Fourth Wing

Fourth Wing is a pot-boiler romance set in a barely-thought-out fantasy world of Dragons and perpetual war.

Apparently this is a world with 12 months, named January, February, etc. and 7 days a week Monday, Tuesday, etc., and distances measured in feet and miles. But everyone has to write with quill pens, except for the magic Dragon Riders who can channel magic to use an "ink pen." Is it some weird future Earth? Who knows, who cares? Building a world is not the point.

The country of the Dragons has been surrounded by and at war with the country of the Griffons for 600+ years. Why? Never explained. Why no peace? Because the other side refuse peace at all turns. Or says the ruling military leadership that is Hiding Things. The Dragon Riders show more are the elite of the 4 parts of the armed forces. The others are the Infantry, the Scribes, and the Healers. Nope, that really doesn't make much sense, but who cares, the point is not to make a believable world. The Dragon Riders MUST all be volunteers. Except for 107 children of rebellious parents, orphaned when the military leadership executed their parents, literally branded them all as traitors and then conscripted them into the "all volunteer" Dragon Riders.

Despite the Dragon Riders being the lynchpin of the nations army and defense, candidates are encouraged to try and kill each other at every turn guaranteeing that only the most brutal, or those with plot immunity, will survive.

But its a romance, right? Violet, the daughter of the General of the Dragon Riders, who just wants to be a Scribe like her dear, dead, sensitive father is forced to volunteer for the Dragon Riders just like her older sister and (now dead) brother. Because. Since the protagonist is female, all of the roles have to be switched and the distant, cold, uncaring, military parent is her mother. Who does not care if she lives or dies as long as Violet isn't a Scribe.

From about the third page it is painfully obvious that the childhood friend and love/crush of Violet is not the "right" guy after all. He is too by-the-book and protective to realize that she needs to fly free unprotected, to become who she must be. Instead, the bad-boy child of traitors, too old, a commanding officer, who vowed to kill her on first meeting and whose body is described frequently in detailed gushing purple prose will be her one true love (turn-about is fair play, and thanks to the gender role reversals Violet is never really described, but she does wear sexy leather armor.) Of course, he also protects her, imposes his rules and limits on her. But it is OK because Violet loves him and trusts him despite all of that, and despite every revealed secret or betrayal she sticks with him. And oh yeah, their two dragons a mated-for-life so they are stuck with each other in a we all live or we all die sort of emotional-telepathic mutually-assured-destruction.

Eventually the story does have to do something other than build up sexual tension, describe sexual release, friendly and romantic betrayal and sometimes reconciliation and come up with a story. The last 10% or so of the book has the very predictable setup, battle, and revelations. No shock, no surprise.

And the inevitable sequel of Violet, her Lover and Their Dragons against The World. I will not be reading it. show less

Though she is the youngest daughter of a general, Violet has always expected to follow in her father's footsteps and become a scribe. Unfortunately, after her father's death, Violet's mother decrees that Violet will become a dragon rider like her older siblings. This means training as a cadet in the Riders Quadrant of Basgiath War College, where three quarters of each class can expect to die before graduation. Violet is small, with hypermobile joints and brittle bones. Her chances of survival, much less bonding to a dragon, are slim. Not to mention that some of the other cadets hold grudges against her mother -- grudges that they'd be more than happy to take out on Violet...

This book has been super popular, so I approached it with show more caution. I can't resist a good dragon story, after all. I found it extremely gripping and absorbing. Standing outside the book, there are some things I question (the brutality of the school, for instance), but while reading, I was able to completely suspend disbelief and run with it. The book feels very YA to me, though there's more spice in the enemies-to-lovers romantic subplot than most YA books display. If you enjoy fantasy and want a read with lots of action, this is the book for you. show less

The simplest way to describe this is YA for adults. It uses all the classic YA tropes (especially dystopian YA) that have become so incredibly successful in the last 10 years or so. But it tells a story about characters in their twenties that is a lot more gruesome and dark than those YA books typically are.
It seems like this was written for people that loved YA books when they were younger but have too much reading experience to enjoy these books the same way anymore and want to experience a book like that again.
But this of course means that many of the shallow tropes which YA is built upon are also present here in the same shallow way.

This leads to this very strange mix of thoughtful adult themes with a surprising level of nuance and show more depth interspersed with the most shallow YA BS you can find. It's extremely jarring every time the book switches between the two.

The world-building makes no sense if you think about it for more than a minute.
There isn't just a plot hole somewhere. Very little of the entire world fits together properly.

The societal rules in particular are completely arbitrary and subject to change at any point at the author's whim. Whatever the plot requires. And the author isn't very subtle about this either and doesn't even attempt to find any explanations for this at all in many cases.
It's a sad example of the typical shallowness I associate with most YA.

I noticed a trend in the writing throughout the book. Sadly it seems like the author increasingly makes use of shallow and lazy clichées, and towards the end, there is an endless flood of ridiculous melodrama. It almost feels like the book made a good impression at first and only later showed its true colors.

I could rant for days about how none of this societal structure or most of the brutality makes any sense. My mind can't help but furiously search for logical reasoning or even just plausible stupidity. But there is none. Logic is only relevant as long as it doesn't get in the way of the narrative. This is such a short paragraph because the flaw is so easily described but I want to emphasize that this is not a small thing. It is probably one of my biggest gripes with the book. Now the paragraph is long enough I guess...

This all sounds very unflattering but my gut really wants to give this 4 stars because despite these shortcomings this is a very engaging story full of interesting characters with excellent pacing (at least for the first 3/4) written by someone who is clearly an expert at her craft. But there is just too much BS in here for 4 stars. The frustration I feel with this book is very similar to how I typically feel when I drop yet another lazy YA fantasy. The ending is honestly not even worth 3 stars. show less

Fantastically fun, swoony, tropey romantasy with the best dragons. Better-written than much of the recent spate of these, but basically holding onto a C- by the skin of its teeth for sentence composition. Beautiful sentences are not what I come to something like this for, but (and?) another strong round of line-edits might have turned the sentences into the kind of brilliantly competent, get-the-job-done while never-drawing-attention-to-itself writing I feel like used to be fairly common. And that might have catapulted this up into brushing five stars for me. Clearly it didn't need another round to be successful (and a lot of fun!), but a little part of my soul hurts that so many genre books I read lately seem not to have gotten the show more attention to sentence-level editing they deserve.*

*Or maybe what I see as kind of awful composition is part of the appeal to some readers? Maybe it's on purpose? show less

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Empyrean series. I borrowed this on ebook from the library.

Thoughts: This started just a tad slow but really picked up pace and impressed me as the story went on. This is an action-packed fantasy romance filled with dragons and secrets. This is the second Yarros book I have read; I also read "In the Likely Event" which I really loved despite it being outside my normal reading genre.

Violet was meant to be a Scribe, then 6 months before her admittance to the Scribe Quadrant her mother (the commanding general) announced that she would enter the challenge to become a dragon rider instead. Violet is not tough and is constantly struggling with her physical health, in addition to that many show more other dragon rider trainees have a reason to want her dead because of her mother's actions. However, Violet is smart, and she has the support of her lifelong best friend.

I liked the beginning of this, but after the dragons get more involved in the story I started to love it! This has a blend of Harry Potter and Hunger Game vibes in the beginning. There are a whole bunch of students in a school trying to learn about combat and dragons, however, they are also pitted against each other and competing to attract a dragon to become its rider.

As the story continued I got some very "Dragonriders of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey vibes (excellent series that I would recommend and read about 25 years ago). I will try to describe this part without spoilers. Some of the dragons are mated to each other which has intriguing implications for their riders. The dragons can survive a rider dying but the riders cannot survive a dragon dying.

I initially thought that this was going to be a love triangle, which I really hate. However, the relationships here are a lot more complex than that. Violet is immediately sheltered by her best friend, who has matured a lot since she last saw him. Violet quickly realizes that this worry and sheltering is keeping her from growing as a person. On the other hand, she is drawn to the dark and dangerous Xaden, who is the surviving son of a traitor and wants to kill Violet. Xaden challenges her at every step, and Violet realizes she is growing into a much more competent person because of his challenges and training. It's an intriguing look at two very different types of relationships.

Some of the love scenes in here are pretty spicy and they were all well done. Everything is entwined with urgent action scenes as well. The Basgiath War College is supposed to be for training, but sometimes the War Games end up more real than not. Of course, nothing is quite as it seems, and the more Violet learns the more she realizes has been hidden from her and everyone else.

I feel like I am going on a bit long, but there was a lot of food for thought here. I really enjoyed the dragons, the characters, unraveling the mysteries, the action, and the romance. This was incredibly hard to put down and very engaging. I read this way faster than I thought I would and let way too many things in my life go because I needed to finish it! I loved how this ended; it ends on a cliffhanger but it felt like a positive cliffhanger.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I really, really loved this and I totally understand the hype. There are amazing characters (including dragons!), fantastic world-building, heart-pounding action, steamy romance, and a writing style that practically reads itself. I would highly recommend this to those who enjoy action packed military fantasy blended with romance. I plan on picking Iron Flame up very soon! show less

This was a very very fun, but distinctly unoriginal read. The world/setting was a mix of Divergent and Hunger Games, and judging by the reviews, a bunch of other YA books I haven't read. I'm not going to list all of the similarities I found because there are too many. It's not just similar tropes that are used - there are some copy/paste characters AND character dynamics AND settings. And considering other reviews that listed more copy/pasted stuff from other books, I honestly can't tell if there is a thing that is original in this book. That said, I really did enjoy reading it. It drew me in and I had trouble concentrating on anything else until I finished it, and I'll read the next book for sure.
I want to give it 2 stars, but I'd rate show more my enjoyment of it more. So I'll settle on 2.5 for now, even though it doesn't really feel right. show less

I think there is very little that I can say about this book that other similar ratings/reviews haven't already said, but holy SHIT??
If I had to blurb this book I would say that “Fourth Wing” is little more than an overhyped copycat of a story: Yarros has seemingly plucked choice bits from every other popular book from the past decade and has sloppily stitched those bits together with stilted, anachronistic dialogue and plot points that limp along the most predictable and uninspired paths of narrative she could have possibly picked.

For the life of me, I could not pinpoint one single original thought in this book. It felt exactly like someone had taken pages from the Divergent trilogy, the Inheritance Cycle, The Hunger Games, A Court show more of Thorns and Roses, and An Ember in the Ashes and then mushed them all together like a toddler playing with mashed potatoes.

It’s also deeply TIRED. The tropes are trope-ing; Yarros even manages to work in the ol’ “you’re not like other girls “ but makes it “ you’re not like other riders”. And if I had to sit through one more description of how teeny tiny show less