February 9, 2023
Dark Academia
Get in the studying spirit with these enchanting dark-academia recommendations.The Atlas Sixby Olivie Blake
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake follows six extraordinary magicians as they are selected to become part of the elite and top-secret Alexandrian Society, whose members consist of all the world’s most powerful magicians. Once a part of the Society, they will have access to all of the lost knowledge and arcane secrets of history, using them to gain wealth, status, and more magic.Their mysterious ring leader, Atlas Blake, has traveled across continents and hand-picked the six young and promising magicians to have a chance to be initiated. However, only five of them will be inducted after a year. In this time, they will attempt to further research already happening in the Society and prove themselves worthy magicians. Will they all survive the year intact? This book promises drama and scandal around every turn. The story functions as a character study that had me needing more after every chapter. In The Atlas Six, magic melds with studies of science and history to create a truly unique dark-academia aesthetic. The intricate web of character plots and the messiness of six 20-something-year-olds crammed in a pressure cooker of a situation pushes this book to new heights and makes it a stand-out novel.
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake follows six extraordinary magicians as they are selected to become part of the elite and top-secret Alexandrian Society, whose members consist of all the world’s most powerful magicians. Once a part of the Society, they will have access to all of the lost knowledge and arcane secrets of history, using them to gain wealth, status, and more magic.Their mysterious ring leader, Atlas Blake, has traveled across continents and hand-picked the six young and promising magicians to have a chance to be initiated. However, only five of them will be inducted after a year. In this time, they will attempt to further research already happening in the Society and prove themselves worthy magicians. Will they all survive the year intact? This book promises drama and scandal around every turn. The story functions as a character study that had me needing more after every chapter. In The Atlas Six, magic melds with studies of science and history to create a truly unique dark-academia aesthetic. The intricate web of character plots and the messiness of six 20-something-year-olds crammed in a pressure cooker of a situation pushes this book to new heights and makes it a stand-out novel.—Syd Morgan, Books Editor
The Harrowingby Alexandra Sokoloff
Did you ever watch the 1980s classic The Breakfast Club and think it’d be better if it had some ghosts or demons in it? Probably not, but if that sounds intriguing, your wish is Sokoloff’s command. Her tragically underrated book The Harrowing features five students who—like the Brat Pack actors from the aforementioned ’80s classic film—each fit into a different stock-character category: the goth girl, the jock, the flirt, the brooding musician, and the “scholarly eccentric.” But instead of detention, all are simply stuck at Baird College for a variety of personal reasons while their peers go home for Thanksgiving break. They form a tentative friendship despite their differences, until a bunch of strange happenings have them suspecting each other of pulling a terrifying prank on the rest of the group. It’s either that, or Baird’s labyrinthine, storm-battered halls are actually haunted. It’s not a spoiler to reveal that it’s the latter. The secret as to what’s doing the haunting both terrified and delighted me, as it was a supernatural big bad that I hadn’t heard of until reading this book. Sokoloff, a former Hollywood screenwriter, spins an engrossing gothic tale with plenty of scares and a twist ending that would turn M. Night Shyamalan green with envy. The book had been out of print for a while, but Little, Brown imprint Piatkus books recently had the good sense to rerelease it both in paperback and ebook formats.
Did you ever watch the 1980s classic The Breakfast Club and think it’d be better if it had some ghosts or demons in it? Probably not, but if that sounds intriguing, your wish is Sokoloff’s command. Her tragically underrated book The Harrowing features five students who—like the Brat Pack actors from the aforementioned ’80s classic film—each fit into a different stock-character category: the goth girl, the jock, the flirt, the brooding musician, and the “scholarly eccentric.” But instead of detention, all are simply stuck at Baird College for a variety of personal reasons while their peers go home for Thanksgiving break. They form a tentative friendship despite their differences, until a bunch of strange happenings have them suspecting each other of pulling a terrifying prank on the rest of the group. It’s either that, or Baird’s labyrinthine, storm-battered halls are actually haunted. It’s not a spoiler to reveal that it’s the latter. The secret as to what’s doing the haunting both terrified and delighted me, as it was a supernatural big bad that I hadn’t heard of until reading this book. Sokoloff, a former Hollywood screenwriter, spins an engrossing gothic tale with plenty of scares and a twist ending that would turn M. Night Shyamalan green with envy. The book had been out of print for a while, but Little, Brown imprint Piatkus books recently had the good sense to rerelease it both in paperback and ebook formats.—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, Driftwood Advisor