Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: Why I Hated It (rant review)
Featuring "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros, The Empyrean Book One
Introduction
"Fourth Wing" was on the New York Times's fiction best-seller list over than six months, and it spent three months at #1 (source). It's safe to say that I had high expectations for this book, but it didn't even meet the bare minimum.
Hi, I'm Paige. I review YA novels here at Pages of Perfiction, and I'm so happy you stumbled upon this tiny corner of the internet. I just wanted to quickly clarify that everyone has different reading opinions, and these are just mine. No hate at all to the author. I'm talking about points I disliked, but other people might have loved the overall narrative. Without further ado, let's jump into this week's book review!
Song I'm Currently Listening To: "Chapter Two: Ash" by Chloe Mae. It's different from what I usually listen to, but it's really good!
Book I'm Currently Reading: "Elatsoe" by Darice Little Badger
The inciting incident made no sense.
Picture this: you've spent your entire life training to be a scribe, then all of a sudden, your mom decides to crush your dreams. "Surprise," she says, "You have to be a dragon rider, because of our family's tradition!" And she doesn't tell you years in advance. She tells you a day before the job ceremony. Because of this, all of you're scribe training seems to be of no use and you have no time to prepare for your new job.
It's like they threw logic out the window and reached for the most nonsensical plot device in the book. Does this family not have normal discussions? You'd think the mother would have picked a better time to drop this piece of news. Why would the mother wait until the absolute last minute? And besides, the whole first chapter is all how Violet, our protagonist, reacts to the inciting incident, which was mind-numbingly boring.
The worldbuilding was so forced.
The world-building was pretty obvious. For example, when Violet is risking her life, she recites facts about her country’s history to calm her nerves. How boring.
“Green dragons,” I mutter under my breath, “known for their keen intellect, descend from the honorable Uaineloidsig line, and continue to be the most rational of dragonkind, making them the perfect siege weapons, especially in the case of clubtails.” I finish as I line my body up with the first metal rod and get ready to sprint forward.
“Are you…studying?” Aurelie calls up from where she leaps onto the first ball below.
“Calms me down,” I shoot back in quick explanation.
I mean, who in their right mind thinks, "Oh, I might fall to my death here, but you know what would really help? Some textbook-style recitation of historical trivia." What happened to "Show, Don't Tell"? Instead of weaving the world seamlessly into the narrative, this is the kind of forced and obvious world-building that deserves a collective groan from readers.
This isn't a history lesson; it's supposed to be a gripping story. It's like the author was so desperate to show off their world-building skills that they forgot to, you know, actually write a compelling narrative.
The characters were so stereotypical
Violet gets the popular and powerful guy (Xarden), which is so annoying. Like, if Xarden is this rare and famous, where are all the other girls who are supposed to be fawning over him? Where's the competition? And what's so special about Violet, that she gets the guy? (see next section)
Also, both Violet and Xarden are so one-dimensional. Xarden is the powerful bad boy, and Violet is the Cinderella who turns out to have brawns as well as beauty. I don't care about these characters at all. They're so flat! There is zero internal conflict. I can't. I just can't.
Violet was a complete pick-me character
Violet was such a pick-me throughout the whole novel. The worst part is, the author created plot points that forced Violet to be a pick-me.
For example, there's this one scene where Violet is undergoing a special ritual. Every Rider does this ritual. But when Violet undergoes it, she somehow breaks the system and turns out to be super powerful (hint: it has something to with dragons). I literally kept cringing throughout this chapter.
Another example is when she completely disregards the fact that Xaden is her enemy and her sister warned her to stay away from him. Not only does Violet repeatedly visit Xaden's room despite the fact that he's a leader and she's just a student, Violet also decides to be with him even though Xaden clearly stated he's not interested. A normal person would back off, but Violet kept visiting him until he changed his mind.
One of my reading notes was "There are literally other people in the room... [she has] Main character syndrome" when Violet and Xarden were having a one-on-one conversation and somehow forgot that there's a group of people waiting for them to finish. Surprise! The world doesn't revolve around you.
Full list of my reading notes
Conclusion
I have no idea how to end this "review". I'm so bad at writing conclusions, especially in this post, which is basically just me ranting about everything I hated about "Fourth Wing". In any case, I hoped this post was of some use to you. Please consider leaving a comment so I know that people actually read this (and post it with your google account if you want to be notified when I reply).
Like I said at the start of the post, I just wanted to quickly clarify that everyone has different reading opinions, and these are just mine. No hate at all to the author. I'm talking about points I disliked, but other people might have loved the overall narrative
Until next time,
Paige C, signing off.
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