A review by toastyghosty13
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

4.0

I have really enjoyed this series so far and read this book in 5 days. If you like dragons, war, conspiracies, betrayal, magic, and romance, then this is a great series to read. The following is me bitching about how insane this book/series is.

I did find this book to have a lot more drastic changes between highs and lows of "it's going to be ok" and "absolute panic and stress" from the different events that happened compared to those in the first book. One in particular is the
end of the book, where you think everything is ending on a somewhat high note since they just finished the main climactic battle and it seems like most of the characters are relatively unscathed with the exception of 1-2. The last 2 sentences of the 65th chapter
completely obliterated that sense of security and absolutely ruined the rest of my day, probably the rest of my weekend. MAJOR EOB SPOILER
I cannot believe that we were left off with Xaden being on the cusp of turning into a venin and I sincerely hope that there is a way to cure him so we don't get an SJM type of switcheroo on the main love interest.


This book had a lot of different plotlines going on and almost too many different things happening. I almost feel like it would have been better as 2 separate books because of how much content there is and it definitely needs time to digest. Violet is trying her best to cope with so many things, and secrets that are unraveled that are unexpected and I do wish that there was more time to elaborate and sit with the consequences of these occurrences. This is partially due to the fact that this book is clearly being used to set the stage for the much bigger picture that was absent from the main plot and conspiracy reveals of Fourth Wing.

Although this book was used to set the stage further and show us that there is more to the main conspiracy than just
venin exist and the government knows about them
, it still answered a lot of questions that were raised from the previous book; there were still more questions raised than answered, though.

On a high note, I love how Violet is simultaneously the smartest and most powerful woman in the room, yet also
cannot stop thinking about climbing Xaden like a tree for literally no reason. Their relationship is unhinged in the best way possible and it's a goofy little time
.  It is so funny to me that they're in pressing times of war but who cares bc
hot shadow xaddy looked in her direction for a tenth of a second
.

This book completely fukt the rest of my weekend up. RY please finish writing the rest of the series so I can stop panicking about my fave main power couple and their future together. This is a great series and I recommend if you like magical world building and dragons, and don't mind a bit of romance
even if I thought too much of this book was spent figuring out their dynamic with all the secrets being kept
.
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