Book Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Rating: ★★★★☆(4/5)

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Introduction:

Released May 2023. Reread January 2025 for this review.

With Onyx Storm set to be released next week and me having this new blog, I wanted to share my review on Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. If you have been living under a rock for the last two years you might not have heard of the Empyrean series. You might also not be interested in Romantasy books usually. I know I wasn’t when I read Fourth Wing for the first time last year. The large page count also had me curious if it would hold my interest. I invested in both the audio book and the Kindle edition so that I could switch from one to the other (ADHD squirrel brain for the win) and I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by how entertained I was with this book. What I didn’t realize at the time was how big of a divide there is in BookTok world on whether or not this series is worth the read. Some readers are outright vocal haters even. I read one Good Reads review (☆) that took the time to try and compare characters and plot points from other books to show how unoriginal the book was.

To that I give you this.

Hate to be the one to tell you but nothing is original. In my honors English class in High School the lovely Ms. Dershem introduced me to The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. In grad school I learned more about the seven basic plots theory. Through that and having read A LOT, I can tell you that no matter how original an author tries to be, people will draw similarities to other’s work. Once you decide that that is okay, then reading books like Fourth Wing become much more enjoyable.

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Summary: A Brief Overview (Without Major Spoilers)

Basgiath War College in the Kingdom of Navarre is home to 4 military quadrants: infantry, healer, scribe, and dragon rider. Violet is a 20 year old that up until 6 months ago was preparing for a quiet life as a scribe like her late father. Her mother, General Lilith Sorrengail has decided to mandate that Violet join the Dragon Rider’s Quadrant. Violet has to deal with an array of issues to stay alive.

1. Dragons usually only bond with the strongest riders and incinerate the rest. Violet is known to be weak with brittle bones. Not a great combo.
2. There are fewer dragons every year that want to bond with a human making the competition very cutthroat. Other cadets will literally want to kill her just to better their own chance at pairing.
3. Her mother is the head of the college and that is not an advantage in this situation.
4. There is a war looming and leadership is not very forthcoming with information.
5. Xaden Riorson.

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What Worked for Me:

I do not care if this could be compared to Harry Potter or the Hunger Games or Divergent. Yes, people get ‘sorted’, there’s a scary war and a sketchy government. That works for me. It feels familiar and yet different enough that I am intrigued. The audiobook helps too with engagement; I will say that much. I like a female protagonist that isn’t full of herself. Violet is self aware of her flaws but doesn’t act like a pixie manic dream girl. Violet and her friends create bonds that keep me interested in the character development. In a situation where people could live or die at any moment, it is important that the author still gets readers interested in the characters.

The world building. I am a sucker for it. I love it. I can picture the world Yarros is creating and I want to read more. With it being over 500 pages, keeping a reader engaged from start to finish is hard but Yarros had me hook, line, and sinker.

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What Didn’t Work for Me:

Violet has it a little too easy for someone who is supposed to be disabled. She breaks bones easily but there is always a healer around to mend her and she is whipping everyone’s ass after a while or completing tasks that someone that small and fragile wouldn’t have a chance in hell at completing.

Jack Barlowe. Psychopath. Enough said. But no, really, this guy is nuts and brutal for the sake of brutality. He gets off on torture and pain like it feeds his very existance and I am not into character’s like that. He is so gory in his actions from the beginning that it is hard to get a footing with him. It’s not that I need to like him but I can’t even hate him properly. I just get annoyed by the scenes with him and want his demise to hurry up and happen. Which with character’s like that, are inevitable.

Dain. His ability to underestimate Violet and treat her like a damsel in distress just pisses me off.

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Final Thoughts:

Just read the damn book. If you want to know what all the hype is about, read it. If you like romance at all, read it. If you want to read something other than boy meets girl and boy loses girl until he can win her over, read this book. If you want to fly through 500 pages in a few days, read this book.