If you are on the side of social media that is obsessed with books, then the new fantasy sensation, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, has probably caught your eye.
I am on book-tok and book-stagram and I was scared to read this book. Personally, I’ve found that hyped-up books aren’t always that good. However I ended up giving into temptation and bought the book, and it lived up to the expectations for me.
The book is set at a college called Basgiath War College. We follow the main character Violet Sorringail, as she makes her way through becoming a rider.
In this college, there are four quadrants: Scribe, Rider, Healer, and Infantry. Violet’s entire life had been focused on training and studying to be a scribe which is basically a historian, and they spend all of their time in the archives. Violet’s father was a Scribe, but the rest of her family were all riders. So when her father died and he no longer had any say in where Violet would end up, her mother- who is a General in the rider quadrant- sent her to become a rider.
Violet was very weak- due to her having Ehlers-Danlos syndrome- so her becoming a rider was very difficult, and she was constantly getting hurt.
We are introduced to Violet’s older sister Mira who is an accomplished rider, and we meet many more characters along the way such as Rhiannon, Dain, Xaden, Ridoc, Tarin, Sgaeyl, and Liam.
Riders are in the school for three years, training and gaining in rank, to eventually go out into the ‘real’ world and protect their home from Gryphons.
The rider quadrant loses many of their cadets throughout their training. When the trainees show up, they aren’t riders yet. They have to go through this trail called a “threshing” where the first-year students go out into the area where the dragons reside, and the dragons choose what riders they want to bond with- not very first-year bonds, and not every first-year makes it out of the threshing alive.
When a rider bonds with their dragon, they are able to communicate with their dragon telepathically- which is very cool to read- and since dragons are so powerful, the dragons give some power to their riders. In this, the riders are the ones that wield the actual abilities, such as seeing memories, controlling lighting, seeing very far away, moving things without touching them, controlling shadows, and more.
Violet, being the youngest daughter of the general, is targeted by many. 6 years before this story takes place there had been a rebellion, and those who rebelled were executed, leaving 107 innocent children in their wake. Those children are now Violet’s age and are seeking vengeance for the previously executed rebels.
Through her journey at this elite war college, Violet finds her real friends and sees that the world needs to be balanced; some of the most powerful things have to be in a weaker form so as to not destroy everything.
The opening header for the first chapter says “A dragon without a rider is a tragedy. A rider without a dragon is dead.” and I think that’s when you get pulled in, before you even start the story, you’re already invested.
I saw a reviewer call this book “a fantasy book for romance readers,” and I think that is a great description of it. The book pulls you in from the get-go with the dragons and the fighting and it holds your attention with the enemies to lovers sub-plot. There are so many twists and turns that you just can’t put this book down and leave you wanting more. And it may be considered “high fantasy” but it’s not hard to follow, unlike many fantasy books.
In total the book is 498 pages and I read it in 2 days, while also going to school.
It’s fast-paced, action-packed, fun, romantic, funny, and just a great fantasy book. It may not be for everyone; some may not enjoy the pace or find the conflicts that arise to be unbelievable, but I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys similar books to me (romance, fantasy, and Sarah J. Maas).
I will say that sometimes I was a little lost because there were so many unique names and I couldn’t differentiate some places from some people, but otherwise, I could follow the world-building and the plot and I was pulled into this magical world that I want to go back to.
The next book comes out in November, it’s called Iron Flame, and if you read Fourth Wing, you’ll want the next one.