Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Fourth wing - Tome 01

It’s a decent read. The plot and world building is mostly sound but not amazing. The characters are alright but tend to stay within their archetypes. The author explores some interesting concepts about war and punishment, but these deep thoughts are often pushed aside for the protagonist to tell us about her ongoing weakness or her developing desire for teammates. If these concepts were fully fleshed out this book could have an actual message to it. Speaking of Violet though, she’s our favourite fantasy protagonist - weak and underestimated but with a vicious tongue. The flicks back and forth like a metronome as to her capabilities, yes she was raised to be a scribe and she’s overall weak, but she has no problem threatening you like she could take it.

And apparently no issues throwing daggers? I don’t believe we ever learn why she is so good at that.

The only characters in this book that have any sort of interest or agency die. Which is tragic for the plot and for our beloved Violet but also for the reader as they are stuck with named shards of personality. Aurelie pissed me off when I first met her but the story about a trained legacy rider would be much more interesting than Violet’s nonsense. Oh and don’t forget she’s the special one, she’s bonded two dragons - one of them the biggest, baddest unbounded dragon out there - and she controls lightning. Oh and Brennan is alive because of course he is.

The pace to this book was good, I found myself wanting to read more, but don’t walk into this thinking it is the most well written. If you’re prepared to ignore some strange character behaviour and odd plot devices then you can go for it. I personally picked this up preparing for a trashy fantasy romance and that’s what I got. I am vaguely interested to see where Yarros takes Iron Flame but I won’t be purchasing it given she is a Zionist. It’s intriguing to me that you can write about war and injustices and your own message can still slip right over your head.

Content Warnings

ka_cam's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This is a good book if you want to turn off you brain, dissociate and pretend you haven’t read any YA fantasy from the last 15 years or so. The plot is predictable, writing not great, and characters flat, but that can be comforting in its way and I did finish it. I felt bad for how one dimensional Xaden and Dein were, and it felt stilted how the author randomly threw in a range of identities that had no real meaning in the world besides to make 2024 US readers feel like they were getting a ‘diverse’ book (though the treatment of Violet’s Ehlers-Danlos style condition was one of the more interesting threads, though also pretty predictable). World building in general left some to be desired. For me the sex scenes read like a high schooler fantasy, and the lusting was a bit tedious, but if it works for you it works for you!

Content Warnings

stephmcoakley's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

garbage_mcsmutly's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

bujo_bellel's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I LOVE THIS VERISON IT MAKES THE CHARACTERS SO MUCH BETTER and emphasises their tone and also I LOVE the background noises and music, really helps with the visualisation :D Really making me hate certain characters and fall in love with others even more!!! I honestly don't really like the voice actor for Tairn, but he's still a good VA, just not giving Tairn :( I LOVE Xaden's voice actor!! He's really giving me the feeels :) I'm still getting used to the VA for Violet because I'm used to Rebecca Soler lol, and I love her, but the VA for Violet here is good too, sounds younger. ALSO WHY DID IT END THERE I WAS EXPECTING ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE REVIEWS >:(

Content Warnings

mercerhanau's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

sjexley's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I need to preface this by saying that I read this for book club, but didn't get to finish the last 150pgs before we met. So I Googled the ending (!!) and subsequently ruined the book for myself. I did finish it later, and still had such an emotional reaction to it. This book was great! I did struggle through some of it but the spice was good, the characters were good and the twists! SO good. I am enjoying these baby steps into fantasy and cannot believe I read a book with a MAP. Happy to report that the hype is real for this one.

Content Warnings

zydecovivo's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

If you get fed any social media posts about books, you have probably heard about Fourth Wing. Admittedly, I went into reading this book thinking “Everyone is saying it’s a game changer, so it must be amazing” and I think that is the wrong way to start this, or any, book.

I’d like to start by saying it is good. If you like romantasy (fantasy+romance) with a touch of dystopia, you’ll have a great time reading Fourth Wing. The main character is also explicitly disabled and it is intertwined with her journey of self-discovery, as well as challenging the status quo of the society she is in. Based on the descriptions, I think she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I also love the dragons. They are characters in their own right, not just tools to be used. However, the entire time I was reading, I couldn’t help but tell myself “This is just Divergent with dragons.” The general plot is almost identical. Everything was predictable because of this and the only things that I didn’t predict were because something we were told was “impossible” was, in fact, possible for our super special main character. This occurs multiple times. I don’t even think it’s an unreliable narrator at that point. I think it’s an unreliable universe. The upper hand that Fourth Wing has over Divergent is that this fantasy setting allows for more creativity (and covering up for narrative mistakes). Additionally, I did not enjoy most of the main character’s “love life”. This is enemies-to-lovers, so much so that it is almost anti-friends-to-lovers. I don’t care about either trope, but the blatant comparisons get old. I also felt that the main character thinks about “spice” a lot more than I care for, especially considering the actual spice level of the book. There may be people who want to see this since women’s sexuality is largely swept aside in many stories. But this was not it for me.

Overall, this is a decent adult romantasy book and probably a good introduction to the genre for people who prefer epic fantasy stories. I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it. But it is not groundbreaking in the slightest and I’m not sure if I will continue the series.

Content Warnings

More...