Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros Book Review

[@emmareckzin]

Totally agree, I absolutely loved the book! The world building was sooo well done and I feel like Rebecca introduced the world in bite sized chunks that made it easier to follow. The book was addictive, I found it started strong and remained that way the whole book, no slow parts. The dragons were so good too, hilarious! (Should I get the wingleader?😏)

[@robiningnaciofamiliasalas5983]

I did enjoy your review! Kuddos with that predicion from Jack!

[@heididischler]

Thanks ☺️

[@PoppyMorreale]

im so curious how many copies this has sold probably by the billions

[@heididischler]

Definitely wouldn’t be surprised 🤪

[@GatekeeperGuardian-wv3cd]

I don't know how you did it, but you got your analysis wrong on so many levels that it's impressive. •The worldbuilding in this series is atrocious. Basgaith's top brass is idiotic, Navarre's government in general is incompetent, the war is pointless, the relationship between humans and dragons is nonsensical, and the magic system, while functional, is lazy especially for the kind of characters Rebecca wanted to make. If anything about the worldbuilding here was good then that's because you haven't actually been exposed to that much media before. •Even worse than the worldbuilding, the characters were easily the worst part of this novel. Violet especially is nothing more than a vapid, airheaded womanchild who ends the story having learned nothing despite the author's insistence to the contrary. In fact, the plot bends over backwards to give her a bunch of Mary Sue powers (the precise opposite of your claim) precisely to keep her from having to develop as a character despite being in the ideal spot to undergo such develpment or even use her supposed critical thinking skills. •Don't even try with the "the characters didn't fit your typical molds" when Xaden is the most hollow and soulless Rhysand expy out there. He is nothing but a collection of the fewest traits Red Tower thought they could invoke to take advantage of Tiktok girls with none of the personality the character those traits came from had. And that's putting aside that Rhiannon is the most derivative black best friend simply for the sake of such a character existing. The only character who isn't a stock archetype is Violet and that's because she manages to be something even worse. •The plot was a meandering mess. The plot can't even set up an antagonist for a conflict let alone a proper character motivation for Violet. This is bizarre because there are about 3 different potential character motivations for Violet as presented in the narrative, but all of them are quashed by that very same narrative and the closest thing the story has to an antagonist is someone whose motivation also doesn't make sense if only because we don't even know what Violet herself wants. As a result the plot comes across as a series of events happening around Violet with no common thread between them. •Killing off a bunch of redshirts for no reason does not create stakes especially when there's no good reason they have to die. It's just a cheap gimmick used by Yarros to pretend there are stakes in the series because her target audience is bound to not know any better. •The writing style is precisely why Violet comes across as a vapid womanchild. It makes her sound not just anachronistic, but like she's much younger and dumber than she's supposed to be. •The Venin are so bad at being villains that they don't even really constitute as characters or a manifestation of a narrative theme. What is their motivation? What is their characterization? They're just mindless monsters for the sake of being mindless monsters.

[@heididischler]

I’m gonna be honest, I think a lot of what you’re saying is opinionated. Many many people love Fourth Wing and believe it is very well written. As you’ve already seen, I totally adored it lol but as far as Violets “common thread” for character motivation, she really didn’t have motivation until closer to the end. Her motivation was to survive because her mother forced her to be a dragon rider. It changed the more she realized that she truly belonged there. Not only that, but because this will be a very large series, many things aren’t revealed until book two. The stake is surviving for this book. It was always to survive. It sucks that you didn’t enjoy this novel, but again, I think a lot of your points are based off the fact that you didn’t like the novel, not that it wasn’t well written ☺️

[@GatekeeperGuardian-wv3cd]

@@heididischler If her motivation was to survive then there was no reason for her to rebuff Dain at every turn. That's how I know this isn't it. If her motivation was to sincerely become a dragon rider then her plan to poison everyone was never going to work if only for the reasons Xaden points out. And if her motivation was just to try and impress Xaden then it sure was weird that she kept believing he was a mortal threat to her long after it was clear this was not the case. The simple truth is that this was a poorly written novel from every possible critical perspective. It's ok to acknowledge that the book was bad and like it anyway, but pretending it was good from a critical perspective is a Sisyphean task.