Fourth Wing

Quotes

Genre

• Fantasy
• Romance
• Romantasy
• New Adult
• Dragons
• Fiction
• Academia
• Military
• Enemies to Lovers

Trigger Warnings

• Ableism
• Bullying
• Anxiety
• Emesis
• Heart failure mentioned
• Blood depiction
• Death of a friend
• Death of an animal
• Death of a parent recounted
• Murder & attempted murder
• Poisoning mentioned
• War themes

*There may be spoilers in this review. I will try to avoid major spoilers but some need to be brought up to be discussed.

Summary

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die

Characters

There are a lot so I am only going to list the major few.

• Violet Sorrengail – our lead, wanted to be a scholar but is forced into the Rider track
• Xaden Riorson – Wing leader, son of one of the rebels, grudge against the Sorrengails.
• Liam Mairi – right hand man to Xaden
• Rhiannon Matthias – Violet’s friend
• Dain Aetos – childhood friend of Violet
• Mira Sorrengail – Violet’s older sister
• Ridoc Gmalyn – Violet’s friend
• Jack Barlowe – Wants to murder Violet
• Brennan Sorrengail – Violet’s older brother
• General Lilith Sorrengail – Violet’s mother
• Tairn – a black dragon
• Sgaeyl – a blue dragon
• Andarna – a rare yellow feather tail dragon.

Setting

Navarre, Basgiath War College

Overview

Alright, I have to admit, it was much better than I thought it was going to be. Hype usually drives me away from things, especially when it is still loud and raging. I bought the hard copy right before the tidal wave hit, (I mean it had dragons and I am predictable) but I hadn’t read it until after everybody was foaming at the mouth about it.

It wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be, it had more to the worldbuilding and more scope than I would have given it credit for.

It still had the trope-y style of writing that a lot of the New Adult genre has been riding on but it fit better on this than on some of the others I have picked up. Despite myself, I liked Violet. She is a bit of a Mary Sue but I really didn’t hate her.

Pros

It was just about perfect in pacing. There was enough action and enough settled thought time that it really was hard to put down. I think being in Violet’s head helped me not hate her, she had a lot of things that she stressed about and she was still a decent person throughout her struggles. I’m not going to lie it was the boot scene that had me on her side. She started by taking care of people and it really paid off.

After going back and forth on whether or not I liked the brutality I feel like it elevated the story to have believable stakes. People die left and right and in unpredictable ways. Sometimes it was in odd places or for strange reasons but it does make the reader pay attention.

Violet herself was a big draw for me. I picked this up assuming she would drive me nuts and I was happily proven wrong. She struggles and stresses, her brain is hyper-active working to solve all the issues ahead of her. Sometimes it feels like too many things go her way but not in a distracting way. I appreciated her range of emotions and how she seemed to be sincere in most things.

Cons

Jack. I know it was for reasons but his aggression to Violet felt a little skewed. Maybe I missed it but the focus on her dying and suffering was not really substantiated. It worked well for the sequel but in this one in particular I found myself wondering if something had flown over my head.

I feel like I’m going to get in trouble for this but Xaden was… just so bland. At least in the sense that every single dude in this genre feels like the same cut-out. I know it is part of the genre’s appeal but still. I’ll give him this, the sequel (again, sorry) did a lot to give him a bit more to his character but his personality seemed to suffer compared to the first. It did make me reassess his interactions with Violet in a new way for the first one so that is a point in the positive. I just… He just felt a little close to Rhys and why do they all deal with shadow and darkness manipulation?! He did win me over in the end, especially when he proved he actually liked Violet and wasn’t playing some convoluted game.

This is the other thing that’s going to get me in trouble. I… well I guess I didn’t hate the dragons but I wish there was more with and about the dragons and not just how special Violet and Xaden are because they like them. I don’t know what I am looking for precisely but they felt too much like background characters to me and I wanted more of their actual characters. To be fair I always just want more dragons but I feel like this came so close to actually putting them on the stage.

I suppose the dragon issue kind of ties into my issue with the characters. Some moments felt like they were just staged despite the characters themselves. Tairn’s sass, Violet’s mother’s coldness, Jack’s aggression it felt like actions were happening to move to specific points rather than what they might organically do in this world. Again, it could be just me but this felt like the biggest missing piece to the series.

The military college wasn’t my favorite. It felt like it was trying to ride the academia trope while still being able to be brutal but that sort of culture just isn’t really sustainable to me. I’m sure it will be explored more but at least in this volume it drove me a bit bananas.

Final Thoughts

All in all I was happily surprised by Fourth Wing. The characters were solid and the world was intriguing enough to keep me engaged. The action and the pacing were very on point and, to me, are a big part of what makes the book so successful.

I’ve already read Iron Flame and I feel like it kept things going in a pretty decent direction, some things even enhancing what was in the first volume.

Can’t wait to see where this series ends up!

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