Book Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

“Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities.”

Violet Sorrengail has studied all her life to enter the Scribe quadrant. Her father had always taught her that the scribes hold all the power – the power to erase history, reframe history, and rewrite history. When he dies, Violet’s mother – the commanding general in Navarre- orders her to join the hundreds of students who are striving to become one of the elite dragon riders. Violet is weak and has no fighting experience and now has to join the hundreds of kids who have trained for this all their lives. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, people are willing to kill to be successful especially when they perceive weakness. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter especially Xaden Riorson whose father her mother executed for treason.

“Fascinating. You look all frail and breakable, but you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?”

I started this book when it first came out, read the first 50 pages and dropped it. I picked it up again sometime in August because Tayne told me her coworker asked her about it. So, I decided to finish it so I could properly talk about how terrible it was, but I ended up really liking it. My problem with the first 50 pages of this book is my problem with most female characters in fantasy – the description of their bodies. Yarros spent every second reminding us how weak and slender but oh so beautiful Violet is. The number of times Yarros describes Violet’s porcelain skin is actually quite insane. Then the exaggeration of the villains in this book is utterly laughable. Right from the parapet to enter the riders’ quadrant someone who literally just met Violet and has no history with her, or her family was already chasing her down to kill her because she looks weak.

“A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.”

When I continued with this book, what won me over was how weak Violet actually was and the numerous ways she had to work to overcome her weakness. I like that at the end of the book she didn’t still transform into some physically strong rider who could beat anybody in a fight. I enjoyed the cunning ways she had to survive the violence of the cadets in the riders’ sect. I started rooting for her once I realized she wasn’t going to be a Mary Sue. If you spend 50 pages telling me your protagonist is weak, you better not suddenly have her beating everybody in a physical fight. Another misconception I had going into this one that I want to correct for everybody is that this is NOT a YA fantasy book. The cadets are young but are all in their twenties. The youngest class in the cadet is 20. Also, there is sex aplenty and it is not implied, it is explicitly stated that everyone is sleeping with everyone and there’s no shame surrounding it, unless of course you’re sleeping with a superior. This is an open door book.

“One generation to change the text. One generation chooses to teach that text. The next grows, and the lie becomes history.”

I’m glad there is actually a bigger story here than the love story between Violet and Xander. There is much more at stake, and I honestly guessed what the big conspiracy was within the first 100 pages of the book when certain things that seemed like passing conversation was mentioned. I’ve read way too many fantasy books to ever gasp at the ending of this one. I enjoyed Xander as a character. I thought all his decisions were right and correct even if the protagonist did not see it that way. I understand the path that led Violet and Xander to each other even thought their families had violent histories with each other. At the end of the day though, their relationship is the least interesting thing about this book. When certain secrets were finally coming to light, I just wanted Violet to get over the feeling of being betrayed so Xander could get on with telling us what the whole picture actually was. Yarros also makes you care about the supporting characters so deeply that you care about what happens to them and when anything happens to them you are so invested that you’re bawling at 5am in the morning. Okay, that was just me.

“Coming in last is better than coming in dead.”

All in all, I recommend this book. It’s 600 pages but a very quick read once you get out of those first 50 pages. I gave this one 4 stars on Goodreads and I’m looking forward to the next book.

Have you read this one? What did you think?

Leggy