Fourth Wing: Discover the brutal and addictive world of the global bestselling fantasy phenomenon (The Empyrean Book 1)

I loved this book! Great characters! It made me laugh out loud and cry!

Worst book I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. 0 stars but forced to give 1 to leave a review.

I have very few positives about this book. I was choking it down by the half way point and have been painfully scorned by booktok. If this garbage can be published and praised by the masses then ANYONE can publish anything. Absolute trash.

Buckle up. This is a doozy.

Before I get into the granular observations, I have to say I really don't understand the hype around this book. Unless the entirety of the reading audience is aged 14 - 16 (which leaves me with an entirely separate set of concerns) then I don't know why the ratings are so high. The majority of my "beef" stems from the author and the writing style, which does seem to be geared towards the younger audience or at least readers that don't have set expectations for the quality of a book with 4.6 stars on Amazon.

**edit: I am so relived to see multiple other 1-2 star reviews saying ALL the same things!! BLESS. I felt so gaslit by fans on social media because of the rave reviews. But appears that many other people had all the same thoughts and observations. So for that I am happy.

I knew I was getting into less than desirable territory before I even started per cautionary heeding from my SIL who read the book and said I may enjoy it. And to her credit, yes, I did enjoy the plot line. Because who doesn't love redemption arc stories with strong heroines, dragons, and enemies-to-lovers?

That is where my enjoyment ended. If it had not been the compelling plot line and the few-and-far-between twists that kept me invested in reading the story I would've quit before I reached the halfway mark.

This book had the potential to be a great one had the writing been better. This read like a pre-teen, perhaps middle school aged fanfic that I may as well have pulled from the depths WattPad (if you know, you know) and the main protagonist, if you even want to call her that, matched the description well despite being portrayed as 20 years old.

There were MANY repetitive descriptions throughout the whole 600+ pages: heart being crushed by vices, "exploring my body like he had nowhere else to be/no other obligations", eyes falling and souls crushing, blah blah blah. And don't even get me started on Violet's CONSTANT monologue of "Fuck. That." "Fuck. Her." "Fuck. Him." If I would've taken a shot every time she said that I would've been drunk enough to forget I read this to begin with and spared myself the time and emotional investment. I understand that the style was to be in alignment with her 'bad-assery' but I found it tacky and downright annoying. Especially considering her other character flaws which I will get to eventually.

This book could've spared to be HALF the length had we edited out the tacky filler and unnecessary descriptions that did not contribute to the betterment of the book at all. Why do I need to know about every character's sexual orientation and habits? Why do we need to know their birthdays? That also goes for the random side plots?? Jack's role throughout the whole book was just to be a bully and really served no purpose other than to increase tension for the reader which I hardly picked up on at all. And going back the sexual orientation and habits of the other characters....the "every one needs a representation in this book" was WAY overdone and saturated. We had blacks, we had whites, we had non-binarys, we had ASL users, we had gays, we had bi's, and I just could not keep up. I didn't mind their involvement but did we really have to cover every base known to man?

And on that topic, the plot itself (though interesting) was reminiscent of 'How To Train Your Dragon.' This wasn't terrible considering the involvement of dragons was more sophisticated, but with the lack of sophistication from the actual riders/human counterparts...it felt juvenile. Especially as we got deeper into the book and suddenly every twist known to man was thrown in: Violet is so 'special' she got two dragons (which we never really got a reason WHY other than the dragons govern themselves and make their own rules but still didn't really expand on what the significance was to the whole theme of the book. Felt like shock value that lost its spark later.), SURPRISE Violet is still so 'special' that her signet power is "so rare" (oooo shocker), and WOW they can all communicate through thoughts and OH, even MORE now that Violet and Xaden can communicate to each other through their thoughts too, Jack and everyone here wants me dead, the government is corrupt, the war is not what you think, etc. My mental load was a LOT by the end because there were SO many things to keep track of.

Over all it felt like the author was living out girlish, juvenile fantasies through writing this and though having a lot of great ideas for the plot, felt the need to include them all instead of picking a few and making them really great and thoroughly developed. This read like a movie, which wasn't terrible in and of itself, but the fact that it read like a 13 year old had written it and something down the lines of a teenage rom-com....I was not a fan.

Now, Violet.

A "pick-me" girl by every stretch of the word. Whiny, prideful, somehow the best at everything though dealing with a real life disease, and entitled to the nines. I could barely stand her. On top of the repetitive nature of the writing, her thoughts and portrayals were awful on their own. Her attitude sucked though she somehow was meant to be portrayed as honorable and strong? Yeah, not likely. The arguments she had with nearly EVERY ONE she interacted with in the book felt unnatural and so clique-y that I had to remind myself this is a rider COLLEGE not a middle school. To me, she read like only having her reputation and ego in mind and came across as self-serving and unappreciative. Xaden (I'll get to him) went out of his way so many times to save her ass more than once and she instead would turn around, flip him off (again, so many times I may as well have taken shots, too, and died of liver failure.) and proceed to argue that "she didn't need him" and "can handle herself". I felt like this was supposed to be reflective of her need to be sufficient and dependent on her own self as to not be a liability to the wing, but it was SO ANNOYING. Be forreal...how many times do you have to do the same dam thing- almost being killed, falling out of saddle, etc- before you realize that you do need help and to say THANK YOU?? That would've been more valiant and honorable than anything.

I find it hard to believe the hostility between "everyone wanted to kill Violet" as it did not feel realistic. There were lots of opportunities she put herself in, and though I understand they played their own roles in other aspects of the book (Xaden's involvement, say) I was just rolling my eyes the whole time because it just wasn't believable.

The romantic enemies to lovers trope was such a let down. Yes, Xaden is hot and desirable and that was portrayed MANY times. But the attraction felt more like "fated lovers" and nothing more. The attraction was strictly superficial and the two did not have a single moment in time that I felt a connection and shift in their mutual understanding outside of wanting to jump each other's bones 24/7. The sex scenes were easily 17/18+ and I hope to goodness the audience the book seems to appeal towards is no younger because those moments were NOT middle school fan fiction. Which again, would've been ok had the writing style not been so terrible and juvenile.

Xaden, though dreamy, was your typical book "bad boy" who falls for the innocent, "not like other girls" outcast and was almost 'too' perfect to be another believable role. I didn't mind him to start but by the end I was over him too. Between he and Violet playing games with each other's minds and emotions it's no WONDER the book was 600 pages long. Slow burn was so wrong, because the tension was there, the actions between both parties were there; eluding the feelings of attraction but both still had the audacity to look each other in the face and say they felt nothing for better part of 400 pages. Do all book characters lack humility and any sense of self awareness these days? I would expect that from a different sort of story with a different premise. But it just did not fit in my opinion and soured the whole romance aspect because I knew that no matter HOW many times they both looked at each other's lips or brushed arms or talked about how much they wanted each other for the 50th time that nothing would come of it just yet. The elements of jealousy and such were also overdone. AGAIN how is that AT ALL believable.

My few highlights- and there were only a few- were the intrigue of the story line as a whole and the couple twists. I was invested enough in the plot line that I stayed long enough to read the whole thing and consider reading the whole series. The twists were enough that I actually accepted my interpretations or assumptions were wrong and things were different than I expected. Now if only the book was written by someone else. I don't think I will be reading the rest of the books, as interesting as the plot and twists were. It is just not enough to compete with the lackluster writing style, fan fiction style writing, and absolutely INSUFFERABLE main character.

Like I said, I had many thoughts and none of them were stellar or highly posititive. I am disappointed that this wasn't better because, like I said, it had all of the components to be one. But the execution was poor and therefore everything suffered.

I understand this is all subjective and obviously the book has done well. My opinion is a drop in the sea of praise this book has obviously received.

FUCK. This was a banger. A+ world building, A+ main character. I want a dragon!!!!

Not going to lie… I fought this book. I don’t love reading hyped books and I kept asking myself “Do I really want to read a book about dragons and their riders?” 🫤
Yes. A hundred times, yes. Though I was stubborn at the start, the storyline sucked me in and I was quickly addicted. I enjoyed the characters, action, suspense and twists. There is some spice, but not super spicy: 🌶️🌶️🌶️. 100% recommend

This book had me entirely intrigued. It was full of suspense and the slow burn with MC’s was well laid out with the character development. I was NOT expecting that twist!