This is a spoiler-free review on Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Read this review to find out why I think you should read this high fantasy book about dragons.
Synopsis
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
Review
This book totally lives up to the hype! The beginning was a little slow but still intriguing. Once the dragons showed up I was all there for it. This book will be living rent free in my head for as long as possible.
The world building was done well and easy to understand. Most high fantasy books are hard to get into because the world building is so dense but I did not feel that with this book.
I love the dragons and I will forever wish I was bonded to a dragon now. It was really cool how they got magic through their dragons and then each developed their own special power through that. Being bonded to a dragon is also chaotic so some of the conversations Violet had with her dragon were really funny.
Violet is actually a really good main character and she has great character development. Of course I love Xayden. I love how he has faith in Violet and pushes her but also knows her limits. I kept thinking that there was no way it could get any better and then something would happen and blow my mind and show me how deep everything could really go.
The plot was hard to understand at some times. The majority of the book was about Violet trying to survive school. I didn’t really know what it was leading up to but there were mentions of battles and attacks that were happening that led me to infer things about the plot.
The end battle still ended up being as crazy and good as I hoped it would. These were only minor things for me that didn’t change how much I loved the book.
This book was really intense and violent and has a lot of military aspects to it. It talks about death a lot so keep those things in mind before reading this book.
I’m so glad I finally ready this book and I am super excited to continue with the series. I recommend this book to anyone who loves dragons, high fantasy books, romance, and magic school.