【 FOURTH WING 】

Book #1 in The Empyrean series.

Incendiarily good.

Genre: YA fantasy [High fantasy]
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Published: May 2023
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Pages: 512 (paperback)

I picked this up out of sheer curiosity over its immense popularity – and wow, I’m so glad I did. This actually lives up to the hype and I will start by simply stating that this is worth it, and you should read it.

The hype around the ‘spiciness’ of the book put me off a little, and I will say that this is not first and foremost a spicy book (people are getting too excited about sex being present in YA stories). I have no issue with spice, I’m just finding the online devotion to its presence in books tedious. There is romance and explicit sexy scenes; if you’ve read Outlander, though, this has nothing on that.

Would I give it to a 12 year old? Hmm, no. Fourteen? Well, parents that’s up to you.

The best thing about Fourth Wing is the action and adventure. DRAGONS, people! There is nothing that makes me more excited than an intense, dragon-packed storyline for me to sink my teeth into.

And the enemies-to-lovers trope is thriving and strong here. I am struggling to get my heartrate down after this, it’s just sooo addictive.

It is impossible to put down, with have you all in a tizzy, and certainly has me desperate for the next instalment. Yarros has pulled off exactly what she set out to do in this book: write a YA fantasy novel that steps into the High and Epic zones of the fantasy genre, to introduce a new wave of readers to the more complex aspects of what this genre has to offer.

In short – if you’re a newbie here toddling across from the romantasy scene – welcome to your baptism of fire for what fantasy has to offer.

But if you’re a seasoned fantasy reader like me, welcome to your next best read. There is simply nothing to not enjoy about this. Perhaps I could go nitty-gritty and say character development was superficial at times, but knowing the purpose of this book, I’m more than happy to take this at face value and enjoy the wild ride that this is.

Go buy it, go read it, stop worrying about the hype, it’s still worth it.

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Title: Fourth Wing
Series title: The Empyrean
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Purchase: Angus & Robertson
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Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.