The Invisible College by Jeff Wheeler

Book Fort Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up.

Is it building the Book Fort? Yell heah. It's good soup.

I've been sitting here for the past hour, trying to come up with the right way to start this review that will be the perfect balance of critical kindness, and I'm honestly drawing blanks - so here I am with this strange beginning before I dive right into it... which truthfully, is not unlike how Jeff Wheeler himself begins The Invisible College. 

POV you roll up to the prologue expecting another dark academia fantasy, only to witness some random person get shot point blank as a form of lore dropping. Someone have mercy on the characters in this book, because Jeff Wheeler sure won't.

Edgelord antics aside (This is a compliment, Jeff. That was some legend behaviour), The Invisible College is an incredibly creative and radical venturing into the concept: "what if I try to push the boundaries of world-building as far as I possibly can in less than 400 pages". Jeff Wheeler goes heavy, hits hard, and has a hell of a lot of fun here, and I respect it. I had a really freaking good time.

Until the romance was introduced. I'm beginning to wonder about these genre mash-ups, and how it's starting to feel like authors are shoehorned into "giving the people what they want", even to their own creative detriment, because it's popular to write a romantasy. I imagine there's behind-the-scenes pressure to cash in on a trend in literature. Really though, I'm probably going through the trenches with my own preferences for romance, because realistically, I'm just a simple reader who doesn't like the insta-love trope. If you do, you're gonna have a great time with this book.

That aside, in a weird twist of fate, I also happened to be (re)reading Robin Hobb's The Assassin's Apprentice at the same time as The Invisible College, and it made me realise... Damn, Jeff Wheeler is so similar in writing style when it comes to painting a visual novel in your brain. It's like he's uploading a scene directly into my hippocampus in that triple threat format of sights, scents, and sounds. The world of The Invisible College felt like a living, breathing reality while I was reading it, and that's such an accomplishment. This is where Jeff Wheeler shines.

Overall, if all of the aforementioned points I've mentioned above sound appealing to you (including insta-love, I'm just a grumpy millennial), do pick up The Invisible College. I truly believe you'll have a great time.

Thank you to Netgalley, 47North, and Jeff Wheeler for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.