Title:

Fourth Wing

Author:

Rebecca Yarros

Category:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

April 10, 2024

ourth Wing spent weeks, if not months, on the Seattle Times list of bestsellers. It made NPR's list of best books of 2023. Fourth Wing was rated on Goodreads as the best book of 2023, with an incredible 1.5 million ratings, and an average score of 4.59. Lots of readers really enjoyed this book, so I decided to give it a try - was this a fantasy novel deserving the same acclaim as A Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings? In a word: no.

Way back when I was in high school, I read a book called Dragonflight by Anne McAffery. I still have that paperback on my shelf, the seventh printing, with the Gino D'Achille painting on the cover. In Dragonquest, the young heroine joins an understaffed team of dragonriders who are battling an existential threat to their civilization ("threads" fall from the sky when a rogue planet passes overhead). The dragons and their riders must flame the threads before they reach the ground or they will burrow into the earth and corrupt it. The heroine is telepathically bonded to her dragon. Unfortunately, when dragons mate, their riders also mate, and the heroine hates the leader of the weir. If you have read Fourth Wing, does any of this sound familar? Dragonquest tells its tale in 308 tidy paperback pages, Fourth Wing requires a bloated 498 pages to tell the first part of its story (a projected trilogy?).

Twenty year old Violet Sorrengail has been studying to be a scribe, but her mother, the powerful General Sorrengail, has decided that her daughter must become a dragonrider. (I wondered why, if Violet's mother intended all along that Violet would be a dragonrider, why not train Violet so that she could survive the brutal initiation process required of the riders, instead of having her spend all her time with in the library with the scribes?) Candidates to become dragonriders go through several years of trials and combat to prove their fitness. Unfortunately, Violet is frail (or perhaps she suffers from some never-specified-malady) and weak, and so she seemingly has little chance of surviving the oft-lethal training exercises.

At the start of her training, Violet encounters Jack Barlowe, a psychopathic killer who hates her passionately for no apparent reason. What military organization, hoping to field an elite team of fighters, would permit the candidates to murder each other? Much of the story describes Violet's battles with the threatening Barlowe. Even worse, Violet's wing leader is Xaden Riorson - a 3rd year candidate who is the son of Tyrrendorian parents who were executed for treason. Even worse, it was Violet's mother who led the troops that crushed the Tyrrendor rebellion and ordered the deaths of Xaden's parents. However, Xaden is so beautifully handsome that Violet cannot stop lusting ever him. Ever time he glances at her, Violet is smitten. Oh, those muscles! Oh, the handsome face! It's to swoon for! Bleah.

I assume that the relationship between Xander and Violet is why so many readers are enamored with this book. The dragons do not show much character or personality, barely even appearing in the first half of the book; they seem to just follow orders from their riders. The border of the kingdom is constantly threatened by gryphon-riders; somehow those villains are defeating the wards and attacking villages on the border. It is clear that soon the Fourth Wing will be rushed into battle...

I did not like Fourth Wing. I felt that the story could easily have been chopped down by 150 pages or so. I was bored by the endless Xander/Violet lust-fest (Oh that ideal body!). Although the second book, Iron Flame, is already published (it too is on the Seattle Times bestseller list), I will skip it. I was not impressed by the plot, character or world-building of Fourth Wing.