"Fourth Wing"

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Book Club Read

Pages: 498 Genre: fantasy romance

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Before my friend suggested this for our book club pick, I hadn't heard anything about it. Then the algorithm gods heard I was interested and it was only of the only books I heard about. Apparently The Fourth Wing has been taking the bookish corners of the internet by storm, and after having read it, I can see why. This book is perfect for those of us who grew up (or just enjoyed) the 2010s Dystopia craze, as it employs a lot of those elements in the fun and dangerous world of Navarre.

The Fourth Wing follows 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail as she is commanded by the general (aka her mother) to join the Rider Quadrant — the death-defying legion of dragon riders — instead of the much safer Scribe Quardrant. She faces a lot of physical disadvantages, and she's sure death is in her near future as the Quadrant and dragons both demand a lot. Not to mention the people that want her dead for being her mother's daughter, like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader. As she gets through the daily challenges, she starts to suspect that there's more secrets and deception in her world than she thought. Everyone has an agenda, and Violet's is simple: survive.

Now, if you ask me about my taste in books, I will be the first one to tell you that I am not the biggest fantasy fan (or romance fan, for that matter). My actual reading history might betray me there, but other than the frequent Percy Jackson rereads, fantasy is really not the genre I feel the most drawn to. But Yarros was writing this book to be people's introduction into fantasy, which meant that a lot of the language leaned more contemporary. True Fantasy Readers may have issue with it, but it helped me get into the book. It stresses me out when it feels like I'm being thrown into the deep end of fantasy lore/language, so I appreciated The Fourth Wing just wading into the shallow end with me.

When I first started reading the book, I was struck by how similar it was to that genre of dystopian book that was popular in the 2010s: people are split into talent/ability groups, and the main heroine is inexplicably better than everyone else in some way. I consider myself to be very specific with this Divergent-style of writing, and I know enough to know that it normally isn't that good, so I was really nervous about The Fourth Wing. My concerns were particularly about how Violet was described. There is a lot of focus put on how much physically weaker she is than the other recruits — not only does she have significantly less training, but she's small and frail and weak and brittle. Given my reading history, I was honestly assuming this was Yarros' way of showing us how special and unique Violet was before she eventually became inexplicably strong and powerful. I'm giving this point a long introduction because I feel like it was wrong of me (and unfair to Yarros) to assume this, and I want to make sure you don't go in with the same thought. Once it clicked that Violet is actually disabled (she's meant to have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome), I felt really bad because I actually think it was very well-written. Violet had to train and make accommodations in order to succeed, and we got to see her improve as the book went on.

Within this vein of thought, I really liked how diverse The Fourth Wing was. And I like that the book didn't feel the need to justify having diverse characters, it just did. That's what the real world is like, and it should be what the literary world looks like too. It made the characters feel more real, because they weren't all just blank slates in filling space.

I really enjoyed the plot. It felt very familiar, in some ways. My friend and I found it funny because there were frequently moments that we found to be both completely predictable and entirely unexpected. It felt like Yarros had a good understanding of who her reader is and what books they've probably enjoyed in the past, allowing her to play off of our expectations in a way that was unexpected but not random. And yes, that's just the definition of a well-written plot twist. It's also a testament to Yarros' strengths in writing.

You should know I'm a sucker for a good political plot. I won't get into it (spoilers!), but if you like the whole potentially-corrupt government/undercovering well-kept secrets, thing, there's a lot to sink your teeth into here.

As for the "romance" part of this fantasy romance book ... look, I'm never going to be the best person to judge a romance. I will tell you that I enjoyed the dynamic Violet had with her love interests; while it was technically a love triangle, the reason behind its existence felt a lot more realistic than just throwing two men at a woman and seeing which one sticks. I can't say much about the two of them without it being spoilers, but I liked how everything played out. Personally, I felt like Violet was thinking about the men a bit too much, but I'm also aware that comes down mostly to personal preference. You should know the book is pretty explicitly NSFW.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I was expecting to. It's a perfect "yound 20-something's first fantasy." It's a complex book that you'll want to read again to pick up on the details. And if you're as nostalgic as I am for the literature of the 2010s, then you'll find yourself on familiar ground. I know I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the sequel in November.