If you’re a fan of dark fantasy academia, the Atlas Six is probably for you. As someone who doesn’t love that genre so much, I probably should have guessed this wouldn’t be my favorite book of the year. But the hype was huge so I thought “why not?”

There were some things I liked about the book (spoilers ahead):
Gideon’s whole story line is so intriguing
Nico is the sort of dangerously selfless hero that I would absolutely read more of
The mystery of Dalton Ellery alone would keep me coming back for more

But there are MORE things I don’t like (and of course you’re welcome to disagree with me, these are just my opinions):
The most boring character in the whole book being the culmination of it all
This constant social commentary on human nature that makes it read more like a philosophy textbook and less like an enjoyable fictional tale
GRATUITOUS SEX (there’s a time and place and this book missed the mark every, single time)
Unlikeable characters and hardly any development despite the constant claim that there has been significant development

But what I disliked the MOST about The Atlas Six was the author’s obvious pretentiousness. SOMEONE needs to take away Olivie Blake’s thesaurus. Overinflating your vocabulary is not a sign of intellect, it’s a sign of disdain and I, personally, felt talked down to by nearly every single one of these characters at some point. The reason why Nico was, by far, my favorite character was because he did NOT engage in such condescension.

That’s a matter of taste, however, and a common side effect of a story based in academia. It’s not a reason NOT to read the book, or even read on to the second as I probably will (because I can’t help myself with a series) but it does make the reading experience a bit more of an ordeal.