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4.44 AVERAGE
4.44 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
fast-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:
Complicated
The first of the Empyrean series following Violet Sorrengail as she learns to be a rider in her first year at Basgiath. The beginning of her love triangle with Dani and enemies-to-lovers with Xaden.
adventurous
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
Okay, I knew 20 pages in that this was going to be a hate read, but you know what? I actually didn't really hate it. It has a fast pace, lots of stuff happens, there are dragons and magic schools and some pretty boring sex scenes and it was a pretty fun ride.
It also wasn't good, though. Like, as a fantasy book it's kind of just embarrassing, and as a romance book it has too much plot and not enough character to be satisfying. The world building in this book is just atrocious. Nothing about it makes sense. The callousness that the magic school treats their dying riders with? So stupid. The fact that their first test is basically them walking out on a tiny ledge, where an ill timed gust of wind could send your best candidate sprawling to their death? Dumb. The fact that someone--anyone--thought it was a good idea to mercilessly kill these rebels and then group all of their traumatized children together with an identifying mark so they could all find each other without any problems and then proceed to give them exceptionally dangerous and powerful weapons in the form of dragons? Just indescribably stupid. And then they would put all the kids together to train and just let them indiscriminately kill each other? Like what the hell, guys? Aren't you supposed to be training these kids? All you're doing is letting the luckiest ones win and hey, if that's the whole point then sure, whatever, but I didn't get the feeling that that's what was happening here. It would have made way more sense if that were the case, like they're putting their faith in some god that favors fortune, but...yeah, that wasn't what was going on. The adults here were just seriously incompetent at their jobs and people really didn't care that these kids were killing each other for no reason.
And the romance. Ugh. We start off in love triangle territory and then the author just made Dain the most annoying human being to ever live. Which like, whatever, love triangles are stupid anyway, but why waste the time setting up the "childhood friend who I haven't seen for a while and who I always had a kind of crush on and who suddenly turned hot when I wasn't looking" thing if you're just going to make him an insufferable prick from the moment he's introduced? And Violet's relationship with Xaden (god, Xaden, what a dumb fucking name) was hardly any better. They barely had two conversations with each other that weren't them just posturing or Xaden proving how much cooler he was then Dain before every single interactions between them was just Violet losing her shit about how hot he was. And she did that A LOT.
Okay, and I'm not even going to talk about (no just kidding I am) how dumb it was that OF COURSE Violet bonded with the coolest dragon that hasn't been seen in like a hundred years or whatever, and then not even one but two! Because she's so special! Even though the little golden one (forgot its name already, sorry) was just there when the plot needed and we never really got a sense of who he/she was. Not like we got too much about the other dragon either, except that he was the coolest and most powerful (just like Xaden's the hottest and...well, the hottest) and for some reason he put up with Violet's shit talking. Yeah, these characters were not good. Their interactions together were not good. It's just a pity because there's so much here, so much that could have been awesome, and it just...wasn't.
And god Violet even had special hair. I CAN'T, I'm so embarrassed, like secondhand embarrassed that this even happened, god. She's definitely an anime protagonist, no doubt about it.
EDIT: ALSO? ALSO! I totally forgot...this is not enemies to lovers. I don't care what the tags say, this is not enemies to lovers and I'd better not hear anyone claiming that it is. Her mom killed his dad (which isn't enough in my book to be enemies...come back to me when Xaden kills her mom) but story wise he never really seemed to give a shit about their history and all that nonsense about him wanting to kill her was totally in her head. It was made up enemies to lovers. It was Violet projecting enemies to lovers. Which like, girl, I get it. But read the room here. You end up making out with that Jack Barlow guy and then we'll talk. (They were enemies but like...for no reason I could discern other than he needed to be for plot purposes. He still tried to seriously kill her though so it would have counted, unfortunately he got his face blasted off so that would be rather hard to do now)
It also wasn't good, though. Like, as a fantasy book it's kind of just embarrassing, and as a romance book it has too much plot and not enough character to be satisfying. The world building in this book is just atrocious. Nothing about it makes sense. The callousness that the magic school treats their dying riders with? So stupid. The fact that their first test is basically them walking out on a tiny ledge, where an ill timed gust of wind could send your best candidate sprawling to their death? Dumb. The fact that someone--anyone--thought it was a good idea to mercilessly kill these rebels and then group all of their traumatized children together with an identifying mark so they could all find each other without any problems and then proceed to give them exceptionally dangerous and powerful weapons in the form of dragons? Just indescribably stupid. And then they would put all the kids together to train and just let them indiscriminately kill each other? Like what the hell, guys? Aren't you supposed to be training these kids? All you're doing is letting the luckiest ones win and hey, if that's the whole point then sure, whatever, but I didn't get the feeling that that's what was happening here. It would have made way more sense if that were the case, like they're putting their faith in some god that favors fortune, but...yeah, that wasn't what was going on. The adults here were just seriously incompetent at their jobs and people really didn't care that these kids were killing each other for no reason.
And the romance. Ugh. We start off in love triangle territory and then the author just made Dain the most annoying human being to ever live. Which like, whatever, love triangles are stupid anyway, but why waste the time setting up the "childhood friend who I haven't seen for a while and who I always had a kind of crush on and who suddenly turned hot when I wasn't looking" thing if you're just going to make him an insufferable prick from the moment he's introduced? And Violet's relationship with Xaden (god, Xaden, what a dumb fucking name) was hardly any better. They barely had two conversations with each other that weren't them just posturing or Xaden proving how much cooler he was then Dain before every single interactions between them was just Violet losing her shit about how hot he was. And she did that A LOT.
Okay, and I'm not even going to talk about (no just kidding I am) how dumb it was that OF COURSE Violet bonded with the coolest dragon that hasn't been seen in like a hundred years or whatever, and then not even one but two! Because she's so special! Even though the little golden one (forgot its name already, sorry) was just there when the plot needed and we never really got a sense of who he/she was. Not like we got too much about the other dragon either, except that he was the coolest and most powerful (just like Xaden's the hottest and...well, the hottest) and for some reason he put up with Violet's shit talking. Yeah, these characters were not good. Their interactions together were not good. It's just a pity because there's so much here, so much that could have been awesome, and it just...wasn't.
And god Violet even had special hair. I CAN'T, I'm so embarrassed, like secondhand embarrassed that this even happened, god. She's definitely an anime protagonist, no doubt about it.
EDIT: ALSO? ALSO! I totally forgot...this is not enemies to lovers. I don't care what the tags say, this is not enemies to lovers and I'd better not hear anyone claiming that it is. Her mom killed his dad (which isn't enough in my book to be enemies...come back to me when Xaden kills her mom) but story wise he never really seemed to give a shit about their history and all that nonsense about him wanting to kill her was totally in her head. It was made up enemies to lovers. It was Violet projecting enemies to lovers. Which like, girl, I get it. But read the room here. You end up making out with that Jack Barlow guy and then we'll talk. (They were enemies but like...for no reason I could discern other than he needed to be for plot purposes. He still tried to seriously kill her though so it would have counted, unfortunately he got his face blasted off so that would be rather hard to do now)
fast-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
tense
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
3 STELLE
Avevo paura che questa lettura non mi piacesse, invece l'ho apprezzata abbastanza nonostante i vari punti negativi che ho trovato.
La trama non è originale ma è carina e sono curiosa di continuarla, i personaggi potevano essere caratterizzati meglio e, soprattutto, la storia d'amore poteva essere meno cringe. Vi giuro che ci sono anche dei lati positivi.
Avevo paura che questa lettura non mi piacesse, invece l'ho apprezzata abbastanza nonostante i vari punti negativi che ho trovato.
La trama non è originale ma è carina e sono curiosa di continuarla, i personaggi potevano essere caratterizzati meglio e, soprattutto, la storia d'amore poteva essere meno cringe. Vi giuro che ci sono anche dei lati positivi.
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
fast-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
An immensely enjoyable fantasy novel, formulaic in all the best and worst ways, Fourth Wing was an excellent world to immerse myself in for twenty hours of audiobook. I’m largely skipped over some of the racier scenes and descriptions, but there was plenty of intrigue around these moments to keep me hooked. As someone who doesn’t often read fantasy, I had a great time!