Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Fourth Wing

3,75 Pretty good, the fantasy world with the dragons, powers and all that stuff as amazing. I less enjoyed the romance part because it was open doored and

a little too obsesed on Xaden some chapters

but on general it was a really goos read. For me worth the hype. If you want a cloeds door read like I did, I advice to skip chapter 30 and half of chapter 32

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johannaplatt's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Okay okay, I know this is classed as romantasy which is not normally my bag, but dammit I am a sucker for a magic school, especially when bonding to dragons is involved. I thought the author did a good job with writing the main characters and building the tension between them

even when we know how it's going to end up eyebrows eyebrows

. There were twists and reveals that I was genuinely not expecting and the plot felt pretty solid. Yes, there were spicy scenes but not overwhelmingly so that I felt it detracted from the main plot, though I felt the main male character could have been a *touch* less horny

especially when Violet has just woken up from what is essentially a week long coma

. All in all I raced through this book and immediately got a copy of the next. A fun read for those who like magic, dragons, and war college.

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anastasio's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

So as much as this book is hyped I don’t think it was worth it I like the plot the spicey scenes feel like a horny teenager just learned what sex was about idk it feel really cheesey. The main character has HEDS like the author which I love I’m also disabled but she doesn’t grammatically know how to describe dislocations and subluxations which ick me a bit. It took me all my strength not to DNF this book but I’m pushing through it because the plot starts to get good and I need to know what happens.

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shayna_hadassah's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was a fun book! I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is definitely brain candy.

I really enjoyed the intense scenes and how punchy they were - it kept everything moving along and kept the energy up. The fights and aerial battles especially were hard to put down.

The world was super interesting and fun to get into! I wish there had been more interaction with the other quadrants on a personal basis, rather than out of necessity, but I understand from a story perspective why they were limited. The dragon lore and magic system were interesting, if heavily biased towards the dragons. Which - point of the book, obviously, but also a little unfair within the world.

The sources of conflict felt very real. I greatly appreciated that there were no overly complicated conflicts. Very simple - we're going to become a rider even though we don't want to because of a, and we have b as an intrinsic hurdle to overcome, and c is personally holding back my development. Very easy. That leaves much more room to flesh out the conflict, rather than forcing readers to follow something convoluted while also being introduced to a new world and magic system.

The stakes definitely felt higher in this book than in other similar stories because of how often people actually got hurt and the way the narrative both highlighted it and dismissed it. When a character is gone, they're gone. That's it. I think it would have come across stronger if those deaths had lingered in some way though.

Violet's shortcomings were a really strong part of the story, really showing that she had something to overcome and the deck was stacked against her. I kept waiting for the dragon magic to hand-wave it all away, but having that power never gave her a shortcut, which I thought was really admirable.

That being said, there was a lot of telling when there should have been showing. Several times, Violet expressed some kind of discomfort with how deaths were handled,

with the only acknowledgement being a recital of a roll call of everyone who died and then nothing else,

but she also rarely mentioned those who had died when they were gone. Don't tell me it sits wrong with her, show me that she is continually affected. Or show me that she is uncomfortable with her own ability to dismiss all of this.

I felt the writing was repetitive, which I thought went along with the problem of telling vs showing.

"I used his previous words against him" was a phrase that I remember coming up at least three times in some way. Please just trust that I was there when it was said the first time and I understand that we're repeating ourselves. Please just show me how the characters react.

We were also told ad nauseum that Violet is one of the smartest people in the story. I felt that there were reasonable limits on this, but I also felt that there were times that she should have been able to use her smarts to get out of a scrape and didn't. She knew a lot of information, but at times she felt more knowledgeable than quick thinking. Those are both smart! But I feel like they were used interchangeably rather than treated as distinct.

A pet peeve of mine is constant character description when it isn't necessary, which I understand kind of goes with the territory with romance, but I do believe there are more important things to focus on when certain death is one wrong step away.

The enemies-to-lovers thing felt fumbled, since, in a book with pretty high stakes, the enemies phase involved very little trying to kill each other and a lot of sniping at each other. Also, enemies to lovers are not usually immediately attracted to each other and if they are, I think it's more fun if they take it out on each other, but maybe that's just me. Related, the love triangle could be spotted from a mile away and then didn't present both options as viable options, so that felt flat too. Mostly I was just getting frustrated with Violet on the relationship front.

I appreciated that the characters talked like normal people, i.e., that when they swore, I believed that they would swear. There were a few instances of more modern speech patterns and phrases that absolutely kicked me out of the story. I understand that the beginning of the book had a note that the story had been translated in-universe to "the modern language," but if your setting is vaguely middle ages, please don't make me read phrases like "I'm not attracted to toxic men." It didn't happen often, but there were three or four times that my suspension of disbelief abandoned me.

I did feel that some of the characters sounded too much alike. It could have had something to do with the narrator of the audiobook (whom I think did a pretty good job, considering all the characters she had to deal with), but I had a lot of trouble in certain scenes with being able to tell which character was talking and had to back up the narration to pay closer attention and keep track without dialogue tags to help.

Overall it was fun! I like the twists at the end, even though I think more clues thrown in here and there would have been nice. I like the baby dragon. I like the magic powers. Overall a fun, engaging read.

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feralpixie831's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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dododenise's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

For a book that I went into that I fully expecting to dnf I really enjoyed myself. You know, this is just a very fun story. The setting makes for a great story to tell and it definitely took advantage of that. I also really enjoy YA fantasy, more so than adult fantasy, and for the most part this book feels like YA. The story it’s telling and the writing style could easily be YA, if it were not for the very horny 20 year olds. Loved the dragons. Dragons are great and these dragons specifically are my favourite characters in the entire book.

I rushed through the first half and had a really good time. Then the second half started.

In the second half the story starts to feel too long. It becomes a bit repetitive. This story should’ve been told in 300-400 pages otherwise it looses its charm. And that gave me the opportunity to think. And thinking when reading this book is dangerous business.

The world building is lacklustre. We barely know anything about it and the things we know are so basic and really not that exciting. I definitely wouldn’t call it intricate. The book should’ve kept to its magical school vibe but no, it tried to do bigger things. And I’m not sure I like it or think it works well. It’s just not giving me enough to think “oooh interesting world building here”. And that ruined a lot for me. If it had kept to a simpler story than it would’ve been easier to stay in the moment and just enjoy it. Now I’m thinking about how it’s all not that deep.

Now something very much from my personal taste: this book is very straight. And I am not and I don’t really enjoy straight books. An added factor for me not really enjoying the second half as much was that Violet and Xaden’s relationship became a bigger focus. And well, I did not care for them at all. Their relationship didn’t work for me. And quite frankly, their horniness for each other was very exhausting. I like Violet and Xaden as a characters but their relationship I did not.

The other characters were lacking a bit. I already forgot about most of them. There’s Dain of course, an annoying walking red flag. Liam was a very cool character. I can’t tell you about anyone else to be honest so that’s a shame. I did not feel like getting to know them anyway because people kept dying so I knew if it wasn’t the main couple, well, they’re probably going to die.

Did have fun? Surprisingly yes. Would I say this book is good? I don’t know.

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thatswhatshanread's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I took off half of a star just because some of the world building and descriptions were a little too confusing to me and could have been done better in keeping me engaged within this fantasy world; the imagery wasn’t quite there for me. And I’ll admit the writing in general was not my favorite, though the characters and plot made up for it for the most part.

But alas!!! This was a fun one!!

You’ve got dragons, you’ve got a war college, you’ve got enemies to lovers, you’ve got mysterious happenings outside of the border that are kept hush hush, you’ve got redacted history and rebellion, you’ve got strong friendships and literal soulmates… I loved it. Our female protagonist Violet is not unlike any other leading character in these kinds of books—she’s weak and fragile, not cut out for the life she’s forced to take on, a disappointment to her mother, the least impressive of her siblings. UNTIL! She proves everyone wrong, even herself, as she is meant to do for the story to exist of course. Which isn’t a bad plot, even if it’s been done many times before, because it clearly works. Violet goes from meek little sister who prefers books over battle, to the incredible dragon rider who packs a striking punch. And Xaden—pretends he loathes her and wants to kill her, broody and closed-off, strong and intimidating to everyone else, but in reality a very kind, caring person who would do anything for Violet. Their chemistry was sizzling, and I loved learning more about their fated connection. The YOU DIE, I DIE trope to a T.

Dain—basically Gale from The Hunger Games but even worse—however, can suck a dozen eggs.

Overall, an intriguing and heart-pounding introduction to the Empyrean series! Great mix of fantasy and romance! You’ll want your own dragon and wingleader boyfriend asap.

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