Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #1)

My lungs only fill when hers do, and the time between my heartbeats is filled with sharp, all-consuming fear.

Hello friends! Welcome to another book review blog. It is great to have you here. Today’s book has been wrecking the entire Bookstagram community for the past few months and as usual, I was late to read the book when it was at its most popular era. However, being late is not reading it ever, so welcome to the review of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros!

How do I start with this book… I have so much to talk about, but I also do not wish to spoil anything; BUT AGAIN, if you have been on Instagram for the past… a few months, you already either have read the book or spoiled yourself to the point where you have every detail of the plot. Nevertheless, I do not think that I can keep this post spoiler-free, at least completely so be aware and read on your own accord.

I do not know what I was expecting from this book, but it was so good. I am not saying this to make myself feel better, NO, this book was exactly like our good old young adult fantasies, the ones we kept reading in the 2010s! The fact that it had cool as-hell dragons, delightful characters (at least one-half of them) and a nice plot which will most likely destroy us throughout this series? It was everything I needed.

The book is set in an entire new universe; a universe where dragons and humans are making “deals” to protect their land against the big bad enemies… a universe where there is a war school for teenagers so that they can become warriors, scribes, riders… whatever you call them. Although the idea of a school or a place for teenagers to change the world/fight the big bad enemies is not new in this genre, the development of Fourth Wing and its world was incredibly well-done, I did not even have time to think about anything else.

Our main character, Violet -a.k.a. Violence- Sorrengail is the daughter of one of the most badass generals, the daughter of a scribe who devoted his life to the truth. She was supposed to be a scribe until her mother -our badass general- decided that she would attend the school of war -BASGIATH- as a rider… And everything starts from there. Violence is a delicate-looking “sickly” girl, and although I would not consider her sick, we hear about a mysterious illness that leaves her hair silvery in the end. All of the characters talk about this illness one way or another, however, it was never clarified, and I do think that it will make sense in the future when we learn why Tairn (her dragon, well, one of them at least) calls her the “Silver One”. She handles her first task well and from there, we see a young woman flourishing against all the odds under her name and the unnecessary characters trying to ruin her non-stop. You ask how? Let me explain.

Basically, Basgiath is a hell on earth with dragons! The lives of these kids do not matter at all, because why should it when you can close your eyes to those who are burned by dragons during the Treshing (the ritual-like thing where dragons bond with humans) or killed due to some excessive egoistic characters OR died at the parapet while trying to cross the way? None of these matters, we raise the coolest riders on the planet!

Jokes aside, the world-building was so well done as I have mentioned prior, and the gore of reality for these kids destroyed my sanity, it was just so well done in every possible way. It was full of side characters who actually contributed to the plot, very much so, and all of them had their voices. Rhiannon, Mira and Liam were my favourites, however, all the “chosen” ones and every other side character who did something actually contributed to the plot and I simply was so happy about it.

If our female lead is Violet… who is our male lead? Dain…. HAHA. JUST KIDDING. We have a new shadow daddy my dear readers, and his name is… Xaden Riorson.

Although he still was a typical shadow daddy we are very much used to seeing, he was a walking talking morally grey flag and I loved it. I loved how careful he was, how much he wanted Violet to spread her wings and fly, how much he supported her instead of certain useless excuses of a male friend. 😊

Xaden is also haunted by her past, being the son of a traitor, he never had it easy. He has friends to protect, the duty to accomplish, and secrets to protect. From the beginning we were introduced to him, I knew something was different about our new shadow daddy and at the end, it happened as I guessed because let’s be honest, we all read JLA and SJM religiously, and Rebecca Yarros was no less than my ladies. She did an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G job. Xaden was the goal character for me in the entire book. I truly appreciated him in every scene, including the scenes of steam!

Overall, I completely respect those who say that this particular book is not very original since we have read similar ideas when we were teenagers. However, I want to be very clear about something: this is how fantasy works. Humans are unable to imagine something that is not in their history. As simple as that. I wasn’t expecting something ground-shaking when I heard this book about dragons and humans and a very cool plot. Yes, I wasn’t expecting a boarding school which I have read hundreds of times before either, however, was it a reason for me to dislike this book even a little bit? Hell no. This book did exactly what it should have. This is a new adult book with some spicy scenes and great writing including Dragons. Which book is bad when it has dragons?

I really liked the end because it promised me some form of development in the plot, and it ended up becoming something other than reading the story of a new adult girl who is learning how to ride a dragon. I was genuinely surprised and I have truly loved the dragons and how their society was shown as well. Although we didn’t get too much in-depth look at the Dragons and their ways, I know that we are going to see them in the upcoming books as well. Overall, this brought back memories that I had long forgotten, and I am so happy to read it! I just got the second book, and I cannot wait to read and write a review about it as well.