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1.3k reviews for:

The Incandescent

Emily Tesh

4.17 AVERAGE

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really loved this book. I love that we have a magic school story from the perspective of a teacher. I love that Saffy is bi and we get to see her sexuality explored. I love the lore and world building of Chetwood and how the magic system works within this world.

The story is not terribly surpring, this isn't a thriller that's going to have you guessing what the next twist will be. I still enjoyed the journey.

I will say the actual climax of the book felt a little rushed, but I understand why, with the perspective being given, it wasn't as satisfying as I wished it could be.
adventurous emotional funny reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
kaitertot's profile picture

kaitertot's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 25%

Too dry
challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Reader: I loved following a magical school book from the perspective of a professor and getting to see some of the administrative/behind the scenes parts of a magical school. It also was nice to see people actually caring for and trying to help the students in a magic school. As well Walden was fun to read from because she was so into her job that it made you as the reader into her job as well.

Writer: I liked that we had mature characters and their problems were accurately reflecting their maturity. Walden didn’t want to give up her job so she had to have a romance that was in her vicinity and maturely dealt with that. She was stressed out from her job but not from her love life because she is an adult and the story recognized she was an adult and had her make adult decisions.

As for my own writing I think it’s important to structure the book from my MC’s age. Certain problems read immature for an older person to be dealing with so it’s important to think about how to make a problem read as something an adult might deal with and how they would deal with it as opposed to how a teen or a kid would deal with the same problem. I think a way to check this for myself is to write down how I think different age groups would approach certain problems and then see where my MC falls. If it seems like they are actually more mature or immature then make sense I can then either give reasoning or tweak it from there.
adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
adventurous lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Sapphire is the director of magic at Chetwood academy and she spends her days keeping teenagers from getting themselves killed when they summon demons.  A huge incident occurs when one of the students summons the major demon that haunts the school grounds always looking for a way in, leading to several more situations as things snowball...
One of the few dark academia/academia stories i've actually enjoyed, the ending felt rushed and a bunch of stuff that could have been very interesting was skipped over but otherwise this was fun.  

3.5 rounded up. Enjoyable almost slice of life about a magical school from a teacher’s perspective.