I bought The Atlas Six because I accidentally bought the sequel first. And I’m more than slightly annoyed by this, because the ending of this book was so underwhelming. It’s like they ere’chopped off any kind of ending or build up to something happening. There is a major thing that happens, but it’s way earlier before the end. This kind of just sputters out, and it sort of feels like it happens mid-chapter.

So there’s like cliff-hangers but this was…like…nothing. It almost felt like they chopped a chapter in half. If I didn’t already own the second book, I would have probably never bothered to pick it up, that’s how annoying the ending is.

ANYWAY. The rest of it is broadly fine, but nothing special. The broad plot is: there’s magic (ooh) and magical universities (ooh) and then a secret magical society descended from the library of Alexandria. All fine and good. But initiation comes at a cost. But even then, I found the stakes so very low? Like nothing every felt perilous. It felt all rather flat. The characters all felt a bit one dimensional as well, though I think there was a bit of character growth.

The other thing that broadly bugs me is that I felt that probably all the very deep, meditative study is absolute garbage. At times it just felt like interesting words put together. You recognise some of them, but it’s all clearly nonsense. Like, can I recall literally anything about it? No, it just kind of flowed over me like word soup. It’s definitely like a film where if you think too much about the plot, it all just kind of falls apart and ruins it. So basically, don’t think about it too hard, it’s not that kind of book.

But it’s pace-y and the characters are different enough. There’s a tiny bit of thrill now and again.

Maybe it’s not that great. Maybe it’s adequate. Maybe it’s passable. Maybe I’m in bad mood while writing this. If you don’t think to hard, it’s a reasonably quick read. Is that good enough to pick up? Meh.