Fourth Wing

by Rebecca Yarros

Hardcover, 528 pages

English language

Published June 3, 2023 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

ISBN:: 978-0-349-43701-9

(6 reviews)

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll …

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

5 editions

Alex Cabe reviewed Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean, #1)

Sparkling start, slow finish

3 stars

This was overall a very enjoyable read that bogged down at the end. It made heavy use of YA tropes but had adults-only romance and those two components fit awkwardly together. The characters' dialogue was very modern, which took getting used to with the setting.

The first two-thirds were a real page-turner that I compulsively read until I slowed down at the end.

The equation here was (a worse version of Scholomance) + (a better version of Divergent) + (a few Game of Thrones elements) + (sex scenes).

I'll definitely read the next one, and I wonder if the school will continue to feature in the plot, or if it will go another direction.

Manu reviewed Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Review of 'Fourth Wing' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

Ugh. Where do I even start. Yes, the premise of the book is very promising. But the prose is so poorly written. It's as if the author just kept filling up her word count for the day. Also, there are many plot holes. I can accept flawed characters, but the MC couldn't get any more generic and cliché. I tried to give it time to see if it improves but no it just the same over and over. I really wanted this to work for me but unfortunately it didn't.