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A review by v_larr
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
2.0
Oh boy. Okay.
I wasn't even going to read this book because I don't trust BookTok at all but I saw an opportunity (seven day loan at the library) and I thought, "Why not?"
Yeah it's overdue now. And I wish I never took it out.
The one phrase I would use to describe this book is "wasted potential." There were so many aspects that I absolutely adored, and the premise was, for the most part, really interesting! There were many moments where I was really captivated and intrigued!
But...overall...this reads like a YA book that was told last minute it could be NA. I guess I can see why it appealed to TikTok so much. Let's get into it.
The Good
1) The representation
Violet, the protagonist, is disabled. I think she has connective tissue disorder, based on the author's personal experiences. I really like how this was done throughout the book. Normally in YA, the protagonist (normally a girl) is weak for x reason. I mean, if they start off as a weakling then you get to see their progress as they grow physically and mentally. Character development and whatnot. But I like it a lot more in this case because they really lean into the subtle ableism that exists in these types of novels. The rhetoric of "only the strong survive" just throws disabled people under the bus and honestly? Gives hints of eugenics. It's something that I didn't even realize until I read this book, and I think it's something that should be talked about. And this book really has a lot of that. Violet, above all else, has to fight this ableist society. She's immediately targeted as "the weakest one" and is therefore subject to bullying, harassment, and even attempted murder! Despite the fact that she is able to fulfill the tasks and do well in classes. And later on in the book, she is given accommodations so that she can survive the dragon fights. Something that no one has done before, and who knows how many lives could've been saved if they tried to prevent accidents rather than just blaming the victims for their own misfortunes? All of this, as well as the casual mentions of how she deals with it (there was a line that stood out to me, someone told her they didn't want her to be in pain and she responded that she's always in pain, she's just used to it now) were very eye-opening.
I also enjoyed the casual queer representation, I assume in this universe it doesn't have history similar to irl so they can just have it like it's entirely normal and that's really refreshing. I love when no homophobia!!
2) The worldbuilding/plot/premise
I get a lot of Divergent/Iron Widow/The Selection/The Hunger Games vibes from the premise of this book. They're doing schooling/training to be able to fight in this war but as it turns out, nothing is as it seems. And maybe the enemy isn't who they think it is. It's pretty basic and pretty predictable, but it's a winning combo for a reason, and frankly I'm not against it.
3) The dragons
I LOVE DRAGONS. I LOVE THEM. I INITIALLY GOT THIS BOOK BECAUSE I SAW A REEL SAYING THIS BOOK HAD HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON VIBES. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. I mean that reel was a huge lie, but the dragons delivered! They were so fun and menacing and I like them a lot!! :) They're the reason for 1.5 of these stars to be honest!
4) The pacing
They did not hesitate. This book just went by quickly. If it was well written I would've devoured it in one sitting
5) Surprisingly enough, the sex scenes
They weren't the worst. They weren't the best. But I always say give one star for condoms! They had an in-universe equivalent to birth control that tbh I would love to learn about the physiology of it. But whatever. It didn't feel too pornographic, and I know that's a low standard but I've been done dirty by sex in books before.
6) Dain
I thought this book would have a love triangle, but it really doesn't. Although it appears as such, there's so many microaggressions from Dain (the "nice one") that just get worse and worse throughout the book. Kind of turns that character archetype on its head because you think oh, the childhood best friend, he must be really kind or whatever. But he's just an ableist jackass hiding behind the idea of protectiveness. And it gets worse and worse that he's a stickler for the rules. By the end of the book, it's established that he never was a good person. And I thought that was done really well.
The Bad
This can be chalked down to Violet as a narrator and protagonist. She was this book's downfall.
1) The writing style
The writing in this book was incredibly juvenile. This is why I say it's like a YA that got turned to NA last minute. This book could not find a balance between action and internal monologue. The best way to describe it is that a lot of comments she'd make were like the kind of comments I would make as a reader. She'd describe something, and then make a snide comment about it that just felt out of place. Maybe I'd think it as someone who's reacting to the book, but having the narrator say it just felt weird. She'd say a lot things like "So. Fucking. Hot." Which would really ruin the vibe. The issue is all this commentary is just not funny and really distracts from the plot. It also feels very "showy not telly." I don't want her to tell me she thinks something is funny. I want to read about how it makes her laugh. The fact is, this might be one of the biggest contributors to my low rating. If it just wasn't executed in such an immature way I would've enjoyed it a lot more. I didn't write as much here as I did in the "good" section, but that's because I really can't explain in words how utterly annoying it was. It was awful. All my homies in book club understand.
2) The main character complex
I mentioned earlier how Violet kind of has a target on her back. It's for many reasons. For one, she's the daughter of this hotshot general, and a lot of rebels hate that general for killing their parents, so they hate her. That's another reason why people hate her. The biggest problem I found was that every man either hated her or wanted to fuck her. The only ones that didn't, uhhh they were either almost entirely irrelevant or....well....
I mean, she has silver hair. Like she has dark hair that just ends up silver at the bottom. HUH?????? AND YOU WANT ME TO BELIEVE THIS ISN'T YOUNG ADULT??
And it's almost like it's her + two people against the entire world. But like, I don't like the idea of someone who's only mistake was exist and then everyone hates them. Like, okay, and? And then she bonded with the strongest dragon of them all and I'm like duh. She's actually goated and everyone just hates her and whatever. Obviously. She's so Main Character.
The biggest contributor to this was Jack. GOD that man should've died right at the beginning. He's like this looming threat because he's super bloodthirsty and a total jackass (see what I did there). But he wasn't threatening, he was genuinely just annoying. Everyone else was quite annoying, but he was just. Like I almost skipped his scenes because I knew he was pretty irrelevant.
3) The romance
This was also the worst part of this book. I get the sense that this would've been a lot of people's favourite part. And people are wrong. We as a society need to move on from such crappy romance storylines. Please raise your standards, ladies! We deserve better!
3a. A sorry attempt at enemies-to-lovers
The main romance is between Violet and Xaden, the son of like, the leader of the rebellion. Naturally it would make sense for him to hate her because her mom killed his dad or something like that. Right when he's introduced, her sister tells her to stay away from him. And that's the big tell that they're gonna end up dating. The enemies part was so ridiculous because it was just him going all snarkily like "hehe I'm gonna kill youuuuu" (get in line) and she was like "ugh he's so hot but he's gonna kill me oh no!!!" It was done quite awfully I didn't feel the stakes behind the enemies part. But then some stuff happens and suddenly he owes her for not snitching on him so he can't kill her anymore. And then when she bonds with her dragon it turns out her dragon is, and I cannot stress this enough, mated to his dragon. So if he dies, she dies, and vice versa. So now he has a reason to keep her alive. UGH! That's so....I found it ridiculous. I would've liked it if he had an internal dilemma about wanting to kill her vs if she dies he dies. But it's also revealed that he liked her before the dragon thing, but. Man, I miss good enemies to lovers. Maybe I'll reread Pride and Prejudice.
3b. Objectification
This was another one of the biggest reasons why I hated this book. It's a very similar problem to The Spanish Love Deception. And another reason why I wonder if I'm somehow asexual because I don't think attraction should be written the way it was in this book. As mentioned earlier, it was written in a very....como se dice....like she's just telling us she thinks he's hot. And she'd describe him to such an unnecessary extent before just talking about how hot he is. And it was purely physical. She deadass rejects the other guy because there's no intense sexual attraction the way she has with this guy. But that attraction just felt sooooo gross. It was purely physical and overdone to the point where I couldn't stand her anymore.
There is unironically a line where she goes "We probably shouldn't be objectifying him, right? Oh, it should be fine!" GIRL. NO???????? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.
She's also very self aware, constantly saying things like "I need to get laid." in response to her degenerate thoughts. That does not make it better. That makes it worse. Either get laid, or get off porn and learn to interact with people without objectifying them. I just felt bad for Xaden because she unironically needs someone to tell her "it's not like you know anything about him" for her to realize, oh, maybe I should get to know him as a human being rather than just a walking talking dildo.
It just felt so gross and I don't think we should be normalizing that kind of behaviour. I definitely understand the horniness, listen, I get it, but the way she treated him was so....icky.....Like you know if he was saying this stuff about her it would be more obvious how gross it is.
3c. The toxicity
I've talked about how toxic she was, so I'll just comment on him now. There are some moments where I really did like him! I thought he'd be an intimidating-looking kind guy. Not a softy, but a good person beside that intimidating exterior. Does that make sense? Like the tough-guy would be in conjunction with the good-guy. But he was incredibly controlling. There's a point where she deadass says "it's way out of line, and overly controlling, but kind of sweet." And I'm like GIRL HUH? RAISE YOUR STANDARDS. And there were times where he'd use her attraction to him against her. Like, maybe the intentions were right but ew???? And he'd say some emo crap to push her away and I'm like dude I'd get it if you were a teen but you are 23. The problem was also that once they kissed or....I think after they had sex for the first time he was like we can't be together cause I'm emotionally unavailable and she was like well I can't fuck without emotions attached so they kinda just...were like ok we won't do that again. But then she kept pushing him? Like she kept trying to screw him anyways and I'm like you're disgusting. They just gave me the biggest ick.
3d. Romantasy.
The worst part was that the romance was soooooo in your face. The book would switch from action scenes to horny scenes. No balance at all. And the action scenes had too much horny commentary too. It doesn't count as a romantasy. More like a lustantasy. They "fell in love" too quickly imo. She spent way too much time thinking horny thoughts and it was incredibly distracting from the rest of the plot. It was absolutely awful. Again, just take away this part, or change it to be actually intriguing, and it would've been loads better.
4) Too many names.
There were such a huge cast that when important things happened to certain people I wouldn't even know if I was supposed to be sad or not because I got them all confused. All I remember is Rhiannon and Liam tbh.
5) Dain.
This man was absolutely insufferable. He was so annoying. I can excuse being a bad person, but I draw the line at being annoying. He was well written in the way I said earlier, the problem was he was too repetitive at the beginning. He kept trying to get Violet to ditch the Rider's quadrant and it was fine the first three times but after twenty attempts I was just sick of it.
The worst part is that the end of the book was incredible. The reveals, the way the foreshadowing from the beginning of the book just fit into place, the action, it was really phenomenal. But that was the last 50 pages. I'm really upset. And it ended on a (frankly predictable) cliffhanger. And I'm really intrigued with how the rest of the story will go! But I found the writing and voice so insufferable that it's just not worth it.
To whoever said this had vibes similar to HTTYD, I hate you. This book is just Divergent if it was super horny and had dragons.
I wasn't even going to read this book because I don't trust BookTok at all but I saw an opportunity (seven day loan at the library) and I thought, "Why not?"
Yeah it's overdue now. And I wish I never took it out.
The one phrase I would use to describe this book is "wasted potential." There were so many aspects that I absolutely adored, and the premise was, for the most part, really interesting! There were many moments where I was really captivated and intrigued!
But...overall...this reads like a YA book that was told last minute it could be NA. I guess I can see why it appealed to TikTok so much. Let's get into it.
The Good
1) The representation
Violet, the protagonist, is disabled. I think she has connective tissue disorder, based on the author's personal experiences. I really like how this was done throughout the book. Normally in YA, the protagonist (normally a girl) is weak for x reason. I mean, if they start off as a weakling then you get to see their progress as they grow physically and mentally. Character development and whatnot. But I like it a lot more in this case because they really lean into the subtle ableism that exists in these types of novels. The rhetoric of "only the strong survive" just throws disabled people under the bus and honestly? Gives hints of eugenics. It's something that I didn't even realize until I read this book, and I think it's something that should be talked about. And this book really has a lot of that. Violet, above all else, has to fight this ableist society. She's immediately targeted as "the weakest one" and is therefore subject to bullying, harassment, and even attempted murder! Despite the fact that she is able to fulfill the tasks and do well in classes. And later on in the book, she is given accommodations so that she can survive the dragon fights. Something that no one has done before, and who knows how many lives could've been saved if they tried to prevent accidents rather than just blaming the victims for their own misfortunes? All of this, as well as the casual mentions of how she deals with it (there was a line that stood out to me, someone told her they didn't want her to be in pain and she responded that she's always in pain, she's just used to it now) were very eye-opening.
I also enjoyed the casual queer representation, I assume in this universe it doesn't have history similar to irl so they can just have it like it's entirely normal and that's really refreshing. I love when no homophobia!!
2) The worldbuilding/plot/premise
I get a lot of Divergent/Iron Widow/The Selection/The Hunger Games vibes from the premise of this book. They're doing schooling/training to be able to fight in this war but as it turns out, nothing is as it seems. And maybe the enemy isn't who they think it is. It's pretty basic and pretty predictable, but it's a winning combo for a reason, and frankly I'm not against it.
3) The dragons
I LOVE DRAGONS. I LOVE THEM. I INITIALLY GOT THIS BOOK BECAUSE I SAW A REEL SAYING THIS BOOK HAD HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON VIBES. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. I mean that reel was a huge lie, but the dragons delivered! They were so fun and menacing and I like them a lot!! :) They're the reason for 1.5 of these stars to be honest!
4) The pacing
They did not hesitate. This book just went by quickly. If it was well written I would've devoured it in one sitting
5) Surprisingly enough, the sex scenes
They weren't the worst. They weren't the best. But I always say give one star for condoms! They had an in-universe equivalent to birth control that tbh I would love to learn about the physiology of it. But whatever. It didn't feel too pornographic, and I know that's a low standard but I've been done dirty by sex in books before.
6) Dain
I thought this book would have a love triangle, but it really doesn't. Although it appears as such, there's so many microaggressions from Dain (the "nice one") that just get worse and worse throughout the book. Kind of turns that character archetype on its head because you think oh, the childhood best friend, he must be really kind or whatever. But he's just an ableist jackass hiding behind the idea of protectiveness. And it gets worse and worse that he's a stickler for the rules. By the end of the book, it's established that he never was a good person. And I thought that was done really well.
The Bad
This can be chalked down to Violet as a narrator and protagonist. She was this book's downfall.
1) The writing style
The writing in this book was incredibly juvenile. This is why I say it's like a YA that got turned to NA last minute. This book could not find a balance between action and internal monologue. The best way to describe it is that a lot of comments she'd make were like the kind of comments I would make as a reader. She'd describe something, and then make a snide comment about it that just felt out of place. Maybe I'd think it as someone who's reacting to the book, but having the narrator say it just felt weird. She'd say a lot things like "So. Fucking. Hot." Which would really ruin the vibe. The issue is all this commentary is just not funny and really distracts from the plot. It also feels very "showy not telly." I don't want her to tell me she thinks something is funny. I want to read about how it makes her laugh. The fact is, this might be one of the biggest contributors to my low rating. If it just wasn't executed in such an immature way I would've enjoyed it a lot more. I didn't write as much here as I did in the "good" section, but that's because I really can't explain in words how utterly annoying it was. It was awful. All my homies in book club understand.
2) The main character complex
I mentioned earlier how Violet kind of has a target on her back. It's for many reasons. For one, she's the daughter of this hotshot general, and a lot of rebels hate that general for killing their parents, so they hate her. That's another reason why people hate her. The biggest problem I found was that every man either hated her or wanted to fuck her. The only ones that didn't, uhhh they were either almost entirely irrelevant or....well....
I mean, she has silver hair. Like she has dark hair that just ends up silver at the bottom. HUH?????? AND YOU WANT ME TO BELIEVE THIS ISN'T YOUNG ADULT??
And it's almost like it's her + two people against the entire world. But like, I don't like the idea of someone who's only mistake was exist and then everyone hates them. Like, okay, and? And then she bonded with the strongest dragon of them all and I'm like duh. She's actually goated and everyone just hates her and whatever. Obviously. She's so Main Character.
The biggest contributor to this was Jack. GOD that man should've died right at the beginning. He's like this looming threat because he's super bloodthirsty and a total jackass (see what I did there). But he wasn't threatening, he was genuinely just annoying. Everyone else was quite annoying, but he was just. Like I almost skipped his scenes because I knew he was pretty irrelevant.
3) The romance
This was also the worst part of this book. I get the sense that this would've been a lot of people's favourite part. And people are wrong. We as a society need to move on from such crappy romance storylines. Please raise your standards, ladies! We deserve better!
3a. A sorry attempt at enemies-to-lovers
The main romance is between Violet and Xaden, the son of like, the leader of the rebellion. Naturally it would make sense for him to hate her because her mom killed his dad or something like that. Right when he's introduced, her sister tells her to stay away from him. And that's the big tell that they're gonna end up dating. The enemies part was so ridiculous because it was just him going all snarkily like "hehe I'm gonna kill youuuuu" (get in line) and she was like "ugh he's so hot but he's gonna kill me oh no!!!" It was done quite awfully I didn't feel the stakes behind the enemies part. But then some stuff happens and suddenly he owes her for not snitching on him so he can't kill her anymore. And then when she bonds with her dragon it turns out her dragon is, and I cannot stress this enough, mated to his dragon. So if he dies, she dies, and vice versa. So now he has a reason to keep her alive. UGH! That's so....I found it ridiculous. I would've liked it if he had an internal dilemma about wanting to kill her vs if she dies he dies. But it's also revealed that he liked her before the dragon thing, but. Man, I miss good enemies to lovers. Maybe I'll reread Pride and Prejudice.
3b. Objectification
This was another one of the biggest reasons why I hated this book. It's a very similar problem to The Spanish Love Deception. And another reason why I wonder if I'm somehow asexual because I don't think attraction should be written the way it was in this book. As mentioned earlier, it was written in a very....como se dice....like she's just telling us she thinks he's hot. And she'd describe him to such an unnecessary extent before just talking about how hot he is. And it was purely physical. She deadass rejects the other guy because there's no intense sexual attraction the way she has with this guy. But that attraction just felt sooooo gross. It was purely physical and overdone to the point where I couldn't stand her anymore.
There is unironically a line where she goes "We probably shouldn't be objectifying him, right? Oh, it should be fine!" GIRL. NO???????? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.
She's also very self aware, constantly saying things like "I need to get laid." in response to her degenerate thoughts. That does not make it better. That makes it worse. Either get laid, or get off porn and learn to interact with people without objectifying them. I just felt bad for Xaden because she unironically needs someone to tell her "it's not like you know anything about him" for her to realize, oh, maybe I should get to know him as a human being rather than just a walking talking dildo.
It just felt so gross and I don't think we should be normalizing that kind of behaviour. I definitely understand the horniness, listen, I get it, but the way she treated him was so....icky.....Like you know if he was saying this stuff about her it would be more obvious how gross it is.
3c. The toxicity
I've talked about how toxic she was, so I'll just comment on him now. There are some moments where I really did like him! I thought he'd be an intimidating-looking kind guy. Not a softy, but a good person beside that intimidating exterior. Does that make sense? Like the tough-guy would be in conjunction with the good-guy. But he was incredibly controlling. There's a point where she deadass says "it's way out of line, and overly controlling, but kind of sweet." And I'm like GIRL HUH? RAISE YOUR STANDARDS. And there were times where he'd use her attraction to him against her. Like, maybe the intentions were right but ew???? And he'd say some emo crap to push her away and I'm like dude I'd get it if you were a teen but you are 23. The problem was also that once they kissed or....I think after they had sex for the first time he was like we can't be together cause I'm emotionally unavailable and she was like well I can't fuck without emotions attached so they kinda just...were like ok we won't do that again. But then she kept pushing him? Like she kept trying to screw him anyways and I'm like you're disgusting. They just gave me the biggest ick.
3d. Romantasy.
The worst part was that the romance was soooooo in your face. The book would switch from action scenes to horny scenes. No balance at all. And the action scenes had too much horny commentary too. It doesn't count as a romantasy. More like a lustantasy. They "fell in love" too quickly imo. She spent way too much time thinking horny thoughts and it was incredibly distracting from the rest of the plot. It was absolutely awful. Again, just take away this part, or change it to be actually intriguing, and it would've been loads better.
4) Too many names.
There were such a huge cast that when important things happened to certain people I wouldn't even know if I was supposed to be sad or not because I got them all confused. All I remember is Rhiannon and Liam tbh.
5) Dain.
This man was absolutely insufferable. He was so annoying. I can excuse being a bad person, but I draw the line at being annoying. He was well written in the way I said earlier, the problem was he was too repetitive at the beginning. He kept trying to get Violet to ditch the Rider's quadrant and it was fine the first three times but after twenty attempts I was just sick of it.
The worst part is that the end of the book was incredible. The reveals, the way the foreshadowing from the beginning of the book just fit into place, the action, it was really phenomenal. But that was the last 50 pages. I'm really upset. And it ended on a (frankly predictable) cliffhanger. And I'm really intrigued with how the rest of the story will go! But I found the writing and voice so insufferable that it's just not worth it.
To whoever said this had vibes similar to HTTYD, I hate you. This book is just Divergent if it was super horny and had dragons.