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A review by aeirana
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
2.0
2/5⭐️
DNF at page 100 (ish)
I won’t go into TOO much of a rant about why I rated this 2/5. All I can say is, I’m heartbroken.
The writing is terrible, I’m sorry. Way worse than Fourth Wing and that already was pretty juvenile but it was readable. I could ignore it most of the time because there was an intriguing plot.
It’s sad to say I now have to put this on the same shelf as JLA’s books.
Just as I feared, it’s 600 pages of nothing. I admit I did skim through past page 100 to see if plot goes anywhere. It doesn’t. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said the same. They are disappointed and I can see why.
In my opinion, the writing was one of the main reasons why I had to DNF but if there was a plot progressing, I wouldn’t have minded.
Not only was it boring, it felt like I was reading a story that was unedited. A first draft. I’m sorry if RY is your favourite author, or this is your favourite book. But I need to be honest about why I gave it such a rating.
And MOST IMPORTANTLY— I am mad and disappointed.
I LIKED fourth wing. I rated it bloody 3.5/5!! I saw SO much potential in this story. I wanted more politics, dragon lore, character development. But all we got was smut and badly written romance! I’m sorry but… Xaden and Violet’s “love story” is the most forced enemies to lovers romance I’ve ever read. The building tension that everyone kept going on about didn’t exist. They have NO chemistry. I wanted to like them. But to me, they felt stereotypical fantasy romance MC’s.
The only good character in my opinion was Dain. Finally a character with COMPLEXITY! A REAL character that could DEVELOP and GROW. I really wish we gave all the other characters some morally grey areas, some complexity and depth. Don’t get me started on Xaden and his “I’m a bad guy but I’m actually a good guy but no I’m actually a bad guy”. No. Dain is the only character where I felt any emotion reading, any interest. He’s selfish and righteous and a bit of a prideful jerk whose ego gets easily bruised. But you see some softness in him near Violet and he’s CONFLICTED. That’s how you write real people. People are complex. You can be an asshole while doing nice things, vice versa. I need real characters. Not stereotypes.
This story had so much potential.
I want to love fantasy romance, but I am coming to the realisation that many of the books in this genre are (in my opinion) not well written. And they definitely are not written for me.
I have read romance, I have read smut. But as an epic fantasy reader who loves politics and plot. Putting SO much smut and romance in a book (almost half of your page count) that has such an intriguing plot, magic system and dragon secrecy/lore seems SO wasteful. It seems insulting to yourself as a writer. Romance is important yes, but is it more important than the WAR that’s been hinted at the entire book? Is it more important than the dragons you’ve bonded with (but are hardly ever seen again after you banged the MMC) and are an integral part of this plot???
To me, no.
To RY, yes, smut and romance is much more important than world building and great storytelling.
Huge disappointment.
DNF at page 100 (ish)
I won’t go into TOO much of a rant about why I rated this 2/5. All I can say is, I’m heartbroken.
The writing is terrible, I’m sorry. Way worse than Fourth Wing and that already was pretty juvenile but it was readable. I could ignore it most of the time because there was an intriguing plot.
It’s sad to say I now have to put this on the same shelf as JLA’s books.
Just as I feared, it’s 600 pages of nothing. I admit I did skim through past page 100 to see if plot goes anywhere. It doesn’t. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said the same. They are disappointed and I can see why.
In my opinion, the writing was one of the main reasons why I had to DNF but if there was a plot progressing, I wouldn’t have minded.
Not only was it boring, it felt like I was reading a story that was unedited. A first draft. I’m sorry if RY is your favourite author, or this is your favourite book. But I need to be honest about why I gave it such a rating.
And MOST IMPORTANTLY— I am mad and disappointed.
I LIKED fourth wing. I rated it bloody 3.5/5!! I saw SO much potential in this story. I wanted more politics, dragon lore, character development. But all we got was smut and badly written romance! I’m sorry but… Xaden and Violet’s “love story” is the most forced enemies to lovers romance I’ve ever read. The building tension that everyone kept going on about didn’t exist. They have NO chemistry. I wanted to like them. But to me, they felt stereotypical fantasy romance MC’s.
The only good character in my opinion was Dain. Finally a character with COMPLEXITY! A REAL character that could DEVELOP and GROW. I really wish we gave all the other characters some morally grey areas, some complexity and depth. Don’t get me started on Xaden and his “I’m a bad guy but I’m actually a good guy but no I’m actually a bad guy”. No. Dain is the only character where I felt any emotion reading, any interest. He’s selfish and righteous and a bit of a prideful jerk whose ego gets easily bruised. But you see some softness in him near Violet and he’s CONFLICTED. That’s how you write real people. People are complex. You can be an asshole while doing nice things, vice versa. I need real characters. Not stereotypes.
This story had so much potential.
I want to love fantasy romance, but I am coming to the realisation that many of the books in this genre are (in my opinion) not well written. And they definitely are not written for me.
I have read romance, I have read smut. But as an epic fantasy reader who loves politics and plot. Putting SO much smut and romance in a book (almost half of your page count) that has such an intriguing plot, magic system and dragon secrecy/lore seems SO wasteful. It seems insulting to yourself as a writer. Romance is important yes, but is it more important than the WAR that’s been hinted at the entire book? Is it more important than the dragons you’ve bonded with (but are hardly ever seen again after you banged the MMC) and are an integral part of this plot???
To me, no.
To RY, yes, smut and romance is much more important than world building and great storytelling.
Huge disappointment.