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. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation. 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.
I can’t say I overly enjoyed any of our main characters but I appreciated that we got to read from each of their perspectives and get a gauge on what kind of person each of them are. Libby was probably my favourite of the bunch because she adds so much to the story. Her and Nico are actually actively using the library and exploring how far they can go with their abilities. They are coming up with theories using their research and garnering results.
Callum and Parisa I didn’t really like at all. I can appreciate how integral both of them are to the storyline and they both seem to have ulterior motives they are also working towards. However, they are both too overt and discreet with their powers. They are both unlikeable and even though we learn quite a bit about them through their perspectives I feel like I didn’t connect enough with them to care at all about their plans.
Tristan was an interesting character for sure. Not having a full grasp on what he is able to do was compelling and seeing how he learns more about the scope of his powers was entertaining. But he is always so unsure of himself and questioning everyone’s motives all the time it was a little exhausting. Atlas was an enigma that I wanted to learn more about and eventually we do but I would of liked to see in real time as opposed to memories.
Not enough was explained about the actual society and the library. I understand that this is going to be a series and we are only in the initiation stage but we are kind of just thrown in and each character begins their studies and things get kind of repetitive and boring. How do they get the books? The library is described as being sentient but how is everything stored and how do they request things? I thought this was going to be a lot more fantastical as opposed to academic and I think it the fact that we are mostly in the same setting the whole time that made this a bit tedious to read.
⭐️3/5 stars Didn’t quite live up to the hype for me…
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