Fourth Wing

Okay, so I did not realize this was a romance book when I requested it on Netgalley. The blurb seemed interesting and I suspected there would be some romance, just based on the age and description of the character, but the rest sounded interesting enough to overlook it. And that's mostly what happened, because this is a good book. But it's also a romance book, and what I didn't know about romance books, because I don't read them, is that they're just cringey as hell (to me).

And so while there are aspects of this book that are excellent, I can't give it a full rating, because dammit, I detested the romance in this book. I'm not even talking about the sex scenes. There are only a couple. I just think saying things like “you have extremely touchable skin” is stupid in any context. If that works for someone else, power to them. But it was lines like that I couldn't deal with.

Anyways, on to the positives. First of all, Violet is a great main character. I rooted for her the entire time and her initial belief that she was too broken to be a dragon rider, and her gradual understanding that she was not defined by her illness and that she could be a dragon rider, was very well done. I liked most of the side characters, and her relationships with them. I also realized during this book that I expected her older, accomplished sister to inherently be a bitch to her because that's how these tropes tend to go, and so I appreciated that the bond with her sister was strong and that she was supportive. I liked the depiction of her overbearing best friend/potential love interest not understanding how coddling Violet was not helpful to her, and some of the best scenes were her standing up for herself to him.

I also really liked the dragons, which were probably my favorite part. Everything involving the dragons in this book was very fun, and some of the political and war machinations going on in the background of the book were very interesting, and make me wonder how much of this outside conflict that Yarros is planning to incorporate. The magic being tied to the dragons and manifesting unique powers was fun. In general, the plot of this book was very propulsive and I always wanted to know what happened next.


Which, not to harp on it, is why the romance overpowering the narrative at the 3/4s mark was just insufferable to me. I know I'm not the target audience. I know a lot of people will love this part. I don't dislike romance for the sake of it existing. But I think if it didn't suddenly take over every thought Violet has in any situation and she wasn't super horny every minute, I could have probably tolerated a slow-burn romance here. Alas. Take all this with a huge grain of salt.

Anyway, the book was very fun. I think it deserves the hype. I probably won't read the sequel, but hey, I survived a fantasy romance book! Am I on the road to becoming a Maas stan?

8/10