Fourth Wing

I don't think I could disagree more with the five-star and one-star reviews I've almost exclusively seen for this.

I (male, 20s) actually enjoyed reading this book. It was fun, the romance was better than I was expecting, and it had a nice ending. It was also better fantasy than I would have expected from someone new to the genre, tropes and all notwithstanding. This had less problems than a lot of the more traditional dragon rider books I've blundered through over the years.

That said, the sex scenes were jacked up beyond belief (although hilarious), the prose was written at an elementary level, and the characters were overly simplistic. It's really hard to try to convince the reader that Xaden is a bad boy when everything he does is literally a paragon of morality. I can't really give this a higher rating because of the bluntness and repetitiveness of it all.

Five years ago, I probably would have said this belonged on AO3 and deserved a ton of attention. But fanfic style has now entered the mainstream, and Rebecca Yarros certainly gets a 5/5 on mastering the fanfic style, so it's nice that she gets to get paid for it now. This will be a very nostalgic read for anyone who has stayed up until 2 in the morning binge reading fan fiction. More discerning epic fantasy fans might want to give it a pass.