I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The magic systems are quite complex and I was confused some of the time. Usually once I get confused I am quite put off but I felt like the complexity of each individuals powers and the fact that the characters themselves didn't understand them what actually the point.

The artwork throughout was quite cool and I liked seeing the depictions of the different main characters.

I'm really looking forward to reading book two. ( )

(Quick note to say that the version of this book I own and read is the earliest, self-published edition and not the new one. I still stand by my opinion but idk how much the two versions differ, so take from that what you will.)

"The Atlas Six" is the epitome of an interesting idea with quite poor execution. The entire premise and setup is deeply intriguing and had me super excited to read the book, but it was too bogged down with flaws to be truly enjoyable.

For starters, the magic system is vastly underexplained and left me confused. There is a lot of talk throughout the book about using magic and its limits, etc. but we as the reader never get a working idea of the bigger picture. It was also really difficult for me to care about a single one of the characters. It's like they were the Seven Dwarves, except instead of "Sneezy" or "Sleepy", each character could have just been named "Boring," "Immensely Irritating", "Obviously-Not-Important-to-The-Author", or "Literally Indistinguishable from That Other Boy" (for real, it took me halfway through the book to keep straight who Tristian and Callum were). Morally gray characters are one thing, but characters who have zero personality besides their magic, snark, and One Defining Character Trait just make for dry reading.

But maybe the biggest drag of "The Atlas Six" is that an ASTOUNDING amount of the book is taken up by everyone just hanging around and talking. Talking about what they can do, talking about which of the others they don't like, and...well, that's most of it. There is one big scene of action near the beginning, then a cool-ish plot twist revealed in the literal final two chapters, but aside from that there are just pages upon pages of characters sitting around talking or inner monologuing.

I guess I can see how some readers would enjoy this, but it's not for me at all. Hard pass on reading any further in the world of TAS. ( )

4.5 ( )

I wanted to like this. I really did, but it was not to be.
I made it to page 127, put it down for the night and it sat there for a day and a half. I just didn’t care enough about any of the characters to go back for more. So, DNF’d at 33%.

A very trite "dark academia" supernatural that I'm glad I got on Kindle so it won't clutter a bookcase. I won't be reading the rest of this trilogy. ( )