Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

528 pages

Epic Fantasy/Romance

5/5*

Formats available: Physical book, Libby eBook, Libby eAudiobook

"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."

“A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead”.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, the first book in the new Empyrean series, quickly blew up among the Booktok/Bookstagram community, and the book was certainly well worth the hype. It is not every day that a book will grab my attention by the first few chapters, but Fourth Wing had my attention from page one. Reading this book was so nostalgic because it reminded me a lot of the Divergent series, which I was very much a fan of. The vibe was very much so Dauntless.

Rebecca Yarros gave this book a unique spin by not only incorporating dragons, but also incorporating a main character that struggles with a unique disease. Violet Sorrengail suffers from a connective tissue disorder known as Ehler’s Danlos syndrome. This was not confirmed in the book, but later confirmed by the author due to many fans reaching out that live with the same disorder. I thought this was awesome of the author to add this into the book considering a lot of the time your main character somehow ends up being unrealistically perfect.

I read this book in about two days, and I would give anything to pick it up and reread it for the first time. Every single character had insane development throughout the book. No character’s story ended the same as it started. The relationship between main characters, Violet and Xaden, starts blooming from the very beginning of the book, and Yarros did an amazing job making their emotional journey together believable.

I could give this book a 10000/10 and that would not be enough stars! I will be impatiently waiting for book two, Iron Flame to come out in November! Until then: Welcome, to the Fourth Wing.

For more book recommendations please tune in to Off the Books with B&S Podcast on any of your preferred podcasting platforms; new episodes air every other Thursday.

-Samantha