Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Publishing Info: Audiobook by Recorded Books, narrated by Rebecca Soler

Star Rating: 4.5/5

Back Cover Summary:

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

It’s been hard not to see Fourth Wing on Bookstagram and everywhere else for the last couple of months as it’s been riding a massive wave of hype. I’m not someone who usually picks up a book because everyone else is reading it. On this occasion though, I did. Specifically, because chronically ill Bookstagrammers were giving it glowing reviews. Also, the dragons had something to do with it since I’ve been obsessed with dragons since I was a kid.

Fourth Wing is a fantasy romance set in a brutal war college for dragon riders. The romance is a slow burn enemies-to-lovers and although the romance aspect wasn’t what drew me to this book, I ended up loving the slow build. The slow burn gave plenty of time for the characters feelings for each other to evolve and was paced really well, and the author does an amazing job of slowly changing my perception of the love interest. The romance didn’t dominate this book either, leaving plenty of room for plot and character development.

Speaking of character development, Rebecca Yarros nailed Violet’s progression. Fourth Wing is set over a year so that’s a lot of time to cover, but the pacing is done really well. We see Violet grow from the scribe-in-training to a reluctant cadet to a dragon rider.

The chronic illness representation is based on the author’s own experiences of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. While I don’t have EDS, I have lived with chronic illness since childhood and found Violet’s experiences and feelings so relatable. Chronic illness rep in all genres is really important, but I find it especially emotional seeing it in fantasy stories. I’ve loved fantasy since I was young but I’ve so rarely seen anyone like me actually living those adventures. And here we have someone who is chronically ill being completely badass and riding dragons. It really does mean so much and I hope we get to see more rep like this in fantasy. Violet has to adapt, train and build her strength in order to be able to complete the college’s various challenges and obstacles. And although her body gets stronger, she is never cured of her condition.

Now, I can’t review a book about dragon riding school without talking about the dragons. They are fierce and deadly but also protective of their bonded riders. The book did start out a little slow and I almost DNF’d at one point (I am very glad I didn’t), but once the dragons and bonding was introduced, I became fully invested in the story. There were also plenty of twists, some I saw coming and some I didn’t, which kept me on the edge of my seat at times. The finale is completely epic with so much action and emotional devastation.

Sometimes, especially in the first half, I found the descriptions hard to follow. For example, I couldn’t visualise the Gauntlet at all. It’s an obstacle course on the side of a cliff but I just couldn’t picture it clearly so felt a bit confused while reading that section. The narration from Rebecca Soler was great though and really drew me into the emotions of each dramatic scene.

I can see why there has been so much buzz around this book, and I’m happy to say that Fourth Wing lived up to the hype. With amazing dragons, chronic illness rep, slow burn and spicy romance, epic action and heart-wrenching moments, Fourth Wing is a thrilling and emotional fantasy romance.