? None of it makes sense. And the lack of plot just made the book feel boring. I started to flag around the 40% mark but powered through. I feel I lasted longer the first time around which only makes me think that the added parts to this edition weren't a much-needed cohesive plot or character development, but in fact, more musings and reflections.

It's trying really hard to be perceptive and sophisticated but really all it's doing is talking circles around its readers and tricking them into thinking they aren't intelligent enough to understand what's being said, so damn this book must be reeeally clever!

When really it's just not saying anything at all, because none of what is being said makes sense without context. Know a good way to add context? PLOT.

Another issue I had the first time around was we never get to witness the creation of the incredibly groundbreaking wormhole. Guess what, we still don't. *sigh*

Setting

I don't think I said too much on the setting in my previous review because I didn't find the world developed enough to be able to say a whole lot. Unfortunately, this is still the case. Other than what I think might have been some added descriptions of decor and interior design, little was added regarding the actual world in which these people live. I've read this book twice now and I'm still pretty clueless about how this magic system works, the integration of mortals and medians, the difference between medians and witches, and why the bloody hell there are mermaids and other magical creatures with so little context about how they fit with this world.

It's a cold, bare world out there, people. You'll find no succour here.

Writing Style

This is rather a difficult one for me, as I both love the writing and dislike it. The only way I can think to describe the writing is verbose. This is fine during interesting parts, such as action or dialogue, but when we're trapped in the rambling minds of the characters, with no anchor to the world around them, it can get a tad dull.

The writing is beautiful but undeniably too wordy. I think there's a very fine line between intellectual writing and pretentious writing, stroking one's own ego over how clever it all sounds.

I think the internal philosophizing of each character drags on way past its bedtime and doesn't add a whole lot to the story. I seem to remember I had this issue the first time I read this book, and this is obviously just the way the author writes, which is fair enough, but it seriously felt at times that a lot of words were being used to say not a lot at all. I'd read pages and pages of musings and realise it didn't amount to a whole lot of anything. The story hadn't progressed in any meaningful way.

It was just characters for pages at a time being like, wait here while I swill my wine and wax philosophical about political and societal issues that have no real bearing to the matter at hand.

So beautiful writing, also occasionally annoying as hell.

In conclusion? Fucked if I know.

And once again, I'm disappointed to learn the 'Netherlands is a Nordic country' still makes an appearance. Really would've thought a professional editor would pick up on that one. Seriously, the Nordic (or Scandinavian) countries consist of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. Whilst the Netherlands is part of the Low Countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, etc. I can understand if it was left in if the character saying this was mistaken, but Reina never muses about how incorrect this person is. So instead of making a point to show how misinformed the character is, it just makes the author look misinformed. I said as much in my last review and it irritates me enough to mention it again. Researching this takes no time at all.

Final Impression

I'll be honest, I think rereading this only served to harm my original opinion of the book. On my first read, I was a little disappointed it didn't meet its full potential but was left hopeful with the knowledge that a publisher had picked it up and might work through many of its problems.

On second read, I'm left more frustrated than anything else.

However, there's still a spark of hope. With an editor, hopefully, working through the sequel with the author, I have my fingers crossed that it'll be set on the right track from the start. With this hope in mind, I am interested in trying book two. But I've been burnt twice now so I will do so with reservation.