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Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

Rebecca Yarros

Start date: February 1, 2024

Finish date: February 29, 2024

Discussion: Book of the Month

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What Members Thought

Apr 08, 2024 Amanda rated it really liked it

This was a lot better than i expected it to be. I am not one to jump into fantasy but it was like hunger games meets divergent. i cant wait to dive into the next one in the series.

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Nov 16, 2023 Megan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2023, read-in-2025, audiobooks, reread-in-2023, november-2023, 2023-yabrc-nov-dec-series, january-2025, reread-in-2025

This was my third reread and I loved it even more than this time! It was sad knowing ahead which characters weren't going to make it, but it also makes you enjoy their scenes all the more because you know what happens.

The parapet is still just as intense the third time reading it. Andarna is still my favorite, love her sass, but Tairn is also so great. The ending is good to make you want to start the next book right away.
...more

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Mar 23, 2025 Stefani Robinson rated it it was ok

Shelves: audiobook, library

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Unless you’ve been living under a rock or out in the vast wilderness you’ll know that the 3rd book of this series came out recently. You can’t get away from it. Onyx Storm is everywhere. And everyone seems to love it. Maybe if I was still a doe-eyed 20 something then I would have liked it more too. I decided to give this series a shot and while it is entertaining, it has problems.

I listened to this on audiobook and thought the narrators did a fabulous job. They told this story and the characters Unless you’ve been living under a rock or out in the vast wilderness you’ll know that the 3rd book of this series came out recently. You can’t get away from it. Onyx Storm is everywhere. And everyone seems to love it. Maybe if I was still a doe-eyed 20 something then I would have liked it more too. I decided to give this series a shot and while it is entertaining, it has problems.

I listened to this on audiobook and thought the narrators did a fabulous job. They told this story and the characters to the best of their ability.

**Spoiler alert** Read no further if you wish to remain unspoiled

I love dragons. Adding dragons to a fantasy is a really big winner for me, especially intelligent dragons. The dragon that pairs with Violet is very witty and intelligent, and frankly he was my favorite character. But, it also made me wonder, what does it say about a book when the most logical character is a dragon? The dragon politics in this book was interesting but it also made me ask a lot of questions. Mainly, what do dragons need humans for? They have power, intellect and magic all on their own. They have their own laws, their own politics and their own functioning world. Why do they want to bond with humans? Share their magic with humans? Weaken themselves to empower the humans? Most importantly, why do they want to assist the humans in their wars? Even if the dragons had the same enemy, they seem perfectly capable of fighting on their own. And unfortunately we never get the answers to those questions.

Xaden was a great character, very complex and morally grey. But as soon as I heard his name I knew we were getting a cheesy romance starring Xaden Riorson. And it’s the stuff of every YA book’s dreams. Unreasonably jealousy, trying to make jealousy sexy. On a side note, can we please stop trying to make jealous outbursts sexy? They aren’t. But most importantly, we get Violet and Xaden angsting at each other until they finally find their way into each other’s pants. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I was still a naive 20-something. Instead, fully adult me, rolled my eyes and moved along.

I also found the timeline really confusing. So, there’s a war that seems to have been going on for centuries. The enemy wants to break into their kingdom, but they don’t know why. Everyone seems to just suggest that they obviously want something really badly but…it’s been 600 years? You haven’t had a single peace negotiation to find out? And there was also an internal rebellion that seemed to have happened a lot more recently. A lot of the characters talk about it like it was a long time ago, but since Xaden is involved with the ending of that rebellion it can’t have been any more than maybe 5 years earlier? Xaden is only around 23, so it can’t have been too long ago. But as it turns out the people they’re fighting against (the people in the war or the rebellion, can’t really tell) want magic from the kingdom, because they’re being attacked by magical creatures that no one thinks actually exist. So…instead of just explaining the situation you’re in, you start a war and sacrifice more fighters trying to steal the thing you need? Someone was missing battle sense.

This book was full of tropes. Violet is “so frail”, so tiny, so boring, so unremarkable. Who then ends up doing so many amazing things that no one has ever done before! Eye roll. Sexy jealousy. Eye roll. Childhood friend who has all the feelings. Eye roll. Heroine having an “addiction” to the bad boy. Eye roll. So many tropes.

The things that pulled me into this were the dragons, who were pretty badass. The magic system was very well done and interesting. And the enemies we finally get introduced to right at the very end. Those things have kept me invested enough to probably read the 2nd book. But if the worldbuilding doesn’t get a lot tighter than I’m bowing out of the series for good. ...more

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Oct 10, 2023 Kara rated it did not like it

Boy, this was not a good book. It's like the author read other better fantasy books and just cobbled together the bits she could remember. Nothing makes sense and I don't understand how it's SO popular. ...more

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