Fourth Wing Review
1.5-2/5 stars
I would like to thank everything for giving me the strength to finish this book. It took less than a week and 14.5 pages of notes but we're done! To put it bluntly, this book was bad. Like, garbage. After talking about it for a while I get so angry that I lose the ability to form rational thought anymore. Anyways, I hope this is entertaining and/or informative! This will be hidden cuz it's a long one!
I would like to start off by saying that even though I don’t agree with the general rating of the book, I can say that I see how people enjoy this book. If this is a first fantasy book for someone, it makes an ok low barrier to entry for the genre. I think this would be mid-fantasy? I will say I wasn’t a fan of the romance, even if Yarros took her time and saved the Big Bang for way too late in the book to try to ‘flesh out’ the connection. (Spoiler alert: it was wack). For better or worse, I’m a lore person so in terms of a meaningful story with solid characters, plot, and setting, it’s no more than a 2. I do have to give credit where it’s due, and there were some parts that I enjoyed (mainly Tairn) and if I wasn’t going into this so critically, I’d give this a solid 3. The story is fine, though it is full of contradictions and weird sentences that are hard to ignore even if I was reading for fun. Violet was more interesting at the beginning of the book and things got kind of jumbled together toward the middle whenever the focus wasn’t on how horny Violet was for Xaden. The flying scenes were fun when they were actually written out. As for characters, Tarin is the best by far, no competition. I know that was bland but that’s how I felt if you wanted a short review if I was reading for fun. Honestly, this book is nothing to write home about.
Though, I am home, and I will be writing about it, so here’s the full 2 star (more like 1.5) review:
A major non-in universe problem with this book is the use of Scottish Gaelic words/names that are being bastardized. The name of the college, dragons, and some characters’ last names use Scottish Gaelic that, as confirmed by Yarros, are not pronounced properly and are instead pronounced however she finds easiest. There are wonderful creators on TikTok that have read the book and know of/speak Scottish Gaelic that air their own grievance on her use of the language and are a wonderful source of how to properly pronounce the names/words in the book. I urge all who read this to check them out.
Anyways.
I absolutely love the fact that Yarros is actively not following the rules that she set up!
The earliest show of this is on page 21 where there’s a quote from ‘Major Afrenda’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant’ that says “there’s a misconception that it’s kill or be killed in the Quadrant unless there’s a dragon shortage or a cadet is a liability”. A similar rule is found on page 27 where the Codex states that ‘it’s unlawful for a rider to cause another harm.’ Both of these rules are broken literally on the Parapet where Jack, an antagonist, throws someone into the ravine below and suffered no consequences. Jack also killed someone in training for funsies and nothing came of that either. Most importantly, there isn’t a shortage of dragons, there’s too many riders. The school says rider candidates volunteer yet make no moves to control the amount of applicants when they know the amount of dragons willing to bond in advance.
There was the rule that states cadets with rebel relics can’t be in groups of 3 or more, otherwise it’ll be seen as a capital offense (pg 77) though Xaden tells the group to travel in 3s
On pages 159, Violet was surprised that Jack knew information about feathertails and wondered where he got the information despite spewing the same information earlier in the book
Violet wanted to get Jack angry so that he makes mistakes in the match (pg 293) despite this plan backfiring on her against Imogen earlier in the book
On page 356, Violet is given her saddle and says “When did I ever give you the impression that I give a fuck what people think of me?” even though the page before she was bemoaning how people are going to know that she can’t keep her seat (despite her falling a dozen times every lesson)
Minor thing, but on page 475 Violet is trying to keep Liam on Taiwan’s back even though her shoulder got messed up earlier in the fight though that wasn’t brought up again
Okay, this isn’t a specific pinpoint but it looks like Bás Giath is the military, college, the national archives, and also the church….? That’s not very clear which is a problem
Other than the inconsistencies, Yarros has a bad habit of telling, not showing and even not writing or acknowledging whole scenes. This is shown on page 310 where Sgaeyl, Tairn, and Andarna are supposed to train together with Violet and Xaden. At this point we had seen Tairn and Xaden interact, Violet/Tairn/Andarna, and a wee bit of Xaden and Sgaeyl but not Violet and Sgaeyl or Xaden and Andarna, let alone all of them together. This lost scene along with the majority of the Squad Battle on the next page, mind you misses an incredible amount of character interaction and growth that this book desperately needs. This story also lacks depth in any place outside of Bás Giath/Violet which can be seen in the beginning and toward the end. The furthest back this story goes is 5 years when the Sorrengails moved to Bás Giath and there’s no mention of their life before that. Like, even a little bit. Toward the end when Mira, Violet, and Rhinonnan go to Rhi’s village, the interaction with the family is completely cut out, focusing only on a conversation between the Sorrengails. We do get to see that Rhinonnan has a nephew and that’s as far as the meeting of the main character’s ‘best friend’s’ family goes before they run into Xaden as soon as they step outside. Fantasy really isn’t the type of genre where things are secular if there’s no good reason for it for which this story has none. Quite literally nothing happens in this book and I have no idea how this story will stretch across 5 books. I had a Science Fair project once where the project was to watch paint dry in various conditions and that was somehow more interesting and full of substance than this book.
Extra tidbit: The fact that she wrote white guilt into this story, was willfully ignorant of the idea that an oppressed people would want to revolt and side with the ‘enemy’ (aka. The only people who are willing to stand up against their oppressors), and thinking that any sort of militaristic choices are made ‘for the good of the people’ while War College actively tries to kill the students fills me with so much rage. This book is huge on social media, meaning tons of people are being exposed to these views where the book says these are the morals of the characters you’re supposed to root for. Dangerous and irresponsible. There’s also the fact that Xaden and Rhinannon, both of whom are noted as darker/dark-skinned the whole book are hyper-sexualized, feeding into stereotypes, shows that Yarros and her editing team (if she has one), have never met anyone darker than a cafe-au-lait and it shows.
All in all, I rate this a 1.5-2 out of 5 stars. The only reason why I don’t rate this lower is because there were moments where I did have fun and there were flashes of what this could be. Had I not been reading this as critically as I was or read only fantasy/sci-fi books, I could see the appeal for this. Unfortunately, Yarros might give new readers the impression this is how fantasy, beginner or not, is supposed to be and that’s a disservice to the genre. I’m almost 100% sure Yarros has no plans for this story/universe because Fourth Wing can’t stand on its own, answers no questions, and brings no inquiries. I’m happy for the people who like this book, really, but this isn’t the best it can be and I hope you find actual literature after this.
I thought about it some more and I can't give this more than a 1, tbh. I'm changing my rating from 1.5-2/5 to 1/5. Terrible book, point blank period.
