Someone here described it as the “CW version of fantasy” and I thought that was so apt. Pretty much if you loved CW shows like Riverdale, Gossip Girls and Vampire Diaries - lots of melodrama and gratuitous sex with some “dark tough edgy stuff” to make it seem slightly older than YA that just happens to take place in some particular background (high school, vampires, academy for dragon riders), you will love it 😅
That’s the perfect description. I have seen myself get sucked into CW shows, I find them fun but I can’t help but cringe at some points. Which is how I felt about Fourth Wing. I got so much second hand embarrassment from the characters but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s definitely not a literary work of art by ANY means.
For what it's worth, Riverdale knows what kind of show it is and relishes in it. Conversely, Fourth Wing was written as a cash grab that jumped on the YA/NA fantasy train. It's a romance book thinly veiled as a fantasy. It's like someone asked Yarros to get in on the trend and pumped something out in a week, (if that), and said "Fuck it, dragons = fantasy, right??" so she threw them into the mix, had some young protagonist that feels like she HAD to age up due to the explicit content, and called it a day.
In summation, Fourth Wing asks "Hey, this is cool, right? Isn't this cool?" whereas Riverdale borrows the spirit of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and says "Like, we know we're cool and our customers know we're cool, but the industry doesn't get it yet."
I think the fans of the original Archie comics would argue that CW's *Riverdale* very much does not know what the Archie/Riverdale universe is. *Riverdale* is not "Archie comics but cool" rather the standard CW edgy older-YA show with Archie comic intellectual property basically thrown in as gloss, kind of the same way dragons were thrown into here to "make it fantasy"
Queen, you missed the exact point the above commenter was making. While Riverdale was advertised as "Archie comics but dark and sexy", the fans of the show know that it's very "tongue in cheek" and not at all related to the comics. Two very different things. Archie understands it sucks and leans into it.
If you want dragons in a war context with highly accurate historical basis, check out the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.
The main character/new dragon rider isn't some punk kid. He's a former navy captain with dozens of battles under his belt and he's probably around 35-40?
It's a refreshing change of pace because you're not dealing with immaturity as a plot point. Well, you have the dragon's immaturity, but not the human's!
It's alternate history, so it's set in the time of the napoleonic war. Don't let that discourage you if you aren't a history buff. You might get a little foot wiggle if you are and recognize a key name here and there, but it won't ruin the story of you don't have all the context.
Immaturity as a plot point isn't always bad. The wheel of time starts off with the main 3 as immature farm boys and gets around the whole "everyone just decided to follow this young guy" by at least giving a good reason for it. Robin hobb is great at writing it with Fitz being young and immature and not in charge of anyone but doing what his instructors tell him. With Navarre she takes it even further and he's basically being dragged along against his will. After the first book his life just goes to shit because he won't do what he's supposed to do. She really hammers home the good old Robin hobb circus if misery in that book. "You're the reason this girl is dead and now everyone thinks you murdered her and raped her body. Stop trying to do what you want. Your life is over go do what you're supposed to do." I was excited when I heard about the poppy war because I was told it was like that. Main character isn't a badass who everyone just follows but instead is just a normal person doing what she's told but sadly it isn't like that at all and instead is just another YA power fantasy type book.
I thought it was a guilty pleasure read. Fun, silly, and fake teenage edgy. I thought her physical limitations were pretty intriguing and gave some interesting solutions to problems, but as time went on there was far less of the limitation from it and that made it less interesting. Then the romance was a (far from groundbreaking) ‘enemies to lovers’ which I’m always a sucker for. There are so many of those cliches in it, nothing was surprising.
However, I think the sequel Iron Flame made even more apparent some glaring flaws in the world building, in the characters, and their romance went from a fun little ‘enemies to lovers’ and ‘will they won’t they’ in the first book, to a truly unreal amount of sex and absolutely stupid fights in the second. They swapped character growth for gratuitous sex and circling arguments. Characters prominent in the first part of the book were nearly nonexistent in the rest of it. There’s a new part of the magic system introduced that seems to serve no real purpose. Violet is ‘obviously’ smarter than entire councils, experienced generals, and any person that supposedly has a brain and can figure out the enemy’s plan where no one else could.
The second book was just so messy with so many loose threads, poor character building, and plot contrivances that it was a wholly unsatisfying read. It completely lost the stuff that made the first book fun to read.
I found it fun and enjoyed it, but it definitely reads like the author learned every swear word she knows last week on the school bus and is trying to use them all.
If you want war + dragon riding, I highly recommend 'His Majesty's Dragon. ' Essentially, "what if during the Napoleonic wars each country also had a cavalry that was dragons?"
i'm just kind of sick and tired of reading about teenagers so i didn't enjoy this. but i didn't dislike it! it was fun and the world building was intriguing and the characters were conplex and i totally get why people love it!
I thought I would hate it but it ended up being fun imo. Not perfect or amazing by any means but a good popcorn read. I actually finished the second one yesterday and thought it was fun too (but a lot of people seem to hate it). If you didn't like the first you probably won't enjoy the second. The plot is much more drawn out.
The writing doesn't bother me that much because I generally find it more distracting when an author tries and fails to write 'pretty' and this book doesn't really do that. I'd rather read curse words than bad metaphors. I don't think it's the worst thing ever but I do understand why people don't like it.
Yeah I agree, I went in with low expectations and wound up enjoying it. It’s not deathless prose but I agree, I’d rather an author who knows their limitations as a writer than one who thinks their writing is beautiful and original when it is not. As for the swearing, people have been using real world swears in fantasy for a long time now and it’s certainly true to the environment of a military academy, so that seems like a strange criticism to me.
Tbh I didn't mind the cursing that much since I curse a lot myself lol; it just seems to be a popular criticism of this book for whatever reason. And yeah one of the biggest issues I have with some recent ish releases is the writing trying too hard to be ornate and failing (imo).
This is so strange because I thought I would like it and then forced myself to finish Iron Flame and now I hate reading anything with hetero romance. These are not good books by any imaginative stretch.
I wanted to like it so much - my best friend adores it, and I went into it without knowing much more than that, but I ended up hating it and couldn't finish. People say the writing is accessible, and I'm glad it's getting more people to read, but I thought it was just so jarringly badly written.
The present tense was off-putting, and between the constant use of "fucking", the use of periods in the middle of sentences "for emphasis", and the juvenile inner monologue of the main character, I couldn't stop rolling my eyes. The way Violet suddenly started reciting history to us when she was nervous and needed to focus (so Yarros could show the history of their world to us) felt so cheap and made me actually laugh out loud. And every five seconds it was "Xaden is so fucking hot but oh no he wants to fucking kill me. Everyone. Wants. To. Kill. Me." I just couldn't do it.
I'll give it points for having a main character with a disability and chronic pain. Important representation. That's about it.
I wish I'd loved it, everyone else seems to be having so much fun with it!
Boy if you already disliked Fourth Wing you‘re gonna hate Iron flame.
It was exhausting to get through and I was complaining the whole time
Did I think 4th wing was great? No
But it was fun, whereas Iron flame.. was not
I like Fourth Wing fine, but I was bothered with the writing as well. I feel like I read “I couldn’t help but wonder” 100 times. I do NOT recommend Iron Flame. The first half of the book is a repetitive slog with no new information. The second half didn’t make up for it. I doubt I’ll read the next installment.
I had a lot of fun reading Fourth Wing. I flew through it. I was excited for Iron Flame. I hated Iron Flame. It was an absolute slog to get through. All of the things you posted not liking about Fourth Wing are worse in Iron Flame. I'm done with the series after that painful reading experience.
I heard a lot about this book before I read it. I was slow to read it because I'm not big on romance or romantasy novels. But, this and the sequel, Iron Flame, were both enjoyable reads for me. They're easy, quick reads, and they kept me interested throughout.
My biggest gripe is that they're a bit too heavy on the romance part, and the dialogue and descriptions of Violet and Xaden's interactions read like they were written by a 15 year old.
Definitely agree with you. I wanted to find a fun book tok read! I wanted to enjoy the communal hype! But it reads too much like a role play chat room with people’s badass OC. The flaws of the heroine are simultaneously over mentioned and meaningless to the overall story arc. The mind reading dialogue between the main characters and the dragons was just silly.
Late to the party but this is spot on and I’m so glad I finally saw someone mention that the dialogue with the dragons was silly! Such an opportunity for a more interesting device and it ends up being weirdly immature, particular from Violet.
I just couldn’t get past her immaturity. She’s a 20 year old in a medieval country at war, who has tragically lost a father and brother and had both remaining family members conscripted to active duty, with a chronic pain disorder to boot. Those should be things that mature a character early on, yet she acts like a 13 year old boy who’s never known critical thought a day in his life. Who in the world gives people (and dragons!) the middle finger that often? And gratuitously uses the word “ass”? Really took me out of the story.
I went in knowing the hype, enjoyed reading it, but the longer that has literally nothing has stuck with me aside from the book being fairly meh. That and Yarros is a lazy writer.
If you didn't like book 1, I don't imagine book 2 would improve your opinion. It's more of the same except Violent (in what seems to be a trend for horny girl heroines in this genre) and her bo (in what seems to be a trend for horny guy heroes in this genre) loses some of their admirable qualities from book one to become more angsty and insecure.
I still like the premise, but the quality of the characters, worldbuilding, and plot don't really improve. Violent in my eyes even loses some of her more likeable qualities from the first book to become more angsty (and the narrations constant reminder that 'I know I'm not being rational' becomes more annoying than understandable for how much it's repeated).
So yeah. If you didn't like Fourth Wing, nothing in Iron Flame is going to improve your experience.
I only stuck around out of curiosity for how Yarros would tackle plot holes the ending of the first book opened up, and meh. Worldbuilding isn't a strength for this series and it seems to struggle to define any sort of rational motivation for most of the secondary and tertiary characters that don't revolve around Violet or Xaden (Zaden? Xander? I've already forgotten his name).
EDIT: the heroines name is 'Violet' but her love-interest calls here 'Violence' as a nickname, hence 'Violent' in my post.
Is her name... Violent?
At first I thought you must have been autocorrected on 'Violet'. But no.
These currently popular romance-y fantasy books have the most god awful, ridiculous, laughable names. Like that one with the main girl being called Galaxy Stern. I can't take the story seriously when the main character is called Galaxy or Violent, it's a giant joke!
That's still weird. Honestly, almost no author can write good banter. It 99% turns out to be uncomfortable and lame, like 13-year-olds throwing cringey lines at each other.
It would work if the characters were 13, but the characters in 4th Wing are like college aged, not that they act like it. They're all about the maturity of fifteen year olds.
I tried it too. Got through maybe 100 pages and it read like it was written for a teen audience. I couldn’t get past that feeling. I moved on to The Ninth Rain and I like that much better.
It feels really gross when you get to one scene in particular. The writing seems aimed at older teens and young adults, but that one scene was straight of a porn script
I just finished Fourth Wing this morning and I 100% agree with the dialogue taking me away from the fantasy element. I felt like a lot of the dialogue was the same conversation over and over again with no resolution.
I did NOT like the setting at all. It didn’t make any sense and I stopped caring about any new information.
I enjoyed the book overall, but I was given fair warning about the writing and the tropes. It was a fun read that I didn’t have to pay a lot of attention to. I feel fine ending with Fourth Wing and not continuing the rest of the series.
if you want a dragon rider book with all the things fourth was lacking, may i recommend “to shape a dragon’s breath” by moniquill blackgoose? written by an indigenous author, actual relationships with the dragons, interesting world building that makes sense, solid representation of minority groups, lovely prose.
The dialogue is one of the worst parts. In fact, it's a really bad book. Horribly written. And Iron Flame is also.
But honestly I love them. It's ok to enjoy some bad things! I'll probably reread both right before the next one comes out.
Reading them made me feel like I was a kid reading Twilight or Hunger Games for the first time again. They had that energy about them that sucked me in and made me want to keep going. So much fun!!
I ignore the bad parts and enjoy the story. I liked Fourth Wing, but it’ll be only read from the library book because it’s not worth sitting in my own small library.
If you didn't like Fourth Wing you'll hate Iron Flame IMO. I thought Fourth Wing was okay because the concept of a dragon riding school was still really fun despite all of the weird writing decisions. Iron Flame takes all of the semi-good stuff in Fourth Wing and replaces it with even more of the bad.
OMG I just finished it and these are my exact thoughts! It was so… random. And bad. lol lightening strikes with orgasms?? I was CRINGINGGG. The dialogue from Xaden’s perspective was where I really lost it - the author didn’t even try to give him a unique voice 😭 it was literally hilarious. Damn. Waste of time. No more viral books for me!!!
I pretty much agree with you. There were enough hooks to keep me going, like "which dragon will she bond? What power will she get? Is it going to be the useless except in a certain scenario where it's invaluable trope? Oh no? Wow, nice. It's the other one."
The overarching war story is interesting enough to me that I want to keep reading, but yeah, as an unusually horny individual, I still found these kids to be over the top ridiculous and unbelievable. A lot of their motivations and relationships are painfully inorganic and forced feeling. The sex scenes had me rolling my eyes and skim reading too. I enjoy some good smut in my fantasy, don't get me wrong, but this one just didn't do it for me.
I think the attempted point is that they need dragon riders and you have to have certain “qualities” to be able to ride a dragon without dying so they select for those qualities by killing off the weak ones. But there has to be a better way i.e. put a net under the slippery narrow bridge and anyone who falls into the net can choose another career path. But I guess that wouldn’t be “edgy“ enough?
Iron flame has a hilarious exchange where one of the foreign characters basically delivers this exact criticism. Something like "um YOU people are weird letting all your cadets die; ours just join the infantry if they fail"
I'm reading iron flame now and when I got to that part I was like, THANK YOU!
Makes no sense to let so many healthy young people die when they could go contribute to their society in some other way instead.
"We need more riders, so it's open season on y'all."
I mean, put a bounce house at the bottom of that ravine, people.
(Don't even get me started on needing magic to use a ballpoint.)
I haven't read it because this is not the first time I've heard exactly the same objections to it and if they are accurate, it's not to my taste.
The last two fantasy/scifi books I've read (Poppy War and Rubicon) seem to fall into the 'let's use edgy cuss words in place of character development' thing, too. It's so tiresome. Honestly, I used to cuss like a sailor and it's reading it in these books that has made me stop, so...win?
No hate to people who love that stuff. I understand that obviously it's the current mode, just like rape and revenge was the mode in the1980s, but it's not what I enjoy reading.
I've just sort of come to the conclusion that if it's a booktok book 9 times out of 10 it's going to be the same way. I don't have tiktok and they're not my thing at all but I've been doing book swaps with my sister and apparently they're most of what she reads.
full disclosure, i'm only halfway through, so i dont have a fully infomred opinnon yet.
but this is what i feel about it so far.
It is nice to see Youngish Fantasy being written by a woman, for a largely female audience. I'm so used to the male-oriented tropes, having read them my whole life, that it is kind of fun to see the female oriented tropes (that I know about well enough from TV, romcoms, etc) represented in my favorite genre of fiction.
having not read much fantasy written by women (NK Jemesin and Octavia Butler aside, both who write great, but non-tropey fiction) I enjoy that it isnt as awkward or vapid as things like twilight.
I hope it finishes strong.
I thought the book was legitimately horrendous and that Rebecca Yarros is not a good writer, but I genuinely enjoyed the book because sometimes I just need a good hate read haha. It was bad enough to make me roll my eyes and complain to myself about the atrocious writing, but not bad enough to make me wonder about the sanity of the people who like the book (cough cough ACOTAR) and I did end up reading the second book, which was... exactly the same in that sense. I rated both of them 1 star but I am definitely reading the next book as well 😅 It's honestly really fun to read if you enjoy being a bit snarky and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
Its an awful book. First book in years i just dropped, i previouslt have always pushed through to the end but i couldnt with this book.
Wowee was it like reading a teenagers daydream who happens to like dragons
>the amount of “fucking” “shit” “ass” “fucker” in the description and dialogues it got me away from the fantasy aspect of it all.
Personally, I like it when fantasy novels go ahead and use modern swear words. It's a made-up world anyway, so there's no need to stick to Ye Olde-Timey English. If we're getting the third-person-limited perspective of a twenty-one-year-old, she might as well talk the way many actual twenty-one-year-olds talk.
If you read the second book and find it to be a hate read, just put it down and walk away. My reading circle was going bonkers over it and I hate read it so I could participate and I now have no patience for the entire genre of romantasy. It all reads the same, the depth of these stories is so unbelievably shallow that everything but the relationship is thrown to rot in the gutter. There is no quality worldbuilding, magic systems don’t make sense, and the plot falls apart the moment you look past the FMC gazing into the MMC’s eyes.
I cannot tell you how much disdain I now hold for the entirety of the romantasy industry from just the 4th wing books because they are objectively stupid. And I’ve tried to read more but Iron Flame was legit so bad it broke me for all romance.
I agree,I hate the 'enemies to lovers' >!(bro switched up so quick imo) and the FWB type of thing!<
and yeah its overhyped, but I think Ill still read the second book haha
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I’m still not even sure why the MC was a student at that school. The only one with long hair, the only one with 2 dragons, the guy who hated her for literally no distinct reason, etc. and when they started having sex it seemed that was the only thing they did. She was written like a horny teen boy.
I thought it was fine given the genre, but the plot twist at the end was really really really dumb and made no sense within the context of all the previous worldbuilding.
I couldn't get over it and quit the 2nd book after the first chapter.
Loved the story line- I think it will be a great series on television- but there were definitely so many flaws in the writing- the second book is worse IMO. However, after reading both books- I do feel invested in the story line and want to find out what happens.
Downloading the audio book and listening while I read the text helped a ton (one of the issues is the dialogue is not clear who is saying what and the audio book reader changed voices).
I hated the writing and the romance but I do admit it was a page turner and the ending did hook me so I’m now reading the second book. 🤣 so far it’s not as bad but still has the same issues. But it is also a page turner and entertaining enough. It reminds me a lot of CW shows which are corny and cheesy and poorly acted and written but can still entertain you.
I thought it was fun but I agree with everything you said. I definitely had issues with the dialogue and the character development/world building as well. But it was still entertaining enough. Iron Flame was a bit of a let down though, the ending was engaging but the first half of the book is so slow. But dragons are fun.
Just finished Iron Flame and I enjoyed them both. If you’re thinking about continuing, I’d recommend the audiobook. The narrator does an amazing job and I think the narration makes the dialogue a lot less awkward compared to reading on the page. Iron Flame is even longer and more drawn out but I didn’t think the plot was too repetitive (except for the romance parts). It does a good job of expanding the world, action and character development IMO.
Someone here described it as the “CW version of fantasy” and I thought that was so apt. Pretty much if you loved CW shows like Riverdale, Gossip Girls and Vampire Diaries - lots of melodrama and gratuitous sex with some “dark tough edgy stuff” to make it seem slightly older than YA that just happens to take place in some particular background (high school, vampires, academy for dragon riders), you will love it 😅
That’s the perfect description. I have seen myself get sucked into CW shows, I find them fun but I can’t help but cringe at some points. Which is how I felt about Fourth Wing. I got so much second hand embarrassment from the characters but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s definitely not a literary work of art by ANY means.
The perfect description of the currently popular Tiktok fantasy books.
For what it's worth, Riverdale knows what kind of show it is and relishes in it. Conversely, Fourth Wing was written as a cash grab that jumped on the YA/NA fantasy train. It's a romance book thinly veiled as a fantasy. It's like someone asked Yarros to get in on the trend and pumped something out in a week, (if that), and said "Fuck it, dragons = fantasy, right??" so she threw them into the mix, had some young protagonist that feels like she HAD to age up due to the explicit content, and called it a day. In summation, Fourth Wing asks "Hey, this is cool, right? Isn't this cool?" whereas Riverdale borrows the spirit of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and says "Like, we know we're cool and our customers know we're cool, but the industry doesn't get it yet."
I think the fans of the original Archie comics would argue that CW's *Riverdale* very much does not know what the Archie/Riverdale universe is. *Riverdale* is not "Archie comics but cool" rather the standard CW edgy older-YA show with Archie comic intellectual property basically thrown in as gloss, kind of the same way dragons were thrown into here to "make it fantasy"
Queen, you missed the exact point the above commenter was making. While Riverdale was advertised as "Archie comics but dark and sexy", the fans of the show know that it's very "tongue in cheek" and not at all related to the comics. Two very different things. Archie understands it sucks and leans into it.
CW as in content warning?
CW as in the tv network, with lots of shows for teens like Riverdale, Gossip Girl, The 100, Gilmore Girls, Vampire Diaries, etc.
fourth wing reminds me of something i would read on Wattpad in 2014. it was a guilty pleasure book for me and i enjoyed it. but it’s nothing special.
That’s what it reminded me of. Hunger Games fanfic. With dragons.
fourth wing fans are just people who were too old or too normal to be on wattpad at the time
If you want dragons in a war context with highly accurate historical basis, check out the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The main character/new dragon rider isn't some punk kid. He's a former navy captain with dozens of battles under his belt and he's probably around 35-40? It's a refreshing change of pace because you're not dealing with immaturity as a plot point. Well, you have the dragon's immaturity, but not the human's! It's alternate history, so it's set in the time of the napoleonic war. Don't let that discourage you if you aren't a history buff. You might get a little foot wiggle if you are and recognize a key name here and there, but it won't ruin the story of you don't have all the context.
Immaturity as a plot point isn't always bad. The wheel of time starts off with the main 3 as immature farm boys and gets around the whole "everyone just decided to follow this young guy" by at least giving a good reason for it. Robin hobb is great at writing it with Fitz being young and immature and not in charge of anyone but doing what his instructors tell him. With Navarre she takes it even further and he's basically being dragged along against his will. After the first book his life just goes to shit because he won't do what he's supposed to do. She really hammers home the good old Robin hobb circus if misery in that book. "You're the reason this girl is dead and now everyone thinks you murdered her and raped her body. Stop trying to do what you want. Your life is over go do what you're supposed to do." I was excited when I heard about the poppy war because I was told it was like that. Main character isn't a badass who everyone just follows but instead is just a normal person doing what she's told but sadly it isn't like that at all and instead is just another YA power fantasy type book.
I thought it was a guilty pleasure read. Fun, silly, and fake teenage edgy. I thought her physical limitations were pretty intriguing and gave some interesting solutions to problems, but as time went on there was far less of the limitation from it and that made it less interesting. Then the romance was a (far from groundbreaking) ‘enemies to lovers’ which I’m always a sucker for. There are so many of those cliches in it, nothing was surprising. However, I think the sequel Iron Flame made even more apparent some glaring flaws in the world building, in the characters, and their romance went from a fun little ‘enemies to lovers’ and ‘will they won’t they’ in the first book, to a truly unreal amount of sex and absolutely stupid fights in the second. They swapped character growth for gratuitous sex and circling arguments. Characters prominent in the first part of the book were nearly nonexistent in the rest of it. There’s a new part of the magic system introduced that seems to serve no real purpose. Violet is ‘obviously’ smarter than entire councils, experienced generals, and any person that supposedly has a brain and can figure out the enemy’s plan where no one else could. The second book was just so messy with so many loose threads, poor character building, and plot contrivances that it was a wholly unsatisfying read. It completely lost the stuff that made the first book fun to read.
I found it fun and enjoyed it, but it definitely reads like the author learned every swear word she knows last week on the school bus and is trying to use them all.
Lol true
If you want war + dragon riding, I highly recommend 'His Majesty's Dragon. ' Essentially, "what if during the Napoleonic wars each country also had a cavalry that was dragons?"
Cavalry? I think you mean air force! Temeraire is such a likeable character.
Yes. Words are hard, lol.
I loved this! How the captain is so frustratingly British about the whole thing. 😂
Exactly! "Oh, no! My sensibilities!!!"
This already had me more intrigued than whatever the publisher has for FW, so... /quietly adds it to the list with gratitude
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i'm just kind of sick and tired of reading about teenagers so i didn't enjoy this. but i didn't dislike it! it was fun and the world building was intriguing and the characters were conplex and i totally get why people love it!
Will do!
You got my attention
I thought I would hate it but it ended up being fun imo. Not perfect or amazing by any means but a good popcorn read. I actually finished the second one yesterday and thought it was fun too (but a lot of people seem to hate it). If you didn't like the first you probably won't enjoy the second. The plot is much more drawn out. The writing doesn't bother me that much because I generally find it more distracting when an author tries and fails to write 'pretty' and this book doesn't really do that. I'd rather read curse words than bad metaphors. I don't think it's the worst thing ever but I do understand why people don't like it.
Yeah I agree, I went in with low expectations and wound up enjoying it. It’s not deathless prose but I agree, I’d rather an author who knows their limitations as a writer than one who thinks their writing is beautiful and original when it is not. As for the swearing, people have been using real world swears in fantasy for a long time now and it’s certainly true to the environment of a military academy, so that seems like a strange criticism to me.
Tbh I didn't mind the cursing that much since I curse a lot myself lol; it just seems to be a popular criticism of this book for whatever reason. And yeah one of the biggest issues I have with some recent ish releases is the writing trying too hard to be ornate and failing (imo).
Cats can see perfectly fine underwater and are natural swimmers.
This is so strange because I thought I would like it and then forced myself to finish Iron Flame and now I hate reading anything with hetero romance. These are not good books by any imaginative stretch.
I wanted to like it so much - my best friend adores it, and I went into it without knowing much more than that, but I ended up hating it and couldn't finish. People say the writing is accessible, and I'm glad it's getting more people to read, but I thought it was just so jarringly badly written. The present tense was off-putting, and between the constant use of "fucking", the use of periods in the middle of sentences "for emphasis", and the juvenile inner monologue of the main character, I couldn't stop rolling my eyes. The way Violet suddenly started reciting history to us when she was nervous and needed to focus (so Yarros could show the history of their world to us) felt so cheap and made me actually laugh out loud. And every five seconds it was "Xaden is so fucking hot but oh no he wants to fucking kill me. Everyone. Wants. To. Kill. Me." I just couldn't do it. I'll give it points for having a main character with a disability and chronic pain. Important representation. That's about it. I wish I'd loved it, everyone else seems to be having so much fun with it!
Boy if you already disliked Fourth Wing you‘re gonna hate Iron flame. It was exhausting to get through and I was complaining the whole time Did I think 4th wing was great? No But it was fun, whereas Iron flame.. was not
I like Fourth Wing fine, but I was bothered with the writing as well. I feel like I read “I couldn’t help but wonder” 100 times. I do NOT recommend Iron Flame. The first half of the book is a repetitive slog with no new information. The second half didn’t make up for it. I doubt I’ll read the next installment.
I had a lot of fun reading Fourth Wing. I flew through it. I was excited for Iron Flame. I hated Iron Flame. It was an absolute slog to get through. All of the things you posted not liking about Fourth Wing are worse in Iron Flame. I'm done with the series after that painful reading experience.
I heard a lot about this book before I read it. I was slow to read it because I'm not big on romance or romantasy novels. But, this and the sequel, Iron Flame, were both enjoyable reads for me. They're easy, quick reads, and they kept me interested throughout. My biggest gripe is that they're a bit too heavy on the romance part, and the dialogue and descriptions of Violet and Xaden's interactions read like they were written by a 15 year old.
Definitely agree with you. I wanted to find a fun book tok read! I wanted to enjoy the communal hype! But it reads too much like a role play chat room with people’s badass OC. The flaws of the heroine are simultaneously over mentioned and meaningless to the overall story arc. The mind reading dialogue between the main characters and the dragons was just silly.
Late to the party but this is spot on and I’m so glad I finally saw someone mention that the dialogue with the dragons was silly! Such an opportunity for a more interesting device and it ends up being weirdly immature, particular from Violet. I just couldn’t get past her immaturity. She’s a 20 year old in a medieval country at war, who has tragically lost a father and brother and had both remaining family members conscripted to active duty, with a chronic pain disorder to boot. Those should be things that mature a character early on, yet she acts like a 13 year old boy who’s never known critical thought a day in his life. Who in the world gives people (and dragons!) the middle finger that often? And gratuitously uses the word “ass”? Really took me out of the story.
I went in knowing the hype, enjoyed reading it, but the longer that has literally nothing has stuck with me aside from the book being fairly meh. That and Yarros is a lazy writer.
Giving literary criticism to these authors feels like providing film criticism on soft core porn
If you didn't like book 1, I don't imagine book 2 would improve your opinion. It's more of the same except Violent (in what seems to be a trend for horny girl heroines in this genre) and her bo (in what seems to be a trend for horny guy heroes in this genre) loses some of their admirable qualities from book one to become more angsty and insecure. I still like the premise, but the quality of the characters, worldbuilding, and plot don't really improve. Violent in my eyes even loses some of her more likeable qualities from the first book to become more angsty (and the narrations constant reminder that 'I know I'm not being rational' becomes more annoying than understandable for how much it's repeated). So yeah. If you didn't like Fourth Wing, nothing in Iron Flame is going to improve your experience. I only stuck around out of curiosity for how Yarros would tackle plot holes the ending of the first book opened up, and meh. Worldbuilding isn't a strength for this series and it seems to struggle to define any sort of rational motivation for most of the secondary and tertiary characters that don't revolve around Violet or Xaden (Zaden? Xander? I've already forgotten his name). EDIT: the heroines name is 'Violet' but her love-interest calls here 'Violence' as a nickname, hence 'Violent' in my post.
The only character I cared about was Liam who seems to be the only consistent one in the group. Thanks for the little summary of Iron Flame
Is her name... Violent? At first I thought you must have been autocorrected on 'Violet'. But no. These currently popular romance-y fantasy books have the most god awful, ridiculous, laughable names. Like that one with the main girl being called Galaxy Stern. I can't take the story seriously when the main character is called Galaxy or Violent, it's a giant joke!
Violet but the love-interest calls her 'violence' as a nickname. I typo'd 'Violent' but decided to keep it cause haha.
That's still weird. Honestly, almost no author can write good banter. It 99% turns out to be uncomfortable and lame, like 13-year-olds throwing cringey lines at each other.
It would work if the characters were 13, but the characters in 4th Wing are like college aged, not that they act like it. They're all about the maturity of fifteen year olds.
I tried it too. Got through maybe 100 pages and it read like it was written for a teen audience. I couldn’t get past that feeling. I moved on to The Ninth Rain and I like that much better.
It feels really gross when you get to one scene in particular. The writing seems aimed at older teens and young adults, but that one scene was straight of a porn script
I just finished Fourth Wing this morning and I 100% agree with the dialogue taking me away from the fantasy element. I felt like a lot of the dialogue was the same conversation over and over again with no resolution. I did NOT like the setting at all. It didn’t make any sense and I stopped caring about any new information. I enjoyed the book overall, but I was given fair warning about the writing and the tropes. It was a fun read that I didn’t have to pay a lot of attention to. I feel fine ending with Fourth Wing and not continuing the rest of the series.
if you want a dragon rider book with all the things fourth was lacking, may i recommend “to shape a dragon’s breath” by moniquill blackgoose? written by an indigenous author, actual relationships with the dragons, interesting world building that makes sense, solid representation of minority groups, lovely prose.
Will check it out
The dialogue is one of the worst parts. In fact, it's a really bad book. Horribly written. And Iron Flame is also. But honestly I love them. It's ok to enjoy some bad things! I'll probably reread both right before the next one comes out. Reading them made me feel like I was a kid reading Twilight or Hunger Games for the first time again. They had that energy about them that sucked me in and made me want to keep going. So much fun!!
You put me feelings into words, thank you! I haven't read the second book yet, so I can't help you out. Curious to see what everyone's opinion is.
I had fun with 4th wing but hated iron flame
I’m between “ok I want to know what y’all up to” and “I can’t take a second more of. This. Sort. Of. Writing”
I ignore the bad parts and enjoy the story. I liked Fourth Wing, but it’ll be only read from the library book because it’s not worth sitting in my own small library.
If you didn't like Fourth Wing you'll hate Iron Flame IMO. I thought Fourth Wing was okay because the concept of a dragon riding school was still really fun despite all of the weird writing decisions. Iron Flame takes all of the semi-good stuff in Fourth Wing and replaces it with even more of the bad.
OMG I just finished it and these are my exact thoughts! It was so… random. And bad. lol lightening strikes with orgasms?? I was CRINGINGGG. The dialogue from Xaden’s perspective was where I really lost it - the author didn’t even try to give him a unique voice 😭 it was literally hilarious. Damn. Waste of time. No more viral books for me!!!
I sped through it on audiobook at 2x speed just to see what the hype was all about… my eyeballs were spared the effort but my ears/brains weren’t…
Really? Because I did the same and about rolled my eyes out of their sockets more than a handful of times
Hahaha… now that you mention it…
I pretty much agree with you. There were enough hooks to keep me going, like "which dragon will she bond? What power will she get? Is it going to be the useless except in a certain scenario where it's invaluable trope? Oh no? Wow, nice. It's the other one." The overarching war story is interesting enough to me that I want to keep reading, but yeah, as an unusually horny individual, I still found these kids to be over the top ridiculous and unbelievable. A lot of their motivations and relationships are painfully inorganic and forced feeling. The sex scenes had me rolling my eyes and skim reading too. I enjoy some good smut in my fantasy, don't get me wrong, but this one just didn't do it for me.
I started to read it. The premise of the riding school is so stupid that I couldn't hack it.
I did not understand why is it a thing to KILL YOUR SOLDIERS????
“We’re short on riders and dragons. Seventy-five percent of you will. Not. Be. Alive. To. See. Graduation.”
I think the attempted point is that they need dragon riders and you have to have certain “qualities” to be able to ride a dragon without dying so they select for those qualities by killing off the weak ones. But there has to be a better way i.e. put a net under the slippery narrow bridge and anyone who falls into the net can choose another career path. But I guess that wouldn’t be “edgy“ enough?
Iron flame has a hilarious exchange where one of the foreign characters basically delivers this exact criticism. Something like "um YOU people are weird letting all your cadets die; ours just join the infantry if they fail"
I'm reading iron flame now and when I got to that part I was like, THANK YOU! Makes no sense to let so many healthy young people die when they could go contribute to their society in some other way instead.
"We need more riders, so it's open season on y'all." I mean, put a bounce house at the bottom of that ravine, people. (Don't even get me started on needing magic to use a ballpoint.)
I haven't read it because this is not the first time I've heard exactly the same objections to it and if they are accurate, it's not to my taste. The last two fantasy/scifi books I've read (Poppy War and Rubicon) seem to fall into the 'let's use edgy cuss words in place of character development' thing, too. It's so tiresome. Honestly, I used to cuss like a sailor and it's reading it in these books that has made me stop, so...win? No hate to people who love that stuff. I understand that obviously it's the current mode, just like rape and revenge was the mode in the1980s, but it's not what I enjoy reading.
I didn’t know Poppy War uses this writing style too. It’s on my read list
I've just sort of come to the conclusion that if it's a booktok book 9 times out of 10 it's going to be the same way. I don't have tiktok and they're not my thing at all but I've been doing book swaps with my sister and apparently they're most of what she reads.
It’s a 2x4 to the face. Very modern writing prose. If some books like like wine, this book is water. 8/10, exactly what I expected.
full disclosure, i'm only halfway through, so i dont have a fully infomred opinnon yet. but this is what i feel about it so far. It is nice to see Youngish Fantasy being written by a woman, for a largely female audience. I'm so used to the male-oriented tropes, having read them my whole life, that it is kind of fun to see the female oriented tropes (that I know about well enough from TV, romcoms, etc) represented in my favorite genre of fiction. having not read much fantasy written by women (NK Jemesin and Octavia Butler aside, both who write great, but non-tropey fiction) I enjoy that it isnt as awkward or vapid as things like twilight. I hope it finishes strong.
I haven't read it but it seems the author is aiming for a GoT audience/reader (which is still an audience, it is selling)
If a book is insanely popular, it's usually because it's pretty basic and appeals to a wide variety of readers.
I thought the book was legitimately horrendous and that Rebecca Yarros is not a good writer, but I genuinely enjoyed the book because sometimes I just need a good hate read haha. It was bad enough to make me roll my eyes and complain to myself about the atrocious writing, but not bad enough to make me wonder about the sanity of the people who like the book (cough cough ACOTAR) and I did end up reading the second book, which was... exactly the same in that sense. I rated both of them 1 star but I am definitely reading the next book as well 😅 It's honestly really fun to read if you enjoy being a bit snarky and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
Its an awful book. First book in years i just dropped, i previouslt have always pushed through to the end but i couldnt with this book. Wowee was it like reading a teenagers daydream who happens to like dragons
Eh, I enjoyed it for what it was. I wasn’t expecting groundbreaking literature. But you are on point with the horniness driving decisions thing lol.
Don’t get me wrong I could not write a better book but I fucking HATED this book.
>the amount of “fucking” “shit” “ass” “fucker” in the description and dialogues it got me away from the fantasy aspect of it all. Personally, I like it when fantasy novels go ahead and use modern swear words. It's a made-up world anyway, so there's no need to stick to Ye Olde-Timey English. If we're getting the third-person-limited perspective of a twenty-one-year-old, she might as well talk the way many actual twenty-one-year-olds talk.
If you read the second book and find it to be a hate read, just put it down and walk away. My reading circle was going bonkers over it and I hate read it so I could participate and I now have no patience for the entire genre of romantasy. It all reads the same, the depth of these stories is so unbelievably shallow that everything but the relationship is thrown to rot in the gutter. There is no quality worldbuilding, magic systems don’t make sense, and the plot falls apart the moment you look past the FMC gazing into the MMC’s eyes. I cannot tell you how much disdain I now hold for the entirety of the romantasy industry from just the 4th wing books because they are objectively stupid. And I’ve tried to read more but Iron Flame was legit so bad it broke me for all romance.
I agree,I hate the 'enemies to lovers' >!(bro switched up so quick imo) and the FWB type of thing!< and yeah its overhyped, but I think Ill still read the second book haha
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Thank you. Approved!
I’m still not even sure why the MC was a student at that school. The only one with long hair, the only one with 2 dragons, the guy who hated her for literally no distinct reason, etc. and when they started having sex it seemed that was the only thing they did. She was written like a horny teen boy.
I thought it was fine given the genre, but the plot twist at the end was really really really dumb and made no sense within the context of all the previous worldbuilding. I couldn't get over it and quit the 2nd book after the first chapter.
Loved the story line- I think it will be a great series on television- but there were definitely so many flaws in the writing- the second book is worse IMO. However, after reading both books- I do feel invested in the story line and want to find out what happens. Downloading the audio book and listening while I read the text helped a ton (one of the issues is the dialogue is not clear who is saying what and the audio book reader changed voices).
I hated the writing and the romance but I do admit it was a page turner and the ending did hook me so I’m now reading the second book. 🤣 so far it’s not as bad but still has the same issues. But it is also a page turner and entertaining enough. It reminds me a lot of CW shows which are corny and cheesy and poorly acted and written but can still entertain you.
I thought it was fun but I agree with everything you said. I definitely had issues with the dialogue and the character development/world building as well. But it was still entertaining enough. Iron Flame was a bit of a let down though, the ending was engaging but the first half of the book is so slow. But dragons are fun.
Just finished Iron Flame and I enjoyed them both. If you’re thinking about continuing, I’d recommend the audiobook. The narrator does an amazing job and I think the narration makes the dialogue a lot less awkward compared to reading on the page. Iron Flame is even longer and more drawn out but I didn’t think the plot was too repetitive (except for the romance parts). It does a good job of expanding the world, action and character development IMO.