Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

One POV, series, Adult

Isabella’s Rating: ★★★★★

Fourth Wing follows Violet Sorrengail, a young girl training to be a scribe for the Basgiath War College, when she is forced into the riders quadrant where bonding a dragon is the only way to survive.

Fourth Wing is the first book in the Empyrean Series, followed by Iron Flame and Onyx Storm. This series is going to be 5 books long, with Onyx Storm being released on January 21 of this year. Rebecca Yarros has also said that she is taking a break, and the fourth book will not be released until after 2025.

Fourth Wing has to be one of my favorite fantasy books I have ever read. There were so many things about this book that I loved and wish other authors would incorporate into their books. In this book, Violet was smaller in build than the other riders in her wing, which made you root for her so heavily. The author wasn’t afraid of giving the main character strong powers, like some other books do. Even if it may be unrealistic for Violet to be more powerful than others in her wing, it was satisfying seeing her be able to stand up for herself, and the roles being reversed. I also really enjoyed Violet growing into herself more and getting stronger. Violet did get stronger by the end of the book, but we got to see her grow into her strength, rather than just being introduced to it. Seeing Violet go through these tests to prove her worthiness of riding a dragon was also so interesting, and seeing everyone else go through it as well was also very interesting. When being bonded with a dragon, you are able to talk to them through your mind, which adds a lot of character to the dragons. I liked how the dragons were a lot bigger part of this story than others, where the dragons are just there to ride and nothing else.

I feel like the lore of this universe was very interesting, learning about the different breeds of dragon, and the powers humans get from them was suspenseful in a way. You wanted to know what kind of dragon, and what power everyone in the book had. And while I haven’t finished the other books in the series yet, I hope to see more of the world be introduced to the characters.

At first I was not a fan of the book, it talked about how small Violet was, literally every page, but after the story started to get interesting, I was rooting for Violet the entire rest of the time. I also think the direction the author took for the rest of the series is the right one, but usually I don’t like it when we take a completely different direction from the main story. To its core, this series is about a college and a girl attending it that shouldn’t, but then in the second book we leave that plot and it turns into something completely different. This problem is mentioned in the first book which means Yarros didn’t throw in this plot line just to stay on the hype, but I do think it was rushed. I think focusing more on the schooling aspect would have been a better approach to the series as a whole.

In all, Fourth Wing was a fun read and kept me engaged the entire time. I think if you are looking for a fantasy that is easy to read, while also being very interesting, I think it is the perfect read. It does a very good job keeping you hooked, and rooting for all of the characters, which a lot of the time is hard to do.