Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Quarta Asa

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Quarta Asa by Rebecca Yarros

718 reviews

zakcebulski's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Fourth Wing ... What can I say?
This book is one of those that is taking the internet, specifically TikTok by storm and it is easy to see why!
I was recommended this book by my girlfriend who had devoured it in two days flat. She is a fast reader anyway, but, this was something special.
So, I read it and took much longer to read- to her dismay as she wanted to talk about it as quickly as possible.

I will not be covering the entire story, as I hardly ever do. This book follows Violet Sorrengail- the daughter of a high ranking General who is famous (or, infamous) for putting down a rebellion that was taking place in Navarre- the land where the story takes place.
Violet is a very smart individual who has aspirations of becoming a Scribe- one of the roles that is up for choosing in this world, along with Healers and the Riders- literal dragon riders, which is pretty hype.

General Sorrengail forces Violet to go the Rider's quadrant- she will not have a Scribe daughter.
So, in an effort to follow in her older sister Mira's and deceased brother's Brennan's footsteps as Riders.
This is a plot set up that we have seen before- a character who is greatly out of their depths jumping feet first into a scenario where they should not flourish.
Along the way we are introduced to many other characters- Dain, a childhood friend of Violet's who is a dickhead, Rhiannon and Ridoc, Liam and.... Xaden Riorson.
Xaden is the son of the man who attempted to start a revolution to overthrow the government of Navarre and was executed by Violet's mother for his act of attempted secession and treason.

Over the course of the book we are shown the world that Yarros created here, which is interested, but feels well-treaded.
The classes and sparring that take place have the potential to be interesting but are... boring? Ill developed? Not sure, I would have liked a little bit more discussion into them, however.

The most interesting section is the Threshing which is where we are taught about how potential riders are able to link and bond with dragons, which, again, is fucking sweet- who doesn't like goddamn dragons??!?!

At this time Violet bonds with two dragons, which is absolutely unheard of throughout history. Not only that, but, she bonds with Tairn- who is the strongest dragon and a younger dragon Andorna (sp?).
Now, we learn that if a dragon dies, the rider dies as well, and, the dragons are able to channel their energy through the rider and grant them special powers. Cryokinesis, slowing time, reading minds, etc. I will say that the powers are enough of a variety on the standard powers that you may see that they are pretty interesting.

After the Threshing we learn further that Xaden's dragon Sgaeyl is bonded to Tairn, which links Xaden to Violet and dun dun dun!!!!! Violet ends up in bed with the enemy who is not the enemy, whodathunk?
I will be honest, I didn't expect for a second that Xaden and Violet were actually going to be at odds with each other throughout the book. From his very introduction it was clear to me that she and he would end up together, and boy howdy do they end up together.

The absolutely graphic sex scenes in this book are... alot to read... to the point where my apparently prudish ass could have done with them being stripped (wrong word) back a little bit... I had heard that there were sex scenes, but good heavens.
I am good on reading about the cock being at one's opening or talk about clits for a while.

I have to commend Yarros' writing when it comes to action set pieces- she clearly, to me, has a knack for writing amazing and awe inspiring action. There are several fast paced action scenes that if done with any less finesse would have come off as very sloppy, but, Yarros absolutely nails it and I think that this is something that should be talked about more.

One thing I do have to take a little bit of objection with is some more of the cliches that I saw in this book.
When this book started and Violet was a nerdy character I would have put all of my money on her being exquisite with knives as her weapon- and wouldn't you know it? That is exactly what happened. This is jsut one example of things that I have seen before that felt like they were well worn.

I also wish that the constant use of adjectives and some clunky dialogue would have been parsed through a little bit. I mean the constant reference to people being ruthless is overdone. What makes this worth mentioning is that Yarros absolutely has the pen game necessary to show the ruthlessness and brutality of characters- show, don't tell! I think that this would have opened up the character development to be even more nuanced and well done.

That leads me to the characters. To be honest, I think that the characters are likable when they are supposed to be, and they are abhorrent when they are supposed to be. There is very little gray in this book that isn't resolved pretty quickly. The character who has the most intrigue is Dain's bitchass, as he is a very... rules above all type of character. He even gives me incel type vibes, which is icky as fuck.
I think that the characters are serviceable to move the story along but I do hope that they are fleshed out more in the future installments of this series.

Also, is there any credence to Dain's powers being a subversive type and his high government standing? It run a very unsettling parallel to the real world where people in power use their power to get things like sex from the less powerful. An interesting potential reading on a power dynamic.

Overall, I thought that the world that Rebecca Yarros erected here was interesting, if a little less fleshed out than would have liked. I can say the same for the characters- as soon as Violet and Xaden were introduced it was evident that they were going to both survive this book and would end up together. The side characters could also get a bit more fleshing out to make their stories more impactful, in my opinion.
I will definitely be reading the sequel, when it comes out, but I just hope that it takes more risks and does more that we haven't seen before.
Rebecca Yarros is a strong fantasy author, and I hope that she continues building on the strong foundation that she has started.

Content Warnings

natreadthat's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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: No

I finally read it! Was it overhyped? Maybe. Did I text all of my friends who read it, listen to two podcasts on theories almost immediately after finishing, and preorder the next book? Yes.

I’ve mentioned before that my love for reading started with the Eragon series. So it was almost a guarantee that I would love this book for the dragons. Well here I am loving it for the bonds with said dragons, the magical-military school, smoldering sexual tension, representation that didn’t feel forced, detailed world building, and the twists and turns along the way. Plus, it definitely straddled the line between young adult and new adult, which made the characters more relatable.

Here’s to binging the sequel!

Content Warnings

eberzy's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Well that was an absolute vibe.

Unique world and storyline complete with all of those addictive tropes. Was the mind to mind communication, segregated career school, shadow-wielding powers, and tattooed bodies among other things unoriginal? Absolutely, but they all make sense to the world in a way that is acceptable to me. The dragon abilities and banter are unexpectedly awesome. Love the chronic illness representation. There were and are a lot of kept secrets and hidden clues that made this so fun to read and set up a lot of excitement for the rest of this series. This will be a fun one to theorize about. Pre-ordered the next book even before finishing.

Content Warnings

blucbell's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I LOVE THIS BOOK! the way that most of the words in this book are just too heavy to process and less expansive that i was unable to fully immerse myself in the world-building, yet the story become more enjoyable the further i read. I'M INSANE in chapter 31 when they throw dirty talks to each other 🤧

Content Warnings

meeklovestoread's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging emotional funny 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

I fell victim to the book Instagram/YouTube hype and the hype for this book is massive. I've never seen a book get this hyped up this much and when I see a book get hyped up to the degree that this book has it immediately turns me off from it cuz usually they let me down, but I'm sooooo happy to say that I really liked this book! I enjoyed everything about it. It was so entertaining and I was completely invested in Violet and her journey to becoming a rider. Honestly what kept this from being a 5-star was the fact that I found the world-building to be confusing at times (the gauntlet 😂)and there was a bit of a lull part in the middle, but it picks up.

I loved the characters and I surprisingly loved Xaiden (I'm really not too big on morally grey characters, but he was great). I can't wait to learn more about him and his past (as well as learn about his cousins). Can't wait for book 2!

Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 (just in case someone wants to know or isn't too fond of explicit scenes like that in books; it is more in the later chapters and it's only in a chapter or two, I think, however, stuff like that [hooking up and what not] is still talked about throughout the book; just a heads up)

I love love LOVED Violet's relationship with her dragons. Oh my gosh, I got so excited when I read that she bonded with not one, but TWO dragons, like Go, Violet. But anyway, I love how protective Tairn is of Violet; and I love his personality; he is such a grump and I love it! And I love love loved Andarna! She's so cute and I love how protective Violet is toward her.

I'd like to put this out there, but I don't hate Dain. I'm not particularly fond of him, but I don't hate him and quite honestly I feel like he's a bit overhated. I'm just going based on this book, but Dain is not a bad person, he's just a rule-following idiot who fell victim to what he's been taught. And I am in no way defending his actions. Him looking through Violet's memories and indirectly getting her friends killed (Liam especially 😢💔) was so uncalled for and I don't think I can forgive him for that. As well as him not believing her about the traitor. And I don't like how much he would put her down and not believe in her and kept pushing her to the scribe quadrant. But he's still Violet's best friend and although his methods were unorthodox I do believe they were coming from a good place. He's a 2nd year if I remember correctly so he's probably seen countless riders get killed every day and he knows Violet isn't necessarily physically gifted so it's understandable that he was adamant about getting her out of there. However, yes, he most definitely should've been more supportive of her when she decided that she wanted to stay. Overall, I do think he can be redeemed. I just hope he learns the error of his ways. And I hope the author does his character justice and doesn't perform some sort of character assassination on him like countless of authors have done before.😒; (also side note but I'm so glad Jack died, I couldn't stand if he was in the series for any longer than he was); oh and I guessed the twist, I knew her brother was alive😂

Content Warnings

athenian_frog's review against another edition

2.0

adventurous challenging tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

*I listened to the audiobook for most of this story before reading the rest online*

+ Besides voicing the bigger male dragon, the audiobook was solid. The feminine narrator did a great job communicating emotion in action and during tense scenes.

+ The action scenes were fun to read, usually.

+ the actual concept with dragons, dragon bonding, was actually pretty interesting!

Other than that, I had a hard time finishing the book :(

- The characters just don’t do that much growing, if ANY. The main character’s motivation to change her study trajectory is purely out of being forced to go training by her mother. I saw very little organic self motivation to become a dragon rider until the latter half of the book. The side characters were also not fleshed out at ALL.

- we never find out why the mother wanted to send the main character, who suffers from chronic pain, to try and ride a dragon. I don’t know why she spent so long letting her daughter train as a scribe before suddenly making another decision.

- we don’t get to know the main character at all outside of the war college, which ends up setting no precedent to what she was like before entering a life changing, dangerous experience (a good set up for character development that was NOT taken)

- There were several opportunities to add depth to the story and characters and Yarros took none of them.

- LGBTQIA+ people and people of color are included but they have very little substance to them.

- In fact, the guy who wants Violet (protagonist) dead the most doesn’t even seem to have a proper reason to want to kill her; he is just evil like that, I guess?

- Conceptualizing the world was very difficult, because we as the reader have 0 help except through awkward information dumping. It feels very tedious to read, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t even tell you what kind of technological period they’re in. Religion is also very underdeveloped.

- the other quadrants (healing, scribing, infantry) were very underutilized, and were not very detailed

- the protagonist seems stupendously lucky. Will not spoil here but expect major chosen one/main character privileges. She is constantly complimented for being the smartest, but we see very little evidence of this.

- while at a killing school, in a culture that is weirdly very permissive of killing, Violet is extremely sensitive about killing people! Not even innocents, people who are ACTIVELY trying to end her life.

- Violet is disabled but this disability is rarely mentioned, and its applications are barely referenced. There is a consensus of “pushing through” your disability to prevail instead of working with it, which feels a bit insensitive.

- there are enough cliche’s and contrivances in the book where it starts to hurt the “turn off your brain to have fun” experience, even. Many elements are foreshadowed in a poor/hamfisted way, and conflict often feels artificially incited/blown up.

- we know very little about supporting cast and how they each became close to Violet is not very well developed.

- the romance between Violet and her love interest is plainly just lust. I found very little emotional connection between them before the story was trying to pass it off as a deep, swoon worthy romance. On top of all of my issues with Violet, this made the sex scenes impossible to care for. This is part of a multi book series, so some time to stretch out the romance emotionally would have done wonders.

- romance and romantic scenes involve a lot of emphasis on skinny, pale, fragile main woman and the big, tan, intimidating male love interest. The reminders that he could hurt her were overused and not appealing. Personally I have grown tired of this dynamic. I would have liked to see them working together more/Violet making smart moves ahead of him/them actually BONDING in not a strictly sexual sense.

- calling this enemies to lovers is generous. The main pairing certainly had the potential to be enemies but it’s more like “bad first impression to lovers”

All in all, I desperately wanted to enjoy this book. It looks beautiful and I was very excited to read something involving dragons for the first time in a looooong time. The issues kept mounting and eventually it made flaws that were less noticeable glaringly evident.

If you loved this book I’m overjoyed for you! It’s a really cool concept, and I’ve heard others who are able to overlook most of this to just sit in the vibes.

I just think that this FANTASY ROMANCE really could have used more work in all aspects of FANTASY and ROMANCE. Both were so undeveloped here that it was almost disrespectful. On top of that, it is geared towards a “New Adult,” older than YA audience, so I was expecting at least a LITTLE more nuance here.

Thank you for reading my two cents!

Please consider the warnings listed below!

Content Warnings

lamoore72's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I would do more world, war, and character development.

Content Warnings

mattiedancer's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Writing: 3⭐️/5

The writing was there. I’m a big quote person. Generally, I write down at least one quote from every novel I read, one line that just felt so beautiful and powerful I can’t resist putting it in my notes app to look back on it later. I don’t have a single one for this book. And that’s not to say it’s poorly written. It’s more of the opposite: it was well-written, but unremarkable. It existed to serve both the plot and the characters and, while that means there was nothing terribly wrong with the writing, it was not the book’s strong point either.

Beyond that, I believe the novel started at maybe the worst possible start. I either needed more of Violet’s life before joining the Riders or less. I had a sliver of it, and it served only to push back the action without doing any concrete service to the characters or the plot.

Characters: 4⭐️/5

Alright. Xader is amazing. Love him. Perfection, don’t change a thing. Our main character, Violet or Violence: she’s very awesome, but I felt like her inconsistencies as a character were pushed off as ‘character growth.’ I saw no scribe here, despite everyone’s insistence that there was one. I saw a nerdy girl with a love of reading, but not a scribe, and it bothered me for the first half of the novel, despite loving the strengthening and self-improvement of our MC. The side characters felt forgotten at times and well-fleshed out at others. And Dain. He’s believable to a point, but I really had a hard time taking him seriously after a while because he was too easy to hate. I wanted a bit more out of him. But also, I had fun with the characters, and I’m pretty sure most fantasy-novel lovers would, too.

Plot: 3.5⭐️/5

A world with a strict government that is allowing the death of many innocents. A girl who is exceptional in her powers, despite looking small and weak. A rebellion alliance that is gaining traction. A love interest who is forced upon our main character. It’s a lot of things I’ve seen before, and a lot of things I’ve seen before together. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun reading the plot, but I found myself often a bit bored with the tropes and overused plot points. At one point I found myself wondering why we can’t have a functional government in fantasy novels. After all, it is fantasy. And the fact that I spent a portion of the novel daydreaming is probably not the best evidence for a fully engaging and exciting plot.

World: 4.5⭐️/5

Can’t help but add a whole category to my review process in order to tell you about this world. I was intrigued and enthralled by this world. I loved the dragons and, even more, I loved that the dragons rule this world. I enjoyed the powers, the explanation of the academy, and the vibrancy of the processes the dragon riders had to undergo. I tired a bit of the exceptionalism of the world – I don’t need an explanation of fertility suppressants, personally. We can just call birth control, birth control – but otherwise, I found it fun, exciting, and intriguing.

Who Should Read This Book?

Fans of ACOTAR & TOG
Fans of dragon-centered books
Readers not deterred by a few tropes and predictable plots
Someone looking for a fast and fun fantasy read

Content Warnings?

Death, sexual content, death of parent, grief, torture, murder, fire/fire injury, blood, ableism, violence, war, bullying

Post-Reading Rating: 4.25⭐️/5

Will read the next book; however, I am not excited for us to pretend to be mad at the main love interest for the first bit.

Final Rating: 4⭐️/5

Content Warnings

little_sprite's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This book had me conflicted. I almost DNF'd during the beginning because the writing wasn't great, but I kept going after some urging from a friend who had already finished it. The narrations and dialogue felt a bit forced and childish, which wasn't a good look for a book with so many sex scenes. The main character was supposed to be 20, but I wouldn't have been surprised if she was 14 with the way she acted. And don't get me started on the way everyone couldn't stop mentioning how weak and petite the MC was (

which of course didn't stop her from bonding not only the biggest dragon that everyone wanted, but an unheard of second dragon that's not supposed to bond anyone

) Now all that being said, once I was halfway through I became pretty engrossed and finished the book in one day. The story and worldbuilding are pretty inventive and make for an interesting read, but the characters make it rough to get into. If you can get past that though, you'll probably like it.

Content Warnings

caitielusbooknook's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

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