Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros Review

Why is Fourth Wing So Hyped?

At this point, it seems like everyone who would want to read Fourth Wing, 2023’s blockbuster romantasy about a tiny gal riding dragons (and brooding bad boys), already has. It takes a rare book to capture and hold the attention of millions of people, so even though I’m on the later side of the craze, I still wanted to understand the hype.

Fourth Wing is an interesting case. In many ways, it is exactly the type of adult romantasy that readers have been craving, but that publishers are years behind on delivering. It’s high-concept and has an amazing pitch: Violet Sorrengail, the frail youngest daughter of a powerful general, is sent to a dark-academia military school where young recruits learn to ride dragons and earn their spots among the military elite after graduation—assuming they don’t die among the way.

Fourth Wing knows what readers want and delivers. The stakes are high; Violet is thrown into an almost Hunger Games style world, where students are expected (even practically encouraged) to murder each other if the lessons don’t kill them first. There is explicit on-the-page sex that adult readers who have aged out of tamer YA titles have been looking for. And of course, there are the dragons and the fantasy-style political intrigues.

If we talk about what Fourth Wing has going for it, we can also talk about what it lacks. The world-building is bare-bones, sometimes to the point of confusion (for example, me, when reading: they have bedside clocks, but not pens?). The rules can be a little nonsensical (cadets can get away with murdering each other for the good of the wing, but no one murders the murdering psychopath? The military seems to be strained, but tons of new recruits are needlessly exposed to lethal avoidable dangers? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the lessons be a little less deadly and murderous and just siphon the failures off to another military branch? Why does no one use saddles on the dragons???). Violet has chosen-oneitis—there is barely any rare or special ability that she doesn’t have, along with being conventionally pretty, petite, and having special colored hair. It frankly gets a little ridiculous at times. Very few people get one dragon and Violet gets two??? On top of that, some of the emotional arcs, like the supposedly earth-shattering love between Violet and Xaden are a little copy/paste.

In my opinion, none of those failures make Fourth Wing a bad book. The simplicity of the world-building, the romance, and even the incredibly modern prose (Violet describes herself as being drawn to toxic men, for example) all serve to make the book highly accessible to new readers, many of whom will hopefully stick around in the genre and find more authors and books to support.

For the most part, I think any book that gets people reading is a good thing. The biggest caveat that I have about this book is actually the disability rep. I think the message is sincere: Violet’s disability doesn’t hold her back from becoming a dragon rider and overcoming all the odds, however, I do think there is something to be said about the message of pushing through pain to that extent, especially when Violet’s stubborn decisions are mostly rewarded. Unfortunately, most disabilities are not managed by pushing through the pain, and while representation is great (and Rebecca Yarros has the same condition as Violet), I do think it is worthwhile for authors to consider the unintended messages in their portrayals.

In summary, this book is a page-turner, I understand its appeal, and I hope to see further development in the subsequent sequels both in terms of the depth of the story and in what the audience wants from it.

Fourth Wing Breakdown

• Series: Book 1 of the Empyrean Series
• Genre: New Adult Romantasy
• Tropes: Enemies or Rivals to lovers, minor love triangle, chosen-one
• Spice: On the page, explicit
• Representation: Disability (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome main character, deaf side character), nonbinary side characters, queer side characters, multi-racial side characters