Fourth Wing: Magical Masterpiece or Miserable Mediocrity?

 

 

When it is young Violet Sorrengail’s turn to enrol at Basgiath, she was due to enter her beloved Scribe Quadrant, building her life around what she loves most, her books, knowledge, and academia. However, when Violet’s mother, the General Head at Basgiath, forces her into the Riders Quadrant instead, Violet’s world turns upside down. It is now a fight for survival in the deadliest training ground as Violet must battle through her physical fragility, manage her dynamics with the other students, and harness new abilities to become one of the college’s elites, a dragon rider

 

This review does contain spoilers.

 

 

Initially, when I picked up this book, it was being highly hailed with glowing reviews and frequent chatter online, so I had high hopes. Were my expectations met? Sort of.

Despite not being a completely original premise –  the dynamic of a brutal but structured institution where the weak protagonist must fight and will eventually flourish- similarly seen in that of The Hunger Games or Divergent, Yarros does spend time explaining this land’s own geography, history, culture and rules and paired with the dynamics of the plot, uniqueness definitely takes form and this allayed my own worries of reading a shoddy rip off.

 

The best bit of this book, by far, was everything to do with the dragons. In Basgiath, dragons select and bond with their riders, and once bonded, rider and dragon can share their thoughts with each other through telepathy. This element creates a whole world of interesting character dynamics, and along with that, the action scenes involving the dragons were hugely impressive. In particular, the last five chapters of the book were a huge highlight and were written well in order to keep the reader in the front seat of the relentless carnage that the characters face. I thought the dragon elements were great, and they would almost make up for the bad bits.

 

 

My main problem with this book was Violet Sorrengail, our protagonist. Her character just didn’t make sense- also, Violet herself was a bit annoying. Violet was a main character cliché: she’s new, she’s not ready, yet against all odds- she flourishes and outperforms everyone else. I wasn’t into it. What didn’t make sense was that Violet was riddled with so many disadvantages walking into Basgiath; she has an apparent chronic condition, which makes her really weak and fragile, she has had barely any physical training, and all the other students are actively trying to kill her. Yet, Violet does not succumb to the extensively described brutality of the college and, instead, she not only survives but flourishes (bonding with not one but two dragons, obtaining a really rare and downright cool power, and winning most of her fights), getting through with nothing more than a couple of broken bones. Pretty lucky, right? These two things don’t add up because Violet’s character profile is dominated by her fragility, and the College’s is dominated by its habit of killing its students off with ease. Violet is so clearly not cut out for the conditions she walks into, but then she goes and just dominates the whole field. This feels a little lazy from Yarros, as the rules of the world have clearly just been bent when it comes to Violet in order to keep her alive. Death just happens to always skirt around her when we all know that she would be first on that reaper’s list. This creates inconsistencies regarding this universe, and when the main part of the book has issues, it’s pretty hard to look past it.

 

 

Along with Violet, I did not get on much with Xaden either. Xaden Riorson is the son of a rebellion leader, and when they both meet, Xaden has a natural hatred against Violet due to some previous score settling between their parents. However, throughout the book and especially when they have to learn to work together due to both their dragons being mates, Xaden just sort of forgets his hatred for her and then becomes physically attracted to her. There did not seem to be any slow burn or a building crescendo of reasons for him to actually like her; he just suddenly started wanting her. This didn’t make sense for his character as he was this tough and mysterious dragon rider with a mind for battle and strategy, and I wanted his romantic breakthrough to be a little more detailed and nuanced. Along with this, their relationship was inherently lustful, and I thought it was cringeworthy, and some moments I read were not unlike some moments you would find in a badly written fanfiction.

 

Overall, and I know I talked a big game about what I hated, but I did enjoy Fourth Wing. It was a fun read, but I do think it is overrated. Fourth Wing definitely had some fun parts that kept me hooked, but then would let itself down with things that are weird or don’t make sense that will glare you in the face the whole read.