Fourth Wing
If you enjoyed this review, please consider purchasing this book from my Amazon Associates link (applies to Kindle purchases as well): https://amzn.to/3Wzap92. The commissions I receive from your purchase help pay for the costs of running this website. Thanks for your support!
I’m part of the zeitgeist! The third book in The Empyrean series just dropped, so I caved and started reading the first book, Fourth Wing. Before I succumbed to the FOMO, I was pretty wary. I recently read the ACOTAR series and came away disappointed. Some of them stood out more than the others, but overall, it felt cheesy and repetitive. Maas’s pacing was all off and my head was going to explode if I read another…unnecessary ellipses. The only things saving it were the smut, binge-ability, and the occasionally satisfying twist.
I immediately liked Fourth Wing more. The world itself is more interesting. It takes place in a mythical land where you can have one of four jobs: riders (you match with a dragon, tight), scribes (you maintain written records), healers (seems obvious), or infantry (seems lame). You have to go to college to ‘major’ in one of these, so Fourth Wing tracks Violet, our main character, going to Basiath War College to become a rider. It’s giving Harry Potter with the boarding school vibes. In comparison to ACOTAR, this is a more straightforward world to drop into, so I was sucked in more quickly.
The author, Rebecca Yarros, is a more talented writer than Maas (sorry, Maas). The dialogue is more realistic, she devotes less time to fluff, and the twists are less obnoxious. I guess this speaks to the fact that I’m not a huge fantasy girly to begin with. Fourth Wing has fantasy elements with its mythological creatures and new powers that readers are constantly learning about, but it's rooted in a realistic dynamic: Violet goes to college and falls in love, causing drama.
Of course, there are still some eye-rolly moments. Some of the nicknames for each other make me gag, the riders can be annoyingly self-righteous, and Violet tends to have dramatic pity parties. But in general, I find more depth here. For example, while we don’t yet know much about the scribes, I’m sensing a parallel to 1984 in the sense that history can be rewritten in a sinister, manipulative way by leadership. There’s more meat on the bone with Fourth Wing, so I give it 4 out of 5 flames. If you want more spice, less substance, peep ACOTAR. If you want more plot and better world-building, peep Fourth Wing.
