A review by jessicac
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Violet Sorengail, AKA a Mary Sue with a victim mindset, goes to college to ride dragons (cool!). And for no reason at all, she's the dragon riding chosen one. Except she doesn't want to be the chosen one :( But if anyone around her tries to help her change her dragon riding fate, she gets mad at them! Because... reasons?

2.0, but only because I've seen the positive impact this book has had on my friends.

TL;DR This will certainly be a long-winded review, so I'll spare you the read up front. If you're not a big reader, or you only read for spice, you might like this book. It's easy to read, fast-paced, and an interesting concept. Yarros' voice is decent if you like contemporary narration and grey humor.

As always, let's start with the pros:
  • The concept/ideas. Overall I thought there was so much potential in this book, I just wish it was explored and executed better. It seemed like instead of exploring the parts of the story I thought had potential to be super compelling and unique, the story focused on the tropes and predicatable plot points. Most of the following pros fall under this category, of things that were almost really good, but fell short because they weren't fulfilled, given enough attention and development, or were ruined by other things.
  • The dynamic within Violet's family. It could have been extremely compelling to see how a mother of such political stature and high expectations could impact a girl like Violet. I would have loved to see some psycological effects of that. Especially when you add in the perfect older sister archetype and kind, understanding, unfortunately dead father. There was so much room here for character flaws in Violet. Fear of disappointment/not living up to her mother's expectations, strong desire to be noticed by a mother that only recignizes perfection, secret resentment of the sister that "stole" her mother's affections from her, rebellious nature stemming from greif in the passing of the one person who understood her. So many options, so much potential.
  • The falling out of a (more than?) best friendship. Dain's character interested me at first. But over time he became unreasonable and inconsistant. I'm a sucker for descent stories. Descent into madness, or slowly realizing your reality is not what you thought, or the gradual drift between two people who once were inseparable. I really wish this was explored more, rather than Dain just showing up sometimes to create problems and Violet flipping like a switch as soon as she got the hots for a hotter guy.
  • The relic kids. This could have been such a unique and interesting dioretic of generational trauma and prejudice. Especially in the way it relates to Xaden. The metaphor was there, but it ended up feeling forced, unrealistic, and disappointing.
  • The representation. It was refreshing to see a few LGTBQ+ characters treated as actual human people (like her best friend at Bagiath and her on again-off again girlfriend). Unfortunately not all of the representation in this book meets that standard.
  • The dragon powers. It may not be the most original, but there's a reason people like superhuman abilities. I liked how people's channeling reflected who they were, though I wish this could have been left as something for people to peice together on their own as opposed to explicitely pointed out. I'll try not to spoil too much with this point, but I also like how some powers were more accepable than others, and how the repercussions of that raised the stakes and fleshed out the worldbuilding a bit.
  • The channelling visualizations. Fun to read about, interesting to think about, and a sensible humanization of the magic system in this world. I liked it!
  • The military details. I really enjoyed this aspect. The rankings were well-defined and realistic, and I liked the way they were sometimes exploited (ahem, Dain). It added a layer of realism to the fantasy. The way the cadets trauma-bonded with each other and the pacing in those relationships was well done and true to life. I also really liked the attitude of many of the side characters, the hedonistic we-might-die-tomorrow-so-why-not-enjoy-life-now mentality was refreshing, I see too many dystopian and war novels try to maintain seriousness and gravity 100% of the time, and reality isn't like that. Humanity isn't like that. So I liked the presence of this mindset, and the way it was portrayed, too (not as a completely positive thing, more like a morale and survival thing). It was very well written, and seeing as Yarros is military affiliated I can see she did her research, and that showed.
  • Liam. He's the only character I really liked. He had personality, depth, every one of his actions felt real and had genuine motivation behind it. 
  • The dragons. Specifically, the way dragon rules and culture were approached. Without spoiling too much, dragon culture is clearly very different than the way humans percieve dragon culture to be. The use of subtext in this aspect was incredible. Even before the topic is addressed through actual conversation, we have already been shown the dichotomy between human values, dragon values, and what human's *think* are dragon values. This truly was excellent, and I loved the contrast between what was said and what was shown.

Now for the (rather extensive) cons:
  • Violet. In short, she's one-dimensional and confusing. I couldn't describe her personality beyond "she's sarcastic". She's chronically ill, but we don't see her deal with being chronically ill. (She mentions it frequently in her interior monologue, but nothing actually happens to show that. In fact, if her health and strength are any indication, she's the strongest and most resiliant of anybody there). I really feel like the theme of this story needs to figure out what it wants to be. If this is an underdog training to become strong despite physical limitations, amazing! But let's see progress. Let Violet start out extremely weak and get stronger. There was definitely training, but it felt so dry. And we don't ever see her fail. If this is about mental fortitude pulling through when your body fails you, I want to see that struggle (And before you come for me on this one, sarcasm ≠  mental strength). Show me moments where confidence and bravado fail her. Have Violet be a scared girl who just wanted to live among books, and then make her strong. Give us something to root for. Violet constantly reminds us how weak she is, which is annoying anyway, but she never fails at anything and is, in every sense of the phrase, a Mary Sue.
  • Continuing on Violet. Her decision-making was extraordinarily bothersome. Her goals never made sense, and I could barely understand her motivations behind what she was doing. Following her felt like trying to run after a hyperactive puppy who can't decide what direction she's going in. And the puppy cries a lot when things don't go her way. And the puppy has a death wish.  We start the story with her wanting nothing more than to be a scribe, but despite being given every opportunity to make that happen, she just goes along with being a rider. No motivations at all, except maybe spite? Because people automatically assume she's too weak, and that makes her sad? The author wants us to believe that Violet's life is in constant danger, but there are very few instances that's actually the case. And in those instances, despite Violet constantly saying her only goal is to stay alive, she toys around with her life by sassing people and running to Xaden instead of fighting or doing, well, anything.
  • More on Violet. Her moral code fluxuates and is very inconsistant. It's hard to define this with examples without spoiling, so I'll just leave it at that.
  • The descriptions. The characters, setting, everything. There were hardly any desciptions and the immersion really suffered because of this. The settings were extremely vague. Yarros would tell us about a training mat, and that was our only indiction that this is a training room. I personally love detailed descriptions, and while that's not everyone's thing, this book had almost nothing and it needed a LOT more.
  • The dialogue. Character dialogue and interactions felt like Sims walking up to each other, standing around saying things, and then walking away. The conversations were severely lacking in animation and realism.
  • Xaden. Another character who's motivations and actions made zero sense. Being misunderstood does not give your character depth, sorry. He's just as one-dimensional as Violet, the only difference being that his single dimension is being misunderstood. I mean really, can anyone describe this man beyond "hot" and "not actually a terrible person"?
  • The "romance". To put it lightly, there's no romantic chemistry between Xaden and Violet. He's hot, and she's hot, and maybe they would get together for a good time, but a relationship? Never. Their entire dynamic was based on physical attraction. I can't see one single reason they should be together. Not even in a "there's no reason we should get along but it's clear we love each other" way, there's just.... nothing. And when Violet started to say she loved him? Girl, why? You don't know a thing about him, and there isn't a thing to know. He could be a Xaden-shaped bag of rocks for all you seem to care about him.
  • Speaking of physical attraction, Violet's inner monologue every time Xaden is around (and even when he's not) was downright painful at times. This so-called strong-willed, independant woman turns into a whiny, desperate teenager every time Xaden walks in. That's not sexual liberation or doomsday hedonism, it's gross. I understand who the intended audience for this book was, but for a moment I'd invite you to step outside the spice, and realize how problematic this is. If a male character was written this way toward a female character, there would be outrage. This attitude toward other people should NOT be romanticized. This relationship is a dumpster fire of unfounded attraction. If that's your thing, there's nothing wrong with that, but Violet and Xaden shouldn't be praised as an ideal pinnacle of relationship excellence.
  • The tropes. Don't get me wrong, I love tropes, but in this book they were disappointing. If I'm being honest, they were disorganized and poorly executed. It's like Yarros tried to put every popular YA trope into a single book, even if they were contradictory or out of place. For example, the classic knife to the throat is fantastic, but feels childish if our narrating character can only think about how hot Xaden is. Sexual tensions gets a lot less tense when you point it out. And if the readers can't believe Xaden actually wants to hurt Violet, it becomes obvious that there's only a knife to her throat because Yarros wanted to be able to say that trope is in her book. There are more instances, but this one exemplifies it well enough.
  • Which leads me to the "enemies to lovers". What enemies? What lovers? Violet and Xaden are never enemies. This was much closer to the "forbidden fruit" trope, where Violet has been (in no uncertain terms) forbidden from being with Xaden. That doesn't make them enemies, and they don't treat each other like enemies. I was very disappointed in this aspect becasue it was marketed as an enemies-to-lovers book, and it certainly wasn't. Violet never harbors anything malicious toward Xaden, she's just oh-so-certain that he wants to kill her, and she sasses him. While Xaden is given every opportunity to make an enemy of Violet, and he doesn't. 75% of this book is spent with Violet convincing herself Xaden wants to kill her, despite every single peice of evidence to the contrary.
  • The second parapet scene. It ruins the first one entirely. It's unrealistic, cliche, and cheapens the experience the cadets have on the parapet on conscription day.
  • General Sorrengail (Violet's mother). I'll try to be concise with this one, but there is quite a bit here that was lacking. To start, her expectations of Violet aren't backed by anything. If it's about appearances, she already failed by putting Violet in the Rider's quadrant, because Violet apparently sticks out like a sore short thumb and the weakest link of the wing. If it's about pride, a dead daughter who wasn't good enough to be a rider is worse than the best scribe Navarre has ever seen, right? If it's about living vicariously, she has Mira for that, and Violet's story arc would be better off trying to win the attention of a distant, neglectful mom.
  • More about the General. This is a continuation of the previous point, but it deserves it's own. Violet's mom teeters between caring too much and too little. The General is never around, and never seems to care, except when the story needs to push Violet deeper into the Rider's quadrant, or further away from Xaden. The dynamic doesn't really work trying to pull off a relationship where Violet's mother cares so deeply about her being a rider that Violet would rather die trying than just be a scribe and face her mother's consequences,  but not so much that she's ever actually part of the story beyond a mention of her name, and the ghost of a consequence for disobeying her wishes. The overbearing mother would work great here, controlling and manipulating Violet, leading Violet to take her life into her own hands and live out her dragon-riding destiny. The neglectful mother would also be really fitting, praising and loving Mira while Violet stands to the side, longing for nothing more than to win her mother's approval. This would work especially well as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with her mother, for reasons that I will not spoil.
  • Last point for her mother. This one is specific, but it bothered me enough to make it into my review. There's... no reason at all Violet should have listened to her mother in the beginning of the book. When the General makes her desire clear to Violet to join the riders, there's no genuine reason Violet should have listened. At the time, she had NO desire to be there, and was convinced she was going to die. Violet didn't (at the time) care about proving herself to anyone. There wasn't a genuine threat from her mother. Yes, she wanted Violet to conscript to the riders quadrant, but are we meant to believe she would do something if Violet didn't? It's not like the General would kill her. Violet certainly doesn't seem to think so. She acts like she doesn't have a choice, but she does. It's addressed in the book as "the decision is already mde" but... it literally isn't. If Violet is as much of a firecracker and rebel as we're led to believe, why doesn't she go where she wants to on conscription day? Or at the very least, let Dain and her old professors help sneak her out? If you assume she's honest about only wanting to be a scribe, which we are given no resaon not to believe, then her choice to go to the rider's quadrant doesn't make sense. Not without a threat behind her disobedience, which there never was.
  • The rest of the characters. Mira didn't have a personality. The professors were villainized for good reason, but were villainous for none. Anyone who wanted to kill Violet for the illusion of plot being weak made absolutely no sense. If you want to write about youngins killing each other, fine. But there needs to be something genuine behind it. If there's a shortage of dragons willing to bond, why would 20 y/os compromise their fragile moral integrity with murder if they truly believe she won't make it? It was all extremely unrealistic. Violet may be the general's daughter, but she was not special enough to warrant the enormous target on her back.
  • The token representation. Some of the representation in this book was done really well, and some was definitely not. As a member of a few marginalized groups, I love representation. But meaningless, purposeless characters thrown in so the author can claim to be open-minded is not representation. It reduces people to shallow stereotypes and robotic imitations of people and is extremely irritating. Token characters do not help anyone and often perpetuate existing biases and prejudice. Also, it felt very "some preps stared at me, I put my middle finger up at them"-y when random, nameless characters would show up out of nowhere and say something homophobic, just so Yarros can show us how tolerant she is through her main characters' reactions. No one expiriences racism or homophobia that way, so it rubbed me the wrong way to read those parts. There were a handful of exceptions.
  • The dragons. Specifically, their attitude and the way they're portrayed. They seem so uncaring and superior, but somehow we're supposed to believe the bond, and by extension, humans, are beneficial to them. Also, if something happens to their rider they're sad, but at the same time, not? We're repeatedly told that dragons withour their riders is tragic, but not a single one of the dragon-rider relationships is developed to the point of believability. The closest was Xaden and Sgaeyl, but they fell short as well. If what's on paper is my only clue, I wouldn't believe that any dragon, for any reason, would care about their human riders.
  • The telepathy. I'm not sure I have a word for how I felt on this one. The closest would probably be annoyance. Imagine, instead of a connection that transcends words, texting with your mind. Instead of being left on read you get your mind-river energy dammed.
  • Jack and the Feathertail. I won't spoil. But there's no reason for this, and it was approached in the worst way. Yes, Jack is bloodthirsty and murderous. But there's no motivation behind his actions here, nothing to justify why he might do this. Of all the senseless choices the characters make in this book, this one was by far the most unreasonable. And no, I don't mean the choice itself was unreasonable (even if it was), I mean it's completely irrational even within the framework of a psychopath like Jack. Why would Jack do this? Why? What is one reason Jack would have to do this? It doesn't have to be a reason that makes sense to normal people, but there does need to be a reason.
  • The gauntlet. It's easily the most unoriginal thing in the book. Have you ever seen American Ninja Warrior? Apparently, so has Yarros. Look up a short clip if you haven't, and then ask yourself about the rotating rods, spider climbing section, and curved half wall at the end. This was probably an intentional reference, but to me it was yet another unoriginal idea. If this book was full of unique ideas, worldbuilding, or plot, I could forgive it. I might even like it, sometimes it's fun to have things like that in books. But this book is Frankenstein's Monster of stolen YA plot points, characters, and clichés, and the gauntlet is just another body part.

The little things:
  • This is unpopular, but I have to be honest, Violence was an extremely off-putting petname and I cringed every time.
  • The dragon tats were cool.
  • Violet is such a pick me girl, and that was infuriating.
  • The way death was swept under the rug at Basgiath made sense in the setting, but I thought that idea could have been portrayed much better. It's addressed that it's messed up how quickly people move on when their friends and classmates die, but soon enough Violet becomes apathetic as well. If she thinks it's so messed up, shouldn't she care more? Shouldn't it affect her? If becoming unbothered by death is supposed to be part of her character development then her character should actually be developed, and there should have been more attention to that theme.
  • The knife culture was really awesome and well-executed, I liked how that became a status symbol and indicator of someone's strength. Wicked cool.

If you've made it this far, you're phenomenal.

Bottom line, this book was just an unoriginal YA fantasy with more swearing and graphic sex. It probably won't be the worst thing you ever read, but don't go into it with high expectations. If you want a book with an amalgamation of everything other YA author's have made popular for their readers, this book will likely scratch that itch. If you like main characters that are somehow simultaneously the chosen one, an unfailing Mary Sue, and a super-damsel always in distress, you'll love the sassy little narrator. And if it's the first book you've read since high school English class, maybe it will get you back into reading, and I can't ignore that because that's an incredible effect to have on a person, and by extension, the world.

If you like this book, I'm genuinely happy for you. If you're considering reading it, I'd encourage you to do so, if only to fully understand the cultural impact happening around it. As always friends, happy reading.

:)
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