Fourth Wing

Hello everyone! So glad to have you for the September episode on Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. There is a lot to unpack in this TikTok sensation that gained so much popularity, so let’s get into it!

Fourth Wing is the first fantasy novel in the Empyrean trilogy and the author released it beginning of April 2023. By Halloween of that same year, Iron Flame, the second instalment, was available to readers. The third novel released early this year under the name Onyx Storm. The novels have become so popular they have their own wiki fandom page and they are being adapted into a TV series for Prime Video. So of course, I had to come in and review it because you can’t always trust BookTok and the hype around certain books. Now apparently the book has won the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Romantasy award in 2023 and I will say it was not as bad as I expected. This does not mean it’s great either. At best, a 3 out of 5 stars, maybe even a 2.75.

If you are still unsure about what this book is about, let me give you a brief resume. Set in the fictional world of Navarre, we follow Violet Sorrengail as she attempts to survive the challenges of becoming a dragon rider. Lowkey this looks like every fantasy novel. It’s becoming such a trend, I even saw an Audible ad about a fantasy-romance story…There is no escaping. Also this book mixes in some dystopian elements that were common back in the early 2010s like dividing the population into groups and making them fight or at least earn their place. In Navarre, there is the Basgiath War College which divides students into four quadrants: Rider’s, Scribe, Healer, and Infantry. Of course the Rider’s Quadrant is the most popular one despite bringing in the most deaths among cadets. This makes sense with the author’s background where she is surrounded by people in the military.

Now let’s start with the positive comments to set a good mood. I one hundred percent appreciate the warnings before the dedication. It mentions the novel will contain quote “elements regarding war, battle, hand-to-hand combat, perilous situations, blood, intense violence, brutal injuries, death, poisoning, graphic language, and sexual activities […].” This is a great feature for readers and even parents to quickly get a sense of sensitive topics in the novel without having to read it. It allows for better planning and making sure the novel reaches the right audience. I think books should start containing ratings like G, PG, PG-13, etc. just like in television because it’s becoming confusing to distinguish the content from the summary on the back and the cover (I’m thinking particularly of smut books). So brownie point for Rebecca here. The world-building is also pretty good. While it does have that dystopian feel and I don’t agree with a lot of the details, I think it’s still well-built and has enough meat on the bones to stand. Now mind you, I’m not a big fantasy reader so I’m not sure now good it actually is. The book has maps of the 6 Navarrian provinces as well as of Basgiath War College. Like any great nation there is some backstory abut a war that divided it and how the traitors were punished. If you’re curious about the depth of the setting, a quick Internet search will help you there. Third positive point is the time jumps. I like how the author skips over a few months in the plot line to speed things up. We do not need to read 50 pages about how Violet is training for months to become a soldier and dragon rider, so thank you for skipping that and for indicating clearly it is a time jump because it would not make sense for our fragile little Violet to become a war machine in one month. Last thing I will add is that Violet, despite her many flaws, does stand-up for herself and is able to move past people not believing in her success like her childhood best friend, Dain. He is a second year and constantly worries about her. About half-way through the book, Violet is angry at Dain for always being such a rule follower. He’s not able to infringe them for the people he cares about. He’s also being hypocritical toward her, saying he always believed in her when it’s actually not the case. She’s hoping to change his perception, but it doesn’t really work. However, I admire her interventions and I’m sure they riled Dain up a bit. And speaking of rilling things a bit, a little cheeky snippet that did make me laugh was a town called Montserrat. I think it fits in well and serves as a bit of an ode to readers given Montserrat is a text font. It would have been even better if the novel was written in that font.

While it does have that dystopian feel and I don’t agree with a lot of the details, I think the setting is well-built and has enough meat on the bones to stand.

The novel annoying highlights her uniqueness with different bits of internal reflection and plot points.

Moving on to the negative points…There are a lot. First problem is the point of view or POV. The first person narration style really limits the narrator’s knowledge of global events. This in turn limits our knowledge as a reader of other character’s intentions and creates a bias. Again, this a similarity I notice with the dystopian genre. Next, and the most annoying aspect of the story, is Violet herself. Her personality is unappealing and does not give the impression that she is the heroine of this story, much less a warrior. Of course, as we progress into the novel, she shows signs of improvement, but I feel the author exaggerated Violet’s weaknesses. First off, she constantly calls herself physically weak. She says she has a fragile body with brittle bones. We see this as she continuously injures herself and she takes a long time to recover. I was so confused as to why she was always whining of being weak and it wasn’t until I hit the acknowledgements at the end of the novel that I understood. The author thanks her family for their support with her connective tissue disorder. What this means is that a medical conditions weakens the joints, skin, bones, organs, and blood vessels of the person affected. Violet is not officially diagnosed with this in the story, but I can see where she gets it from. However, her constant internal thoughts all revolve around her physical weakness and I would have liked to see her more strong-minded. It’s also inconsistently presented because in the span of a few pages, she mentions how she’s finding it so hard to block the pain (despite being able to at the beginning of the novel) and 5 pages later, she’s super strong and resilient when fighting a group of violent cadets. Make up your mind please. Of course, Violet’s personality does not stop there. She (like a very dystopian hero) is special of course. The whole reason she is trying out for the Rider’s Quadrant is because her mother is a high ranking official. Violet would have preferred being in the Scribe Quadrant where I feel she would have succeeded much better. And I agree with her. The novel annoying highlights her uniqueness with different bits of internal reflection and plot points. Here’s an example of those thoughts early on when she thinks about the huge death rate among first year cadets trying to cross a narrow bridge as the first trial, quote: “And as for the death rate? I guess every other rider thinks the risk is worth the glory—or has the arrogance to think they won’t fall. I’m not in either camp.” Of course she’s not in either camp, -because she’s special. No spoilers, I promise but you’ll start seeing the evidence of her being special throughout the novel. For someone so physically weak and not really fitting into the Quadrant, she’s gonna do pretty well. To reinforce the point about the clichés in this book, she makes a friend during the first trial and of course against all odds, she’s a good person despite people telling Violet to beware friendships before becoming a real rider. Rhiannon, her new bestie is like the ying to her yang. She’s super strong and can fight very well so she makes a deal with Violet to help train her for combat while Violet helps her pass the history class exams. Isn’t that just so convenient? For someone so intellectually smart, Violet seems really stupid at times, especially when she asks her dragon why he chose her…it will be pretty obvious to anyone who reads the scene as to why, so how come it’s not registering in her super smart Scribe brain? Last detail I will talk about is unnecessary extravagance in descriptive vocabulary. I was sick of hearing of “mage” lights by the end. Like can you not just say the lights dimmed? We already know dragons have powers and this is a fantasy. Yet we are reminded every chapter about the magic mage lights. Too much!!! Next, we get too much Xaden descriptions that are quite unbelievable. He is Violet’s enemy and of course love interest. She describes him as being built like a literal god and this contrast soooo much with her tiny person. Like I don’t doubt he’s very fit because of all the training, but at this point I’m surprised she didn’t die when they were battling. She feels like an ant compared to him and it doesn’t make sense. Also, she says he has, quote, “gold in his onyx eyes.” Ew. Really?? Like way to tie in the last book here. I can’t. Onyx eyes??? Can you just say he has black eyes? It’s like not very subtle and I feel like it’s just a way to make him special too. Violet’s descriptions of him are just horrible. She’s black, then white. He’s beautiful and then he’s cruel. I hate this enemies to lovers, especially how their story will intertwine because it feels too forced. We are only missing the “one bed” during an excursion and bam, the circle is complete. Another vocabulary ick: the nicknames. Xaden is horrible. Like why would you call her Violence? She not only thinks it, but also proclaims it to others that she is weak physically and she’s like the only cadet that’s struggling with killing other people…She’s definitely a good soldier and she can use her brain, I will give her that, but she’s not a killing machine so Violence is just cringey, even if it were to apply to her.

So if you like fantasy novels with corny and possessive enemies to lovers, you’ll adore this. This is not for me, but I do not remain discouraged about the fantasy genre. I believe there is still some potential. I’m actually thinking of reading Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. Hopefully, it can save my bad impression. I want to say that I still respect the author for creating a novel with a plot, relatively “deep” characters, and for putting the work in. It’s not meant for everyone, it wasn’t for me and it might be for you or not.

In any case, if you still need inspo for the month of September, check out the other wonderful Exploring Reader episodes. If not, you can wait for the month of October where I will be reviewing a fantasy novel featuring AI! I’m excited for it!

Until then, keep exploring those pages!