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fourth wing by rebecca yarros (i'm a hater, sorry)
I'd like to preface this with "no hate", but that's not true. On the spectrum of hate to love, I'm leaning very far in one direction, and this isn't a fine line kind of situation. This is a there's a gulf I do not believe I can cross kind of situation. Maybe it's a little too harsh to categorize it as hate, and liking or disliking books is so subjective anyway, but on a personal level this one still hurt me.
tl;dr not my vibe. and to my future self, I guess if you ever forget this whole experience and attempt to pick this book up again, here's your reminder to put it back down.
I don't have too much of substance to say since my memories of this book are vague by now (when do I ever have anything of substance to say though? but that's not the point). It's been a couple weeks since I've read it, and I'm not willing to check it out from the library again just to uncover the specifics.
The book was recommended to me by a friend who hadn't read it himself but had heard high praise from one of his friends, and thought it'd be something I'd like. My friend and I don't read a lot of the same books, and maybe I should've taken the rec-off-a-friend-of-a-friend-with-no-other-info as a warning sign, but it was nice that my friend heard how much his friend loved the book and wanted me to be able to have the same experience. I also do want to branch out of the narrow scope of my comfort zone more often.
Besides, on paper my friend wasn't off the mark. I was promised dragons, a death academy, an enemies-to-lovers romance, and so I thought I would eat that shit up. On a side note, I'm starting to doubt that I actually like enemies-to-lovers; I thought I did, but recently it's been a wash.
I've tried to reason that out to myself actually. What I don't like seeing in enemies-to-lovers: instalove (for that reason romeo and juliet is not my jam), disliking the other for a misunderstanding or hearsay, expression of professed hate through overt snark or a highly illogical course of action, sudden switchover to full love without resolving prior issues or working through lingering emotions from being enemies. What I like I've had a harder time figuring out, I'm still not quite sure, but I think it's seeing characters stuck in that gray area between wanting and not wanting, and all the juicy possibilities that can come out of it, of repression vs emotion vs choices, of possible betrayal, of the barriers that love can or can't cross, of histories that can't be easily forgotten or forgiven.
So what fourth wing was... well, I'll get into it.
I should start with what I liked. There were dragons. The dragons were cool, albeit kind of plot-devicey, like big guns to be pulled out when the plot needed to be moved along. But a lot of the book felt that way to me, including the war itself, so not going to ding them too much for that. I liked the mind-speaking, that the dragons could channel powers through their riders, and that these powers were an expression of the rider themselves. I also did feel like the book improved at the end: it was faster paced, the stakes felt more real (weird to say when the stakes of their everyday existence was supposedly death), there were some big "twists", I could look past my dislike for most of the characters because Things were Happening.
Which just goes to tell you how little was happening the rest of the book. Hmm, I suppose that's not entirely true. There were a lot of events that I'm sure were important to the plot but I just didn't feel much about personally. I would get into that too, but I doubt I remember what they are...
Plot aside, I'm the type of reader who likes having someone to root for, and if not that, at least someone to be intrigued by, and I couldn't make myself feel that way about either of the main characters or much of the surrounding cast. In fact, one of my least favorite characters was Violet, and since for most of the book we're stuck inside her head, I spent about that much time trying not to actively dislike her. Which I really hate feeling about someone who's supposed to be a strong female main :(. I swear I didn't come into this book trying to be a hater, but I guess that's the natural way I exist in this world? Or maybe it's a reverse psychology problem. Maybe I should've come in with hate, maybe then I would've left with love instead. Seems unlikely, but you never know. In a way this book almost felt personalized? Since I feel like everyone has their own pet peeves and gotchas when it comes to stories, and this hit on more than the usual count of mine.
Already said it, but Violet was hard for me to read. One thing I don't like is when characters are described as strong or smart, but everything they do proves otherwise. The book repeats numerous times how clever Violet is, and later how powerful she will be, even going as far as having other characters tell her this verbatim (also a pet peeve) or act overtly impressed at things she's doing (also a pet peeve and the things she does don't seem that impressive?). She starts off the book saying how she was meant to be a scribe and not a rider, and so has only trained six months for this death school the other cadets have been training for their whole lives, and how unfair this is, how her mother is sending her off to die, how her joints and bones are incredibly fragile and there will be many people out for her blood, how she 100% does not want to be there. Then when given an out by her best friend, who is very patronizing to be fair, not only refuses but gets enraged that he doesn't 'see her potential' and 'believe in her'. Potential where? And how is it smart to not even consider escape when you think the other option is 90% chance of death? There's also a part where the cadets have sparring matches, and she knows she can't win on strength so she joins the food crew and gives food poisoning to her sparring partners. This is written as a very clever move from her part, but seems to me that it'd get kind of obvious if only her sparring partners were getting sick on the exact day they were paired up with her.
For the most part, she comes off to me as bull-headed and reactionary. She doesn't seem to think there's any need for subtlety—though, on the whole, this book doesn't do subtlety, so I guess she fits in—even though someone who's cunning should have some concept of tact and when to pick her battles, right? I'm so tired of books where mains, and particularly female mains, are written as if obstinacy is interchangeable with strength. Yes, there is a time and place to stand your ground. But there's a difference between standing your ground and saying whatever's in your head with no filter, or ignoring the advice of all and any friends/family unless it suits you. Though in Violet's case, she gets away with all of it without consequence. So it's fine, I guess.
The tone doesn't help. I don't care that it doesn't sound adult or whatever; I really enjoyed the tone in PJO and that's probably further from adult, and in general I think it's fun when books sound the way people talk. But maybe it's this particular flavor of informality that puts me off. It makes a lot her actions seem even less justifiable, and more reactionary and hot-headed. She also makes a lot of snarky oh-no-you-didn't type quips whenever her love interests talk to her, which I think is supposed to show that she's cool, or funny, or initiating some kind of bizarre mating ritual I'm unaware of? But most of them don't succeed at making me feel any of those ways about her, and instead make me secondhand cringe so hard I want to reach into the book and shake her, and tell her pls no girl don't say it, save me, save yourself. But then her love interests are into it, so... it's fine, I guess.
(But please, I wish she would stop telling me how hot Xaden is. I know by now. I know!)
Violet's very much the chosen one of this story, and while I don't mind the chosen one trope, I don't like it when other characters continuously point it out, like hey, do you remember that you will soon be the most powerful character in this story? Yes, her "best friend" literally says this, or something like this to her. In case, you know, she'd forgotten that she's the only rider in history to bond two dragons, including one of the strongest ones. I say best friend in quotes because while this girl is supposed to be her best friend, I can't remember much of her personality aside from being a cheerleader for Violet. This is true for a lot of the side characters. They aren't memorable to me, and though this may be due to my own bad memory, or written this way on purpose so as not to distract from the main characters, it makes almost all the deaths feel too low stakes. It is hard for me to buy into the reality of a death academy when each time someone dies, all I can think is, who's that guy again?
With one important exception being that they killed off Liam, supportive bestie to all, pro bodyguard in training, possibly the most likable guy in the story, before he could get much of storyline of his own. Justice for Liam.
Oh, I guess another important exception is Jack's death. But, honestly, we all knew that was coming and that it would be at Violet's hand. I suppose it was supposed to be a moment of growth for her, of facing the reality that no one could keep their hands clean in war, but I couldn't really be bothered to care. Since after all, even though she didn't want to kill anyone herself, she seemed to find it hot when Xaden did it for her. And while I too am lazy af and so can get behind having yo mans, or womans, or whoever, do the heavy lifting, it must take some mental gymnastics to reject killing with all your being except when your love interest is killing people for your sake.
Plus Jack himself was essentially evil incarnate, so it hardly felt like she dirtied her hands offing him. It kind of felt like offing a bogeyman. He had no redeeming qualities, and his main goal in life seemed to be to do as much harm as possible and to hate Violet as much as possible, with no given motive for either. If this was meant to make me hate him, it worked, but it also made him a very boring villain. In the end, that felt like his more egregious offense.
I had some hope in the beginning that even though the death academy was a flop and the side characters were mostly unmemorable or boring, I might like the romance. It didn't take long to lose this hope, though this is probably a fault of my own: the way the love interests and relationships were set up in fourth wing is probably fine for most people, but a lot of it is an antithesis of what I like in a love story.
The main love interest, Xaden, didn't do much for me either as a character or a love interest. I didn't hate him, but there wasn't much about him to hate. The way I felt about him is best described as excessively neutral, with occasional bouts of annoyance.
The annoyance came from how he always seemed to know everything or be right about everything, and how this was used to justify moments when he wouldn't inform Violet of the reasons behind his actions or acted like he knew what was better for her. I understand that there were certain secrets that had to be kept from her, but outside of those, this behavior of I'll-help-you-without-you-knowing felt icky to me, even though it was implied that it came from a place of love/care/wanting to protect her. As someone who doesn't even like to share location on Find my Friends, the idea of someone keeping tabs on me or doing things that affect me without my knowledge feels very uncomfortable, even if they help me in the long run. This may just be a me problem.
Other than that, Xaden felt very much like the male version of a manic pixie dream girl, who seemed to exist mainly for our girl to thirst over, to be there for her in every capacity, to like her for no reason, and to forgive her all and any misunderstandings. In case it's not clear, I don't enjoy manic pixie dream girls (or boys, as I've learned). He felt like a caricature, not a character, and it was very confusing to me how he went from "your mom killed my dad and ruined my life" to "you are the light of my life". He got one chapter in his POV at the end, and I thought this would shed some light on how he developed feelings for Violet, but turns out developing feelings had never been a part of the equation. It was my very most favorite instalove :(. Also his POV was so...bland? Felt like that challenge where you stuff a bunch of saltines in your mouth and attempt to down them all without water. Suffice to say, the chemistry wasn't there for me. Again, probably a me problem, but I want to feel like love develops, grows, that it can change a person, that it can defy adversity. This one felt more like you hot, me hot, let's smash. Except it wasn't even quite that. I probably would've liked that better, since I can get behind sexy times for sexy times sake. This was more like you hot, me hot, let me sacrifice my friends and secrets to help you out...??? I mean there was the thing about our dragons are mates so we can't be separated and you can't die or I die too, but that didn't really convince me on the level of fervor and commitment he had for her. Which was honestly a shame since I think the set up could've kicked off a hilarious build up from resentment and forced proximity to interest to love.
(Also the sexy times were...okay. I couldn't buy into them, so they were kind of boring to read through, but they weren't too cringey.)
The other piece of this romance was a love triangle, with childhood friend Dain. Not usually a fan of love triangles, though depending on execution I sometimes enjoy them. The way the love triangle played out in fourth wing was possibly one of my least favorite ways for a love triangle to play out. If a book has to have a love triangle, I want it to be a real competition, where each of the love interests has strengths and weaknesses that complement the MC in different ways. Can't have a love triangle when one of the three points is inviable, right? Fourth wing disagrees. This love triangle was especially frustrating for me to read, since Dain spent most of the book tanking any potential he had as a love interest. It felt like he existed mainly to show how controlling and unsupportive a stereotypical toxic "nice guy" could be, and by comparison how much less toxic Xaden was. While still better than going into cheating or cuckolding territory the way love triangles can, it's just not very interesting when a love interest wins out for being the not-terrible-one.
The two words I'd use to describe this book are lackluster and predictable. Predictable because all the character relationships play out exactly the way you'd expect, and one of the biggest plot twists is foreshadowed heavily throughout the book. Lackluster bits: MC, main love interest, secondary love interest, overall romantic plotline, friends and side characters (except Liam), the death academy itself, villains. Less lackluster: dragons, the bit of action at the end.
To sum it up, interesting premise, the execution however felt like it was meant to personally antagonize me. Too many tropes I'm not a fan of, and characters I couldn't convince myself to root for. Kind of impressive that it managed to feel like a slog and be aggravating at the same time though.
tl;dr not my vibe. and to my future self, I guess if you ever forget this whole experience and attempt to pick this book up again, here's your reminder to put it back down.
I don't have too much of substance to say since my memories of this book are vague by now (when do I ever have anything of substance to say though? but that's not the point). It's been a couple weeks since I've read it, and I'm not willing to check it out from the library again just to uncover the specifics.
The book was recommended to me by a friend who hadn't read it himself but had heard high praise from one of his friends, and thought it'd be something I'd like. My friend and I don't read a lot of the same books, and maybe I should've taken the rec-off-a-friend-of-a-friend-with-no-other-info as a warning sign, but it was nice that my friend heard how much his friend loved the book and wanted me to be able to have the same experience. I also do want to branch out of the narrow scope of my comfort zone more often.
Besides, on paper my friend wasn't off the mark. I was promised dragons, a death academy, an enemies-to-lovers romance, and so I thought I would eat that shit up. On a side note, I'm starting to doubt that I actually like enemies-to-lovers; I thought I did, but recently it's been a wash.
I've tried to reason that out to myself actually. What I don't like seeing in enemies-to-lovers: instalove (for that reason romeo and juliet is not my jam), disliking the other for a misunderstanding or hearsay, expression of professed hate through overt snark or a highly illogical course of action, sudden switchover to full love without resolving prior issues or working through lingering emotions from being enemies. What I like I've had a harder time figuring out, I'm still not quite sure, but I think it's seeing characters stuck in that gray area between wanting and not wanting, and all the juicy possibilities that can come out of it, of repression vs emotion vs choices, of possible betrayal, of the barriers that love can or can't cross, of histories that can't be easily forgotten or forgiven.
So what fourth wing was... well, I'll get into it.
I should start with what I liked. There were dragons. The dragons were cool, albeit kind of plot-devicey, like big guns to be pulled out when the plot needed to be moved along. But a lot of the book felt that way to me, including the war itself, so not going to ding them too much for that. I liked the mind-speaking, that the dragons could channel powers through their riders, and that these powers were an expression of the rider themselves. I also did feel like the book improved at the end: it was faster paced, the stakes felt more real (weird to say when the stakes of their everyday existence was supposedly death), there were some big "twists", I could look past my dislike for most of the characters because Things were Happening.
Which just goes to tell you how little was happening the rest of the book. Hmm, I suppose that's not entirely true. There were a lot of events that I'm sure were important to the plot but I just didn't feel much about personally. I would get into that too, but I doubt I remember what they are...
Plot aside, I'm the type of reader who likes having someone to root for, and if not that, at least someone to be intrigued by, and I couldn't make myself feel that way about either of the main characters or much of the surrounding cast. In fact, one of my least favorite characters was Violet, and since for most of the book we're stuck inside her head, I spent about that much time trying not to actively dislike her. Which I really hate feeling about someone who's supposed to be a strong female main :(. I swear I didn't come into this book trying to be a hater, but I guess that's the natural way I exist in this world? Or maybe it's a reverse psychology problem. Maybe I should've come in with hate, maybe then I would've left with love instead. Seems unlikely, but you never know. In a way this book almost felt personalized? Since I feel like everyone has their own pet peeves and gotchas when it comes to stories, and this hit on more than the usual count of mine.
Already said it, but Violet was hard for me to read. One thing I don't like is when characters are described as strong or smart, but everything they do proves otherwise. The book repeats numerous times how clever Violet is, and later how powerful she will be, even going as far as having other characters tell her this verbatim (also a pet peeve) or act overtly impressed at things she's doing (also a pet peeve and the things she does don't seem that impressive?). She starts off the book saying how she was meant to be a scribe and not a rider, and so has only trained six months for this death school the other cadets have been training for their whole lives, and how unfair this is, how her mother is sending her off to die, how her joints and bones are incredibly fragile and there will be many people out for her blood, how she 100% does not want to be there. Then when given an out by her best friend, who is very patronizing to be fair, not only refuses but gets enraged that he doesn't 'see her potential' and 'believe in her'. Potential where? And how is it smart to not even consider escape when you think the other option is 90% chance of death? There's also a part where the cadets have sparring matches, and she knows she can't win on strength so she joins the food crew and gives food poisoning to her sparring partners. This is written as a very clever move from her part, but seems to me that it'd get kind of obvious if only her sparring partners were getting sick on the exact day they were paired up with her.
For the most part, she comes off to me as bull-headed and reactionary. She doesn't seem to think there's any need for subtlety—though, on the whole, this book doesn't do subtlety, so I guess she fits in—even though someone who's cunning should have some concept of tact and when to pick her battles, right? I'm so tired of books where mains, and particularly female mains, are written as if obstinacy is interchangeable with strength. Yes, there is a time and place to stand your ground. But there's a difference between standing your ground and saying whatever's in your head with no filter, or ignoring the advice of all and any friends/family unless it suits you. Though in Violet's case, she gets away with all of it without consequence. So it's fine, I guess.
The tone doesn't help. I don't care that it doesn't sound adult or whatever; I really enjoyed the tone in PJO and that's probably further from adult, and in general I think it's fun when books sound the way people talk. But maybe it's this particular flavor of informality that puts me off. It makes a lot her actions seem even less justifiable, and more reactionary and hot-headed. She also makes a lot of snarky oh-no-you-didn't type quips whenever her love interests talk to her, which I think is supposed to show that she's cool, or funny, or initiating some kind of bizarre mating ritual I'm unaware of? But most of them don't succeed at making me feel any of those ways about her, and instead make me secondhand cringe so hard I want to reach into the book and shake her, and tell her pls no girl don't say it, save me, save yourself. But then her love interests are into it, so... it's fine, I guess.
(But please, I wish she would stop telling me how hot Xaden is. I know by now. I know!)
Violet's very much the chosen one of this story, and while I don't mind the chosen one trope, I don't like it when other characters continuously point it out, like hey, do you remember that you will soon be the most powerful character in this story? Yes, her "best friend" literally says this, or something like this to her. In case, you know, she'd forgotten that she's the only rider in history to bond two dragons, including one of the strongest ones. I say best friend in quotes because while this girl is supposed to be her best friend, I can't remember much of her personality aside from being a cheerleader for Violet. This is true for a lot of the side characters. They aren't memorable to me, and though this may be due to my own bad memory, or written this way on purpose so as not to distract from the main characters, it makes almost all the deaths feel too low stakes. It is hard for me to buy into the reality of a death academy when each time someone dies, all I can think is, who's that guy again?
With one important exception being that they killed off Liam, supportive bestie to all, pro bodyguard in training, possibly the most likable guy in the story, before he could get much of storyline of his own. Justice for Liam.
Oh, I guess another important exception is Jack's death. But, honestly, we all knew that was coming and that it would be at Violet's hand. I suppose it was supposed to be a moment of growth for her, of facing the reality that no one could keep their hands clean in war, but I couldn't really be bothered to care. Since after all, even though she didn't want to kill anyone herself, she seemed to find it hot when Xaden did it for her. And while I too am lazy af and so can get behind having yo mans, or womans, or whoever, do the heavy lifting, it must take some mental gymnastics to reject killing with all your being except when your love interest is killing people for your sake.
Plus Jack himself was essentially evil incarnate, so it hardly felt like she dirtied her hands offing him. It kind of felt like offing a bogeyman. He had no redeeming qualities, and his main goal in life seemed to be to do as much harm as possible and to hate Violet as much as possible, with no given motive for either. If this was meant to make me hate him, it worked, but it also made him a very boring villain. In the end, that felt like his more egregious offense.
I had some hope in the beginning that even though the death academy was a flop and the side characters were mostly unmemorable or boring, I might like the romance. It didn't take long to lose this hope, though this is probably a fault of my own: the way the love interests and relationships were set up in fourth wing is probably fine for most people, but a lot of it is an antithesis of what I like in a love story.
The main love interest, Xaden, didn't do much for me either as a character or a love interest. I didn't hate him, but there wasn't much about him to hate. The way I felt about him is best described as excessively neutral, with occasional bouts of annoyance.
The annoyance came from how he always seemed to know everything or be right about everything, and how this was used to justify moments when he wouldn't inform Violet of the reasons behind his actions or acted like he knew what was better for her. I understand that there were certain secrets that had to be kept from her, but outside of those, this behavior of I'll-help-you-without-you-knowing felt icky to me, even though it was implied that it came from a place of love/care/wanting to protect her. As someone who doesn't even like to share location on Find my Friends, the idea of someone keeping tabs on me or doing things that affect me without my knowledge feels very uncomfortable, even if they help me in the long run. This may just be a me problem.
Other than that, Xaden felt very much like the male version of a manic pixie dream girl, who seemed to exist mainly for our girl to thirst over, to be there for her in every capacity, to like her for no reason, and to forgive her all and any misunderstandings. In case it's not clear, I don't enjoy manic pixie dream girls (or boys, as I've learned). He felt like a caricature, not a character, and it was very confusing to me how he went from "your mom killed my dad and ruined my life" to "you are the light of my life". He got one chapter in his POV at the end, and I thought this would shed some light on how he developed feelings for Violet, but turns out developing feelings had never been a part of the equation. It was my very most favorite instalove :(. Also his POV was so...bland? Felt like that challenge where you stuff a bunch of saltines in your mouth and attempt to down them all without water. Suffice to say, the chemistry wasn't there for me. Again, probably a me problem, but I want to feel like love develops, grows, that it can change a person, that it can defy adversity. This one felt more like you hot, me hot, let's smash. Except it wasn't even quite that. I probably would've liked that better, since I can get behind sexy times for sexy times sake. This was more like you hot, me hot, let me sacrifice my friends and secrets to help you out...??? I mean there was the thing about our dragons are mates so we can't be separated and you can't die or I die too, but that didn't really convince me on the level of fervor and commitment he had for her. Which was honestly a shame since I think the set up could've kicked off a hilarious build up from resentment and forced proximity to interest to love.
(Also the sexy times were...okay. I couldn't buy into them, so they were kind of boring to read through, but they weren't too cringey.)
The other piece of this romance was a love triangle, with childhood friend Dain. Not usually a fan of love triangles, though depending on execution I sometimes enjoy them. The way the love triangle played out in fourth wing was possibly one of my least favorite ways for a love triangle to play out. If a book has to have a love triangle, I want it to be a real competition, where each of the love interests has strengths and weaknesses that complement the MC in different ways. Can't have a love triangle when one of the three points is inviable, right? Fourth wing disagrees. This love triangle was especially frustrating for me to read, since Dain spent most of the book tanking any potential he had as a love interest. It felt like he existed mainly to show how controlling and unsupportive a stereotypical toxic "nice guy" could be, and by comparison how much less toxic Xaden was. While still better than going into cheating or cuckolding territory the way love triangles can, it's just not very interesting when a love interest wins out for being the not-terrible-one.
The two words I'd use to describe this book are lackluster and predictable. Predictable because all the character relationships play out exactly the way you'd expect, and one of the biggest plot twists is foreshadowed heavily throughout the book. Lackluster bits: MC, main love interest, secondary love interest, overall romantic plotline, friends and side characters (except Liam), the death academy itself, villains. Less lackluster: dragons, the bit of action at the end.
To sum it up, interesting premise, the execution however felt like it was meant to personally antagonize me. Too many tropes I'm not a fan of, and characters I couldn't convince myself to root for. Kind of impressive that it managed to feel like a slog and be aggravating at the same time though.