Iron Flame

6.5/10: A solid and entertaining sequel to what was really a middling, but heavily hyped, first book. I'm not in the target audience for this series, but I'm finding myself really enjoying it. This book at least partly convinced me that beyond the TikTok hype, it has some sort of individuality and creativity that makes it stand out from the other YA/NA fantasy romance books out there.

Many criticisms of Fourth Wing revolved around the plot holes and Rebecca Yarros's unfamiliarity with the epic fantasy genre. This book leaned much more heavily into the fantasy side of storytelling than its predecessor, and Yarros's enthusiasm for and novelty with the genre were both readily apparent. The book is much too long, mostly because of the density of the romance-novel conversations that appeared almost every chapter (“we need to talk about what this means for us”) etc. However, she gets credit for tackling some pretty ridiculous-scale battles and generally doing a better job than many epic fantasy authors in narrating them effectively. I think this book puts the nail in the coffin for the idiots who are arguing that the series is not fantasy...

But it is really glorified OC fanfiction. The AO3 style language and writing continues to be a problem to read in print, although the brash side thoughts that enraptured people so much in the first book are thankfully eliminated here. Xaden's character approaches Gary Stu levels of competence and morality, and while Yarros introduces a golden opportunity early in the book to compromise his character, she refused, which for me reduced the impact of his arc. The romance-heavy dialogue cannot support the massive cast of characters that Yarros has clearly put a lot of work into. And the sex scenes are few and largely disappointing.

This book is much darker than Fourth Wing. I was surprised at the sometimes grimdark feel of the plot and characters. Yarros did a good job conveying stakes and urgency, particularly in the last third of the book, which was very strong. I felt like I got to know each of the characters around Violet better, particularly her squad and her family.

I liked this slightly better than Fourth Wing and will continue reading on, but for now I am still limiting my recommendation of the series to romance fans and people with nostalgia for reading fanfiction late at night.