Operation TikTok: A Tale of Dragons and Drama
Book review of Fourth Wing
Hello, welcome to 4 Buckets a community for musings on life, food, books, and pop culture. Pop down below and leave a comment, I promise I don’t bite. Welcome back to Operation TikTok: where I challenge myself to read popular books from the social media platform.
It usually takes me a while to jump on the bandwagon of the hot new book. Rarely do I read a book at the peak of its popularity because I’m a moody reader, often juggling reading multiple books in various genres at once. I’m also a slow reader, so the hype will be lost by the time I read a popular book. I read the Harry Potter books as an adult, not as a child. Even now I don’t get why certain books rocket to the top of the bestseller list. But since I work in book publishing, I sometimes feel the need to understand the hype. This brings me to Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, an insanely popular book for the past year-plus.
The reviews I’ve seen for Fourth Wing have been hit-and-miss. Some really love it and some really hate it. Where did I fall on the spectrum? I would say I fall in the middle. The book does have an addictive quality. In the beginning, it’s very engaging. I was invested in the characters. But…the story lost a lot of its appeal once certain romance plotlines were introduced.
What’s this book about? In a nutshell, it’s set at an elite college that trains students for combat and to be dragon riders. Yes, this book has dragons. Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail is training to be an elite member of Navarre’s dragon riders. It’s not the life Violet wanted. She trained to be a scribe, a scholar of knowledge and books. Talents her father nurtured, but her mother despised. Now that her father is dead, her mother wants Violet to be a dragon rider, like her siblings, Mira and Brennan.
Violet heads to school with a target on her back. As the daughter of a top general, she has to prove that she belongs. The Sorrengails are not beloved by many students, most of whom are children of the now-dead rebellion leaders who were forced into the war college. Fight for Navarre or die was the choice for many, including Xaden Riorson, whose father led the rebellion. Violet’s brother died at the hands of Xaden’s father, who was subsequently killed. Xaden and Violet should hate each other, and they do for a good chunk of the book. However, the moment Violet notices how handsome Xaden is, I knew where this book was headed! Enemies to lovers is such a common trope in books. If it’s done right, I have no problem with it but that’s not the case with Fourth Wing.
Before I get bogged down in the negatives, let’s discuss the positives.
The Good
The fight/battle scenes are well-written and engaging. You’re invested in the survival of these characters. These moments are also pretty graphic and brutal.
The dragons: Violet’s relationship with her dragons, Tairn and Andarna, starts off rocky but soon develops into a friendship. Other dragons will let their riders die when they fall off—but not Tairn. Over and over, Tairn rescues Violet when she falls off. Her dragons want her to succeed, they want her to get stronger and improve her riding skills.
Banter: Initially, Xaden and Violet engage in funny and witty conversation.
Violet’s powers and her dragons’ powers: Violet can harness the power of lightning. Andarna can freeze time.
Forcing the children of rebellion leaders to fight for a nation they fought against made for a lot of interesting plotlines.
The Bad
The romance: Once Violet acknowledges her feelings for Xaden, things take a turn for the cringy and cheesy, draining the book of all its previously good vibes. Xaden becomes an internal obsession for Violet. He’s dominating her thoughts. When they finally give in to their feelings, they can’t just have sex like normal people. No, their romance/love is so powerful, that literal sparks are flying. Their lovemaking is so powerful they destroy the bedroom furniture. The scenes were just eye-rolling to me.
Yes, I found more good than bad in this book, but I don’t think this was a fully fleshed-out story. The strained relationship between Violet and her mother is alluded to, but they don’t have much character interaction, which I wanted more of. The magic system is a little muddled; it’s not clear why people have certain powers. And…well the romance was just CHEESY.
The book ends on a major cliffhanger. I’m just a little leery of picking up the sequel, Iron Flame. Book two is also 100 pages longer and the reviews were more brutal than book one. Publication of book two was also plagued by printing errors, leading some to say it was rushed to print to capitalize on the popularity of book one. I don’t know if there’s any truth to the rushed publication, but I hope that the publishing kinks have been sorted since the book has been out for more than six months. What about you out there? Have you read either book? What did you think?
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Thursday: No Lost post due to the holiday
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Thursday (7/11): Season Two recap of Lost
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