Aug 17

Aug 17 The Incandescent

About the book

Author: Emily Tesh
Publisher: Tor Books

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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My Review

The Incandescent has been (im)patiently waiting for me to pick it up since it was published earlier this year. It’s got a good amount of hype behind it, especially because it’s the first novel Emily Tesh has published since Some Desperate Glory won the Hugo Award. My verdict: This is one of those books you can’t examine tooooo closely, but if you just go along for the ride, you’re going to have a really fun time.

The story takes place at an English boarding school, but the main character is a teacher — actually, the school’s director of magic, Dr. Saffy Walden. I loved spending time with her as a MC. It was a fun subversion of the dark academia genre, but she’s also lovably curmudgeonly, fiercely dedicated to her job as a teacher, someone who genuinely loves teenagers for all their striving imperfections, bisexual, and occasionally hilarious.

My main squabble with this book is that it feels disjointed. I would bet money that this started as a novella that Tesh later expanded into a novel, because the first 40% is very self-contained. I think the two parts could have been blended better (wait to resolve some of that stuff from the first 40% until the end, for example) and I would have felt more invested the whole time. I was also surprised that we were able to see so much of the plot coming from a mile off, especially because Some Desperate Glory had some of the best plot twists I’ve ever read, but that’s not something that I ultimately mind too much.

Ultimately, this is a FUN book with some bonuses, like the bi rep with a great sapphic side (see: hot butch lesbian modern knight jumping into the fire for her dumb crush), commentary on classism and hubris, and plenty to say about all the ways schools and institutions let down teachers and others on the front lines.