The Empyrean Book #1
By: Rebecca Yarros
“Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities.”
Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing
*This post contains spoilers for Fourth Wing and The Empyrean Series
I think it’s pretty obvious why I read this book, it is all over booktok and bookstagram and the third book in the series is set to come out early next year.
Quick tip that if you have Kindle Unlimited Fourth Wing and the sequel Iron Flame are included in your subscription.
Overview:
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.
goodreads.com
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
My thoughts:
I think I might be committing a huge faux pas because this is such a popular book but… I did not like this book.
I’m trying to tread lightly because I know many people are so hardcore for this series.
Rebecca Yarros is a seasoned author with many titles to her name. Most of them are romances. I read a lot of romance books and appreciate them for what they are. However, Fourth Wing is a romance book disguised as a fantasy novel. It’s a little jarring to expect one thing and get something completely different.
Romance Tropes
I think for those that aren’t used to all the romance tropes and reading such things in a book makes it feel new and exciting when in reality, everything is following a basic pattern.
The Timeline
In many romance books the main character meets the love interest, they dance around their feelings, they get together, some misunderstanding or mistrust happens, then they get back together.
This exact timeline is followed in Fourth Wing.
Violet gets to the school and meets the dangerous and mysterious Xaden Riorson. They hate each other because of who each of their parents are but they still can’t help but steal glances even though they know the other would kill them if they had the chance. Then they give into their feelings and admit their undying love for one another, trying to figure out how this unorthodox relationship will fit into their everyday lives. Xaden betrays Violet in her eyes by keeping secret his dealings with the gryphon riders and she retracts her admissions of love. Finally, Violet sees that Xaden had good intentions and she begins to trust him once again… not completely because this is a series and you need that lingering question hanging over their relationship.
The timeline is textbook when writing a romance novel.
Enemies to Lovers
For those that are unfamiliar with enemies to lovers, it is a trope where two people cannot stand each other (or want to kill each other in this case) but end up in this great love over the course of their story.
With Violet and Xaden, the build of their relationship is well paced for a large book like this. It does not move the relationship as quickly as most traditional romance books so it is nice to see the slower progression.
The whole “our dragons are mated so now we are” is a bit much and seems like they are forced into this relationship. You could argue that it is fate that they all found each other but it can seem a little like neither of them had a choice.
Friends/Lovers to Enemies
Another romance dynamic is prevalent with Violet and Dain’s friendship/budding relationship. This is someone that she has known forever and hopes that it can lead to a successful romantic relationship. However, the one person that she is supposed to trust ultimately becomes the one who betrays her.
Often in romance there is a friend who wants to be more all the while telling the protagonist that the bad boy is no good for her.
The Less Than Perfect Heroine
Violet is an imperfect heroine. She has an unknown condition that is alluded to that makes her fragile and not an obvious choice for a dragon rider. Even though she is not the strongest physically, she is still chosen as the “best” by both her dragon and Xaden. Often romance books feature this imperfect heroine who is clumsy or quirky or not a bombshell. Still the handsome male lead only sees her instead of what she perceives as flaws.
The Plot
The plot is fresh in terms of the sequence of events that are put together (minus the romance timeline which is its own thing).
I equate it to a shuffled deck of cards. You can never shuffle a deck of cards the same way twice but the cards that are in the deck never change. There will always be Kings, Queens, etc.
Fourth Wing feels like it took aspects from Red Queen, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and many more. You can argue that there are no original ideas anymore but plot points like Violet’s brother being alive and working for the resistance is almost the exact same as Red Queen. It even happens at the same time in the story.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for the school setting for fantasy books. I will never tire of it. Yarros’ take on the setting was fresh and new mostly because she aged up the students, which given the themes, I think was completely appropriate. Also, the fact that death was a way of life provided some tension. You know Violet is going to make it but not knowing which of her friends or enemies was interesting.
Also, I have read a few reviews where people harp on the fact that so many people die. They live in a society where numbers and soldiers matter and they are okay with half of their recruits dying during training? I understand that it doesn’t make practical sense but I don’t feel like it is a fair criticism. It is the world Yarros built and I believe as readers that we need to accept the rules the author set up. We don’t need to agree with how her society works just to understand what the rules are and I think she does make them clear.
Overall,
I had heard so much hype about this book that I knew I had to read it.
If you go in thinking that it is going to be a fantasy book then you are going to be disappointed. This is a romance book with a fantasy plot that is inspired by many other popular titles.
That being said, will I read the rest of the books in the series… probably. However, I will go into it knowing what to expect.
I think Yarros did a good job of expanding her reader base and introducing them to the romance genre in a sneaky way. You have to give her credit for using a formula that spoke to so many readers.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
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