Review of Rebecca Yarros’ ‘Fourth Wing’
There is a lot to like in the book. The scenery, the world building, the magic, the passionate characters. The constant life or death stakes was harder to believe as most armies don’t want to kill half their recruits before graduation, but a good read needs a suspension of disbelief so I agreed to believe. The mother of the main female character, Violet Sorrengail, was a little too cold and heartless to believe, but in for a penny…
There was lots of action. Non-stop. I think a breather with a little introspection might be okay, and a bit more of why the war was being fought would help me. But it is that mix of romance and fantasy so maybe readers don’t expect much of the why.
The weakness of the novel for me was the characters. We are told they are in their early to mid-twenties, but they all acted like high school sophomores. The cynical comments, the smart aleck retorts, the smirks and especially the constant eye rolls had me rolling my eyes. Every character did this, and the lack of distinct voices had it hard to follow at points. They all spoke alike, which made me think they all thought alike.
Again I suspended disbelief, until about the one third point, where we are introduced to the dragons. Wonderful I thought. This will be fun. The flyers form a psychic bond with their dragons, which is a wonderful idea. They become a team, always in contact. Talking in their minds. The dragons are supposed to be quite old, over a hundred years I thought I read. But the premise dropped out for me, when we realize the dragons speak with the same sarcastic tone. Jesus.
A while ago I read ‘Brothers Karamazov’, and got to the point of noticing how often Dostoevsky used ‘suddenly’. I was laughing at some points. With ‘Fourth Wing’ I got to counting smirks and eye rolls. Often more than once on a page.
Reading a book is a commitment to spend hours with an author and their characters. The similarities between voices and the adolescent behavior made me want the book to be over with a hundred pages to go. I plowed on. There is a good high action end, and lots of explicit sex, but I couldn’t get past the eye rolls by the end. I didn’t want to spend any more of my time with them.
Three out of five.
Friday June 7, 2024
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