Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

872 reviews

guccishoestrings's review

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

P.s. this is coming from a male perspective, this book is definitely geared towards the female audience so do not take everything I say to heart as my perspective might be wildly different to many others.

I came across this shortly after it was first published and soon put it on my to read list. I started to notice a few friends reading it and then my sister a couple weeks ago read it and gave it a five star rating. After I saw her giving it a five star rating I soon finished the book I was reading and then picked up this book and I have to say, I had a great time (so thanks @literarymary95 for getting me to read this book next).

Ok let's actually get to the book. Fourth Wing takes place in a fantasy world primarily the country of Navarre in the war college of Basgiath. In this fantasy world, gryfons and dragons are used by the two countries at war to fight each other and the war college is used to train riders to bond with dragons and use signets to combat the gryfons of the other country. The narrator and main character of this series is a young woman named Violet Sorrengail and here first year at said war college. Her life is that of a military brat, her mother is a general and her brother and sister are basically prodigies in the military. At the start of the story, we find out that her older brother Brennan was killed stopping a rebel uprising of the Tyrrendor by the leader of said uprising. This may not seem important at the start, but we soon find out that the rebellion's leader (who was promptly executed after the rebellion was stopped and by Violet's mom) has a son named Xaden who ends up being a third year at the college Violet is joining. This leads to Xaden wanting to kill Violet and Violet wanting to kill Xaden. How will Violet navigate this school of death and her worst nightmare breathing down her back? well you will just have to read the book to find out.

Now lets take a look at some of the good, bad, and hilarious parts of this book:

The Good:
  • The world is interesting, it doesn't open up much in this book as most of the book takes place within and around the college, but it does show that the world has a lot of potential for future growth.
  • The book is always entertaining. It might be get really stupid at times, but it never gets boring. I would rather read a book that is stupid than boring any day.
  • Most of the characters are interesting. The students that a re children of rebellion members, are by far the most interesting. Ridoc and Rhiannon are good side characters but do not get enough screen time (or in this case book time) to really flourish as characters. Violet is a solid character at the start (more about her in the bad section), Xaden has a lot of mystery behind him and im not sure what I think about him yet (I am leaning more towards liking though), Liam is by far my favorite and it is not even close, and Dain sucks, (way more about him in the bad section) but he his written to be disliked.
  • Signets are the abilities characters get and some of them are really interesting.
  •  The dragons are interesting and I love the banter between Tairn and Violet and later Violet and Xaden (through the mind).
  • The ending twist was really unexpected as (Do not read spoiler if you have not read the book, seriously it will ruin the entire book)
    Brennan (Violet's older brother) is still alive, which makes the Violet-Xaden relationship actually make much more sense now. As they literally want to kill each other at the start (not exaggerating that as well).

The Bad:
  • Get ready for a rant. WTF is this college, literally the first thing they do is cross the parapet which if you fall leads to your death, but that's not all other students can throw you off for sh*ts and giggles if they want. Like isn't this college for the best of the best, why waste strong talent if they make even the slightest mistake or if someone is an a**hat and decides to kill someone. They are at war and even if they don't pass they could go join the scribe or infantry quadrant. Then there is the gauntlet (which is literally and im not joking, the ninja warrior course) which kills some of the best students as well. Then back to the students killing students thing, it makes no sense outside of the threshing where you have to fight to bond with some dragons. End of rant.
  • Time for rant number 2. Violet starts off as a weak character that is hated due to being the daughter of a general, but by the end is starting to become a Mary Sue as
    She has two dragons (never happened in recorded history), gets lightning (which is super strong and hasn't been seen in over a hundred years), has the flaw of weak joints, but kind of disappears later in the book, is a goddamn genius apparently who also happens to be a scribe (who are the smart/historian people), gets bonded to the second strongest dragon you can get and gets a feather tail dragon (which is the first to ever bond with someone) to be her dragons, and later basically becomes either respected or feared by pretty much everyone and those that don't respect her are dead.
    End of rant number 2.
  • One of the plot twists at the end,
    the one where if three of the rebel children are together, the general with the strongest dragon cannot predict the future of them, which is a weird thing that is never explained why and seemed to just be thrown in to be a way around an op ability of a future antagonist.
  • Dain is designed to be a hated character but he is just one dimensional. All is conversations are basically Violet leave because your weak and I do not want you to die or I love you Violet and why don't you listen to me or like me. Then gets pissy every time because he's a pompous ass.
  • I enjoy cursing in any book, but some of the cursing in this book made me cringe and think back to my days of middle/high school when people threw curses in every sentence because they thought it was cool.
  • Not really a bad thing but I hated it so Ima put it here because I can (don't read this if you have not read this book).
    Liam f*cking dies, like why him. You could have taken out Imogen, Garrick, or Bodhi but you had to pick my favorite character by a mile to kill. I audibly said out loud no f*cking way when he died.

The Hilarious:
  • Read chapter 30 before reading any other part of this book. It made me audibly laugh and took me about 40 mins. to read because of how much I was laughing. I mean Violet almost burns down the school for reasons that you will have to read to find out.
  • The banter between Tairn and Violet is great and you can tell he is just a grumpy old man in a dragon.
  • Ridoc is only in this book as the class clown and that is exactly all he is.
  • Dain is so bad that what he does in the end will make you disdain him (pun intended which is why its here).
  • The chapter where Tairn and Sgaeyl are doing the dirty is just a fantastic form of WTH am I reading type writing that I just love.
  • Xaden and Violets relationship, if you read the book you know what trainwreck this relationship is.

I was surprised how much I was entertained by this book. I heard a lot of differing opinions about this book and I felt why different about all of them. This book was downright hilarious in the romance parts and the action was not bad although really stupid at times. I will definitely be reading Iron Flame next and can't wait to see what that has in store.
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saretta02's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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alyoxen_'s review

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adventurous inspiring medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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stephmcoakley's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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thatsssorachael's review

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adventurous dark funny reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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garbage_mcsmutly's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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bujo_bellel's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I LOVE THIS VERISON IT MAKES THE CHARACTERS SO MUCH BETTER and emphasises their tone and also I LOVE the background noises and music, really helps with the visualisation :D Really making me hate certain characters and fall in love with others even more!!! I honestly don't really like the voice actor for Tairn, but he's still a good VA, just not giving Tairn :( I LOVE Xaden's voice actor!! He's really giving me the feeels :) I'm still getting used to the VA for Violet because I'm used to Rebecca Soler lol, and I love her, but the VA for Violet here is good too, sounds younger. ALSO WHY DID IT END THERE I WAS EXPECTING ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE REVIEWS >:(
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mewchand2's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A sexy fantasy novel with lots of twists and turns. The author did a good job of creating a romance that I was rooting for early on but still kept me guessing about where it was going to end up. 
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mercerhanau's review

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adventurous dark emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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zydecovivo's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

If you get fed any social media posts about books, you have probably heard about Fourth Wing. Admittedly, I went into reading this book thinking “Everyone is saying it’s a game changer, so it must be amazing” and I think that is the wrong way to start this, or any, book. 

I’d like to start by saying it is good. If you like romantasy (fantasy+romance) with a touch of dystopia, you’ll have a great time reading Fourth Wing. The main character is also explicitly disabled and it is intertwined with her journey of self-discovery, as well as challenging the status quo of the society she is in. Based on the descriptions, I think she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I also love the dragons. They are characters in their own right, not just tools to be used. However, the entire time I was reading, I couldn’t help but tell myself “This is just Divergent with dragons.” The general plot is almost identical. Everything was predictable because of this and the only things that I didn’t predict were because something we were told was “impossible” was, in fact, possible for our super special main character. This occurs multiple times. I don’t even think it’s an unreliable narrator at that point. I think it’s an unreliable universe. The upper hand that Fourth Wing has over Divergent is that this fantasy setting allows for more creativity (and covering up for narrative mistakes). Additionally, I did not enjoy most of the main character’s “love life”. This is enemies-to-lovers, so much so that it is almost anti-friends-to-lovers. I don’t care about either trope, but the blatant comparisons get old. I also felt that the main character thinks about “spice” a lot more than I care for, especially considering the actual spice level of the book. There may be people who want to see this since women’s sexuality is largely swept aside in many stories. But this was not it for me. 

Overall, this is a decent adult romantasy book and probably a good introduction to the genre for people who prefer epic fantasy stories. I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it. But it is not groundbreaking in the slightest and I’m not sure if I will continue the series. 


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