Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

★★★★

*MILD SPOILERS BELOW*

Vibe Check: Divergent meets Harry Potter with dragons!

Fourth Wing is one of those books I heard about on BookTok. After the last disaster recommendation from BookTok, The Wedding Date, I hesitated to open this one. What convinced me was the multitude of people of all ages and colors saying how phenomenal this book was. So I cracked it open and quickly became one of those people!

The first book in the Empyrean series, Fourth Wing, tells the story of Violet Sorrengail and her first year at Basgiath. Basgiath, a school for training the different magical branches of the military of Navarre, houses the scribe, healer, infantry, and rider quadrants. The story begins with the first day of school. We meet Violet, daughter of General Lilith Sorrengail, who spent her life training to be a scribe like her late father. We immediately learn two vital pieces of information. The first is that Violet has a physical impairment that makes her bones and joints easily breakable. The second is that her family name makes Violet a prime target amongst her classmates which include the children of the deceased rebels who were killed a generation earlier. We follow her fight for survival during her first year of training.

During this year Violet reunites with her best friend Dain (a rider a year ahead of her), makes friends and enemies, strength trains her body, and joins the hallowed ranks of dragon riders like her mother, sister, and late brother. The best part is that she bonds to two dragons instead of just one, a completely unprecedented feat in the history of Navarre. Violet uses her bookishness and passive nature to survive the first year and elude her enemies. She faces numerous obstacles but the most significant is the mastery of her signet power that appears after you bond with a dragon. But once Violet’s signet manifests, things get really interesting. Dragons fly, monsters emerge, conspiracy unfolds, and betrayal endangers our heroes…Then the book ends!

“There is no rule that says a dragon cannot modify their seat to serve their rider. You have worked just as hard–if not harder–than every rider in this quadrant. Just because your body is built differently than the others doesn't mean you don’t deserve to keep your seat. It takes more than a few strips of leather and a pommel to define a rider.”

— Tairn, Chapter 28

This read felt different because it took the underdog story and magnified it. Violet is forced into the rider’s quadrant where her disability and family name could mean the death of her. She’s targeted and underestimated by both her enemies and her best friend Dain. (Typically the male best friend stands in as a source of strength and support for the heroine…Usually, because he’s a little bit in love with her. But this is not the case!) Through all of this, she manages to outwit her competition with her scribe-trained brain, show kindness and mercy to those who target her, and remain a team player. We don’t see Violet slowly lose her mind and turn into a remorseless killer, much like heroines in this genre. The supporting characters are a bit archetypal. There’s the broody love interest Xaden, the naturally gifted girl best friend Rhiannon, and the perfect older sister Mira. Together they add context and layers to this world where teenagers possess magic powers and large dragons.

It's been quite a while since I read a book whose ending I couldn’t guess early on. (Although I will say I did have the random thought that her brother could be alive during the first half of the book, by the end I was convinced that was wishful thinking.) This read was a wild ride and I loved every minute of it. I’ll be impatiently waiting for book number three while I devour book number two. 

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Lingering Thoughts

• Are we really calling this YA? 

• When is book three coming out? 

• Amazon should make the show into a cartoon not a live action.

• Will Violet ride Andarna in the next book? 

• If Brennan is alive, does that mean Papa Sorrengail is alive?

• Does Mira know Brennan is alive?