Fourth Wing — Rebecca Yaros

I really, really enjoyed Fourth Wing.

For the longest time, it had been marketed as “all the spice,” which isn’t my thing at all, but when I found out it was like two short scenes and nothing crazy (lol), I picked up a copy. Those tiny scenes might have been hyped to hell on the spice level, but the book itself was a thrill to read. It hooked me from the first page and didn’t let go. I read it in a day and have a book hangover.

The setup was wonderful, and I was absolutely enamored with the dragons. Violet is a fun, hot mess of a main character, and I loved seeing her derp her way through war college… a sentence I never thought I would write, yet here we are. I loved that she didn’t become the BEST WARRIOR EVER after like two weeks of classes, when she had been preparing to be a scribe her entire life. I was afraid that was where it was going at first, but once I saw her fail at things, spectacularly, my mind was at ease.

Basically, Violet has the energy of someone thrown in the deep end and YOLO-ing her way to land. She is constantly flailing and making things up as she goes along, and I’m all here for it.

For the first 3/4 of the book, the hidden tensions between Violet and Xaden were all right. This takes a lot for me to admit, but for the first 300 or so pages, it wasn’t overdone. There is attraction, and you know where it’s headed, but we also focus on other things, like dragons and war college and deadly trials. The worldbuilding unfolds splendidly as the book goes along.

The only thing that didn’t work for me at all was uh, in the last 1/4, after things… happened. That was when the longing got too much for me. But I put on my skimming goggles and got through it quickly. I also acknowledge this sort of thing is not my cup of tea in general, so it’s complete personal preference.

With that in mind, the last chapters of the book kind of stumbles because of it (for me, personally), but still sticks the landing. I mean, this book has been hyped for its spice and all that. It would be dumb to knowingly read a romance and complain there is romance, so just take the last point as me being curmudgeonly.

Whatever, Fourth Wing was a blast to read!