Rating: ★★★☆
Audience: NA Dark Academia
Length: 375 pages
Author: Olivie Blake
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: March 1st, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads
BOOK SUMMARY:
The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few…
– Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.
– Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.
– Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.
– Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.
– Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.
When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.
THIS WAS ODD.
I’m not really sure what to do with this read. On one hand I enjoyed it. On the other, I’m not quite sure about what I did enjoy.
This is a slowww read. And (mostly) not in a bad way. I don’t mind when fantasies take their time as long as things keep progressing. But at some point this switched over to where I felt like I wanted to skim (which I did).
The characters are divinely unique and I loved that. I hated and loved them for a myriad of reasons. Heavily character driven books are my jam. Though I did wonder why everyone was sleeping with everyone? It just didn’t seem necessary or really adding anything.
Plot wise, I needed more. It wasn’t working for me. There wasn’t enough development of WHY all of these people were together. Not until the last quarter did I start to connect some dots.
I stand undecided on reading book two. I think I’ll probably wait to see some friends reviews first. Or I might try the audio to move through it quicker.
Overall audience notes:
- NA Urban Fantasy + Dark Academia
- Language: some strong
- Romance: multiple vague + closed door + innuendo
- Violence: low
- Trigger/Content Warnings: cheating, near death experiences, extortion, suicide ideation, suicide, alcohol consumption
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