A Riveting Fantasy Adventure with a Few Editorial Hiccups
Review of “The Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Rebecca Yarros embarks on an enchanting departure from her usual writing style in “The Fourth Wing,” a spellbinding fantasy that casts a mesmerizing spell on its readers. Yarros displays her storytelling versatility with dragons, high-stakes, and romance in this unexpected shift.
In case you’ve missed all the drama over this story, The Fourth Wing blew up on TikTok a few months back. I found out about through my son’s girlfriend (thanks Nikita!) and I promptly lent her a copy of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragon Quest.
What’s to love about The Fourth Wing? First, it’s amazingly fast paced, written in the first person present tense.
Violet, our heroine, is about to enter the dragon riders school, where the high mortality among students is legendary. She makes it through the first major hurdle that involves avoiding being thrown to an early death by a fellow (and psycho) student, only to encounter Xaden Riorson, son of a disgraced general, and enemy number 1 to her family. And of course, Xaden is super hot and amazingly strong, athletic … all that good stuff.
Secondly, Violet is a likeable, compelling heroine, so as a reader, you really care about her.
Thirdly: dragons. They’re cool and strong and snarky.
Actually, the Fourth Wing is not at all like the Dragon Riders of Pern. It’s more like the Hunger Games – but with dragons. And a bit more (all right, a lot more) sex.
However… the story isn’t perfect.
In almost every scene, there’s a comment about someone’s eyebrows. ‘He raised one eyebrow‘. ‘He lifted a perfectly crafted eyebrow‘. ‘Even the diagonal scar that bisects his left eyebrow … only makes him hotter.‘ .
It’s kind of weird, that level of focus on one facial feature. And it could have so easily been edited out. An editor could have said, “Hey, Rebecca, less about the eyebrows, okay?” and the book would have been much better.
But apart from the eyebrows, yes. The Fourth Wing is worth the hype.