Take a photo of a barcode or cover
shannon268 's review for:
Iron Flame
by Rebecca Yarros
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I can’t stand Violet and Xaden. Their relationship feels like it was written by someone with a middle school level comprehension of how adult romantic relationships work. All sex, no brakes; all fights, no resolutions. I wanted to rip my hair out. It feels like two people fighting for a rebellion and facing a lot of serious challenges should have a better grip on their emotional intelligence and be able to have a conversation. I don’t think they had a single conversation about their relationship that wasn’t a fight or a sex scene. That’s insane. More insane, that apparently some people love Xaden. Sorry to yuck someone’s yum, but I searched for it all 620 pages, and came up empty. What do y'all see that I don’t? The whole conflict of “I’ll tell you anything you ask” also really pisses me off, because Violet even says at some point that she doesn’t have the tools/information to ask the right questions. He felt extremely condescending to me, and started getting way too overprotective.
Violet’s whininess and stupidity had me wanting to throttle her. The whole conflict with Cat made me see red. Why would Rebecca Yarros choose to write such a spiteful, misogynistic woman? It felt so immature and furthered my extreme distaste of Yarros’ writing in general. Violet is not much better, somehow managing to both be a pick-me and a cringey badass. The whole miscommunication trope with Xaden set my teeth on edge, as she continued to insist that he didn’t love her and only cared about her wellbeing as connected to his own. I thought she was supposed to be smart. Speaking of smart, that is one thing this book made me feel. In comparison to Violet, I feel like a genius. I saw just about every plot twist coming, while it took Violet 20 pages to catch up. Also a testament to Yarros’ lack of ability to effectively foreshadow.
Yarros cannot write an action scene to save her life. Everytime the characters were in battle, I genuinely had no clue what was going on. It felt so jumpy and rushed that I had to reread a lot to see if I missed something (I didn’t, it was just written that way). Reading through the action was so confusing and added to my frustration with her writing.
The unsupported emotional reactions by Violet felt dissonant to me. Namely, her reaction to her mother dying. We have not been lead to believe that Violet feels any sort of love for her mother, as Yarros focuses only on how ruthless her mother was in their relationship, what her mother did as part of the fascist army, and how Violet lost her true parent when her father died. While it’s true her mother loved her and protected her in her own way, despair did not seem like an appropriate reaction based on the relationship of the characters that Yarros set up.
The twist had me feeling “okay, whatever.” I have no doubt it’ll be rectified in the next with some new mind bending way for Yarros to twist her worldbuilding. Just a note for writers of fantasy: the world you build, while yours to mold and imagine, still needs to hold up through the sequel and be explained to readers (what the fuck is a luminary). This is probably my harshest criticism of this book, because I had the same issues with the first, but gave it the benefit of the doubt to be explained later. It is now later, and I am disappointed. Frustrated, also, that Violet’s quirky trait of reciting history gives you the perfect chance to explain your world building, but you didn’t really take it.
I still have a lot of issues with the general premise of the military. Maybe I’ve been reading too many good books lately, but Yarros is clearly enamored with the military-highlighting camaraderie and heroism. But surprising to me, she doesn’t wholly ignore the criticisms, using the gryphon fliers as juxtaposition for Basgiath’s ruthless cruelty, and using the rebellion to showcase the control the military has over the dissemination of information and the doctoring of history. It still feels like she sees these as flaws of a good-faith system, and not an inherently flawed institution in itself. I doubt this will change, and I went into this knowing that, but it’s a distaste I have for Yarros’ own biases that I carry with me as I read.
The only things that interested me in this book were the dragons and the political plot. However, the political plot feels like it falls apart at the end of the book. The dragons are all to really keep reading for, and unfortunately just them alone are not enough to make this worth it.
Violet’s whininess and stupidity had me wanting to throttle her. The whole conflict with Cat made me see red. Why would Rebecca Yarros choose to write such a spiteful, misogynistic woman? It felt so immature and furthered my extreme distaste of Yarros’ writing in general. Violet is not much better, somehow managing to both be a pick-me and a cringey badass. The whole miscommunication trope with Xaden set my teeth on edge, as she continued to insist that he didn’t love her and only cared about her wellbeing as connected to his own. I thought she was supposed to be smart. Speaking of smart, that is one thing this book made me feel. In comparison to Violet, I feel like a genius. I saw just about every plot twist coming, while it took Violet 20 pages to catch up. Also a testament to Yarros’ lack of ability to effectively foreshadow.
Yarros cannot write an action scene to save her life. Everytime the characters were in battle, I genuinely had no clue what was going on. It felt so jumpy and rushed that I had to reread a lot to see if I missed something (I didn’t, it was just written that way). Reading through the action was so confusing and added to my frustration with her writing.
The unsupported emotional reactions by Violet felt dissonant to me. Namely, her reaction to her mother dying. We have not been lead to believe that Violet feels any sort of love for her mother, as Yarros focuses only on how ruthless her mother was in their relationship, what her mother did as part of the fascist army, and how Violet lost her true parent when her father died. While it’s true her mother loved her and protected her in her own way, despair did not seem like an appropriate reaction based on the relationship of the characters that Yarros set up.
The twist had me feeling “okay, whatever.” I have no doubt it’ll be rectified in the next with some new mind bending way for Yarros to twist her worldbuilding. Just a note for writers of fantasy: the world you build, while yours to mold and imagine, still needs to hold up through the sequel and be explained to readers (what the fuck is a luminary). This is probably my harshest criticism of this book, because I had the same issues with the first, but gave it the benefit of the doubt to be explained later. It is now later, and I am disappointed. Frustrated, also, that Violet’s quirky trait of reciting history gives you the perfect chance to explain your world building, but you didn’t really take it.
I still have a lot of issues with the general premise of the military. Maybe I’ve been reading too many good books lately, but Yarros is clearly enamored with the military-highlighting camaraderie and heroism. But surprising to me, she doesn’t wholly ignore the criticisms, using the gryphon fliers as juxtaposition for Basgiath’s ruthless cruelty, and using the rebellion to showcase the control the military has over the dissemination of information and the doctoring of history. It still feels like she sees these as flaws of a good-faith system, and not an inherently flawed institution in itself. I doubt this will change, and I went into this knowing that, but it’s a distaste I have for Yarros’ own biases that I carry with me as I read.
The only things that interested me in this book were the dragons and the political plot. However, the political plot feels like it falls apart at the end of the book. The dragons are all to really keep reading for, and unfortunately just them alone are not enough to make this worth it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Toxic relationship, War
Moderate: Death of parent, Murder