Fourth Wing is for all my Divergent fans who grew up and need a little bit of escapism in the form of dragons.
All Violet has ever wanted is to follow in her late father’s footsteps and become a scribe. She has trained her entire life, learning the history of her nation until her mother, General Sorrengail, decides that Violet must go through the deadly training to become a rider. The story begins a few months after this declaration, on Violet’s initiation day. We follow her as she fights to survive her first year at Basgiath War College. Friendships are broken, enemies are made, and everything Violet has learned of the world is put into question.
It took me ages to get into this book for one reason and one reason alone: the writing. I don’t think of myself as a literature snob. I read books written for twelve year olds and written two hundred years ago. I usually focus on a story more than craft if the book isn’t claiming to be literary fiction. I don’t need a pop fiction book to have perfect prose. But Fourth Wing took me a moment to accustom myself to.
“Double standard for the win”
“volun-told”
“puny gods”
I would like to remind you that this novel is set in a fantasy world in which people who don't have magic use ink and quill (which, by the way, is a wonderfully charming bit of world building). Why do that characters sound like someone who knows what TikTok is? There is this idea in Period Pieces (stay with me) where some actors look like they know what a cellphone is, aka having Smartphone Face, and, therefore, take the watcher out of the intended time period. A common example of this is Camila Morrone who plays Camila in Daisy Jones and the Six. Now, to bring this back to Fourth Wing, all of these characters have the literary version of Smartphone Face. I don't believe that Violet actually exists in this world. She is obviously a character written by someone in 2023. That is my personal nitpick and opinion which just caught me off guard and took me a while to get accustomed to, but lets chat some of the other ways the writing didn't quite hit for me.
Yarros handles exposition in a really clunky way. It makes sense for the plot, but it feels quite unnatural. For example, this line, “I don’t need the prohibited power of mind reading to know exactly what she sees” (17). Throwing in the word "prohibited" is obviously just for the purpose of exposition and genuinely pulled me out of the story for a moment. Yarros could have easily maintained the flow of the story while still giving us these expositional points. Since Violet has been training as a scribe one of her character elements is that she recites historical texts in order to calm herself. This functions both as a piece of characterization and exposition and has the potential to redeem the odd writing, but I don't think the author uses this tool to its fullest potential.
Don't worry, though. I didn't stay a Debby Downer for the entire book. After a character is introduced as having a fiancé and then killed off seconds later in the most predictable event to possibly occur, i realized I needed a change of heart. On page 42 I made this note, “I know this book isnt trhing to be high quality but its not good. i need to chnage my attigude and just have a good time” (I also learned that I’m not good at typing on my kindle…) but I changed my attitude and decided to be here for a good time not a high quality time.
And a good time was had.
Part of the appeal of this book is its predictability. We meet a tall dark and handsome man who is meant to hate the protagonist. You guessed it, that's the love interest. A protagonist who is an underdog? Not for long! She becomes one of the most powerful characters. An enemy we know little about? Theres some propaganda happening! Everything you think will probably happen, does in fact happen and there is something really nice about that. It’s easy. It’s comfortable. It’s the ideal type of literary escapism.
So let’s talk about the ways this book actually pleasantly surprised me.
For all its shortcomings it does one thing that really interests me. It portrays a disabled main character. This isn’t exactly new in the realm of fantasy novels. Every book featuring pirates includes some form of disability representation. Six of Crows famously has some really interesting disability representation, but in a book like Fourth Wing, which is so obviously pulling from tropes of the genre, this representation feels very intentional.
Violet has a connective tissue disorder never named in the book, but Yarros has said in interviews that it is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She is prone to broken bones and dislocations. She is smaller and weaker than most of the other cadets at the Basgaith War College and people assume that she is going to be the weak link in their force. Violet uses her smarts to find ways to, first, stay alive, and, eventually, to thrive. Towards the beginning of the book, she figures out how to poison her opponents so they won’t be able to hurt her in a sparring match. At a specific physical challenge that she is too short to accomplish, she follows the letter of the rules in order to succeed. These strategies are really just to keep her alive at first. She has to be cunning since she has less brute force and physical strength to bring to a challenge. By the end of the book, though, she bonds with a very large dragon who makes accommodations for her. He uses his leg as a ramp so that she can get onto his back and he allows her to use a saddle to stay seated when no other riders use them. We see this really lovely relationship in which he makes accommodations for Violet, not because she is weak, but because it makes sense for them. He has chosen her because of her moral code, not because of her physicality. So, Violet has to learn to be ok with accepting this level of help. Realizing that is may make her look weak to others, but that it makes her a better rider in the long run.
The last thing I want to talk about is the romance because ~swoon~
While the edgy man with a name starting with X is a bit Wattpad (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, we were very different 14 year olds), but once I let myself buy into it, I got to enjoy a genuinely interesting relationship dynamic.
Violet and Xaden are meant to hate each other. Violet’s mother is the reason his parents are dead and Xaden's family is the reason Violets brother is dead. There is some deep seeded beef, but the scene where they meet genuinely caught me off guard with how funny it is. We get this back story and Violet’s sister warning her to avoid Xaden because he will want to kill her. Violet talks about wanting to make sure no one knows who she is blah blah blah and literally a page later he knows exactly who she is and Violet is more than a bit attracted to him. Then we get a few chapters of her being confused and nervous because he wants to kill her but she also thinks he’s like really pretty. Eventually we get the turning point that moves them from enemies to mutually assured destruction when Violet sees Xaden conducting an illegal yet harmless meeting. This is where the trust begins to build.
They learn more secrets about each other and they continue to protect each other. It gives them this space to not necessarily like each other, but to shift from enemies to allies. When Violet bonds with a dragon, she unknowingly bonds with Xaden’s dragon’s mate. Yes it’s convoluted but it ends up being clever. The two are put in this position of being tied to each other via their dragon bonds which also means that if one of them dies, the other will also die (it makes sense in the book dont worry about it). So allies slowly become friends.
There are a handful of painfully cringy moments that are trying to be sexy, like the dragons mating and the bonded humans feeling some kind of way about each other because of their connection. But once again, here for a good time not a smart time. It was funny and it got the relationship where we all wanted it to be, which is to the lover part of enemies to lovers.
The conflict at the end of the book which we were all definitely super incredibly surprised by and did not in any way expect to come, leaves the relationship at point of broken trust because Xaden has been lying to Violet about some pretty big things. This feels like the most whiny and ridiculous reaction, though. Yes he’s been lying to you because you are literally the generals daughter and he is doing illegal things that would put both of you at risk of literal execution if he told you. I would totally get there being a moment of wow it hurts that you didn’t tell me, but this girl is meant to be smart. She is meant to be able to foresee the consequences of actions but here she is blaming Xaden for making a smart choice at her expense. Be hurt for a few pages, but then have a conversation about it and work to rebuild trust. You are literally connected via dragon for the rest of your lives. Deal with it.
Excuse me while I go take a deep breath.
So, moving on from that, the book is excellent at what it is trying to do. It’s trying to go viral on TikTok and get all the trope readers to recommend it to everyone else. It is trying to be fun and swoony and action packed.
You’ll note that I compared it to Divergent at the beginning and that was very intentional. Divergent did a really similar thing in the YA dystopia genre of the 2010s. We had the massive success of the Hunger Games followed by a market completely flooded with lookalikes trying to take advantage of the hype and give fans of the Hunger Games their next read. Some of these books were genuinely good and some were rubbish. Divergent, infamously, took tropes of the genre and shoved them all together in a book until it lost most of its meaning. I am in no way saying that there is anything wrong with liking Divergent. It is literally written to be palatable to a specific audience and it is super successful at that. But it did mark the fall of the genre in a fascinating way.
In a similar sense, Fourth Wing pulls on all of the tropes of the Romantasy genre. It has love triangles, enemies to lovers, a chosen one, a girl boss female lead, a corrupt government, etc. It shoves all of these elements together without taking the time to do anything remarkable. It doesn’t play with the genre or use our expectations against us. It doesn’t bother with careful world building or well defined magic systems or even prose that keeps you in the moment. It creates a story that is a vessel for tropes rather than using tropes as a fun way to move a story along.
Fantasy novels are a place where we can interact with truths about the real world, in an extreme and fantastical environment. You can spend years building a world, but that world won't draw readers in unless you bring in characters and situations that are true. I mentioned Six of Crows earlier, so I'll use that as an example.
The Six of Crows duology is set in a larger series. Its world is thoroughly built before these books even begin. I read Six of Crows without realizing that it was part of this larger series. I missed all of the world building that Shadow and Bone did and I plunged directly into this magical world. I adored it, though, not because of the setting or the magic. Those were both incredibly interesting, but I was fascinated by the characters. We have these complex individuals which complicated desires and relationships. We see them in these insanely high pressure situations and we watch them make mistakes and disappoint each other and still fight for each other. The novels also handle some quite intense themes of addiction, trust, family, and more. The books do a lot, not just because they are trying to be clever or important, but because the author writes characters that feel real and, with that, true stories follow.
Violet doesn't feel like a real character to me. Her desires and motivations are quite one-minded. She wants to survive. Eventually, she also wants to be a dragon rider, but these desires are complex. Violet could be existing in this space of wanting to be a dragon rider to make her mother proud of her even though she knows her mother sucks. She could be trying to evaluate the dissonance of finding joy and friendship in a place of death. She could be exploring what it means to be a disabled woman in a world which values physical strength (which she really almost does, but falls just short of). The bones of this story are fantastic. The plot is thrilling. The tropes are charming. The romance is swoony. But it just stops there.
I will acknowledge that this is the first novel of a series which will continue. The sequel, Iron Flame, is set to be released in November of 2023. Further books could absolutely take these characters and themes further to a point of excellence within the genre, but this first book is, as I keep saying, a good time, not a smart time.
I give the book 2 stars.
Tropes: enemies to lovers, girl boss protagonist, forbidden love, dragons, love triangle
Triggers: physical violence, character death, loss of family members, explicit consensual sex, bullying, explicit language
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