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Rebecca Yarros – Fourth Wing

Book Cover of Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing

The front cover says ‘fly or die’ – to get that far you need to walk or die, win fights or die, and generally take care or die. Dragons got nothing on this…

Violet is about to enter the Riders’ Quadrant of Basgaith College, of which her mother is a leader. She’s spent all her life so far preparing to be a Scribe but her mother isn’t having it – she’s got to follow the family’s effective tradition. And so Violet enters a literal cut-throat college with no experience and a target on her back for being her mother’s daughter – the older woman had a big role in subduing the parents of a whole bunch of now-candidates, young people who are there by force as penitence for their parents’ sins. But the horror starts at the entry point: in order to become a trainee rider, each candidate must walk over a parapet high above a valley. Each year, tens of people don’t make it and the weather today is wet and windy. If she makes it, Violet must make no friends, only allies, learn to fight, and, if she makes it all the way to meeting the dragons, hope to be chosen by one of them. These dragons breathe fire more often than any other you’ve encountered in fiction before, but without them there is no hope of Violet’s country winning the generations-long war.

Fourth Wing is an absolutely tremendous novel of high fantasy, high stakes, constant character peril (and, yes, they do die), politics, and death and destruction. It’s a book I’m happy to describe as living up to the hype, a famed book for good reason, a book that combines various basic ideas from various decades gone by to nevertheless create a new premise and story. It’s also an incredibly immersive story, the writing and description providing a filmic backdrop.

It would be impossible to point to one single reason this book works; it really is the sum of its parts. The first, and potentially most notable aspect, is the horror and violence – this book gives The Hunger Games a run for its money in just how nasty and violent it is. Death is, in many ways literally, around every corner from the moment Rider candidates join, and that only lets up after graduation insofar as unless the enemy the country is at war with is on your doorstep, you get a reprieve.

I want to get to what I would say are negative aspects about the book out of the way before continuing and one relates to the horror – sex and swearing are everywhere in Fourth Wing. Presented by the author as an activity undertaken due to living in survival mode, candidates are always having sex with each other and it’s almost always casual. Violet herself (the narrative is first person) thinks about sex a great deal to the point that the book is explicit throughout rather than just during the two fully-fledged sex scenes. The swearing is just as frequent and mainly concerns the F word. I personally wonder if both the casual sex and swearing are in there in large part to simply make it obvious that this is not a Young Adult novel, rather than for storytelling purposes.

Talking of the sex scenes and romantasy, let’s do this: this is a high fantasy romance book. You have a few chapters where there’s a possible love triangle before the way ahead becomes clear – in this, the first book of the Empyrean series, Yarros isn’t about to emulate previous decades’ tropes. She wants to get to the chemistry and build-up. I will say that the sex when it happens is rather fun, the explicitness muted by character development. It’s also comical on purpose. And, given that the romance leads of this book are discussed by fans so often, it’s worth noting that they are a diverse couple. (Yes, I’ve seen the AI fan art, too – it’s not accurate.)

The characters, then – Violet is a very average person, as she does remind you often, because she has no drive or confidence in her ability to be a Rider. She was brought up by her father to be a Scribe and, throughout the book, even through her successes she dreams longingly of the archives and the peace being in them would bring her. Xaden, who it’s pretty obvious will be the male lead from chapter one, is less developed due to us being in Violet’s head (you do get to know how hot he is) but a story element leads to us being able to hear more from him later on. The dragons are grumpy and dangerous and set people on fire and… are hilarious. Yes. And Violet’s eventual role as a chosen Rider by a dragon is extremely worth the wait. In fact the book consistently sports something major to look forward to and this is a big part of the story’s success.

There are various other important characters who become part of the core circle, and Yarros keeps the threat of death ever present.

We remain in the same location for the vast majority of Fourth Wing but it never gets boring. And the politics is well-planned with shocks that, no matter whether or not you work them out early, promise much for the continuation of the series.

I think I’ve written enough; frankly, I’d be surprised if anyone’s still reading these words. I’ll end on this – go read Fourth Wing. You won’t regret it and you can thank me later.

Publisher: Piatkus (Hachette)
Pages: 516
Type: Non-Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-349-44031-6
First Published: 2nd May 2023
Date Reviewed: 18th December 2024

 
 

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