Fourth Wing: WHY?

So, I have done a few book signings since the release of King of the Forgotten Darkness last year, and one question I’ve gotten is whether or not my book is “like Fourth Wing”? At the time I was like, well…I dunno. I looked up what it was about–a dragon rider college mixed with enemies-to-lovers romance with quite a bit of spice. What could go wrong? Not only that, but Fourth Wing is incredibly popular, I think there’s talk of a TV show or movie, I dunno. That said, it’s also very divisive. There are quite a few booktubers and booktokkers out there–more on YT than TT, but there’s quite a few more out there who talk about how it’s stupid, derivative, toxic, mindless, indulgent, superficial, etc., etc.

So, I really didn’t have any idea what I was getting into when I went into it. I thought, in order to give it a fair trial, I needed to remember a few things. 1) I’m not a big romance reader, although I have enjoyed a few historical romances in my day, mainly as buddy reads with my wife, who is my inspiration, and my soulfire, but other than that I’ve not read much romance, so I’m not likely to resonate with this book like many other readers do. And 2) I’m not a huge fan of spicy scenes, and I absolutely refuse to read about SA. I get enough talk about that with my day job and that’s with real people experiencing truly horrific SA. I just–no. I’m not interested in that. And spicy scenes in novels that are not about SA–well, I’m not morally opposed to it or anything, but it’s not really why I reach for a read. So, since I heard Fourth Wing had some of that, I had some trepidation. Finally, 3), I’m not really the target demographic for this book, which I would say is female and 20-30. I’m a guy in my fifties. Nevertheless, I LOVE the craft of writing. I love a good story well told, and I don’t care what genre or what target audience it is. I have enjoyed many things which would likely be called ‘low brow’ or ‘pulp’, and at the same time I have rolled my eyes at writing which I found to be pompous, pretentious, and overly self-serious. 

So that’s the background I had coming into Fourth Wing. I’m like, ok I actually love a good romance subplot in a book. My own novels almost always have one, just because although I usually go for adventure, epic fantasy, or high drama, deep down, I’m a romantic and I think a good romantic subplot can really heighten the stakes of a story. If the romance is the MAIN plot, however, that can make things a lot tougher. It’s a lot harder to write a good romance than you might think, and I’m going to get into that here.

Dragons, Romance, and Death! Oh my!

But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. So Fourth Wing, in case you’ve been under a rock for the last decade, is about young tween 20-something Violet Sorringale, the daughter of a general of a kingdom that primarily uses dragon riders in its military. She was supposed to go to scribe school, but winds up going to dragon riding school despite her small size and some kind of chronic pain condition that is never really described in much detail. So already she’s at a huge disadvantage, and what’s more the dragon riding academy is four years of grueling, deadly training. Many, many cadets die before they’ve even started training! Even worse, she is assigned to the Fourth Wing, which is led by Xaden Riorson, the son of a traitor who killed her brother! Xaden has a vendetta against Violet’s family. So Violet is terrified of all the forces piled up against her…and yet, she’s also oddly attracted to Xaden. He hates her guts and vice versa, and yet there is a certain electricity between them…and it helps that Xaden is hot. And I mean…he is super hot with so much hotness that hot isn’t hot enough for the hotness that his hotness can hot. So, not Violet must navigate the deadly and terrifying training schedule ahead of her, while dodging enemies within and without, and fighting against the tension that is rising to near-orgasmic levels between her and Xaden…but also Dain, a childhood friend who loves her dearly and is super protective of her. But at the same time, she must also dodge the other cadets who say she doesn’t belong there, and she must trip through a backstabbing maze of intrigue and shifting loyalties, as war brews on the horizon!

And if THAT description draws you in, and makes you want to go read it, then you will probably have a lot of fun with Fourth Wing. If, on the other hand, you find yourself with an aching temple because you’re rolling your eyes so much, then you may have an idea of my own reaction to all of this. 

Not all bad

So let me start with what I actually liked about Fourth Wing, because for me, this book was a huge mixed bag. So, the story moves along very quickly. Everything I just said, the reader learns in like the first two chapters. So, I’m not getting into spoiler territory, really, everything is rapid-fire blasted at the reader very early on, so you can get to the ACTION. But there is zero time wasted on anything before we are flung right into the peril and the beginnings of the romantic plot, and let’s just be clear here, this is a romantasy, so the romance is not a subplot, it’s the main plot. It’s a romance with a fantasy subplot. And Yarros yanks the reader in and says ‘get in loser we’re doing a romantasy’ and then slams on the accelerator, skidding out of chapter one and flooring it until the end of the book. Whatever I thought about it, I was at least never bored because so much was going on all the time. Also, Yarros–whatever you might say about her prose–she at least knows how to wring every ounce of emotion out of every scene and interaction that she can. Are the situations cliched and melodramatic? Oh yeah. But she has the good sense to know that THAT is what she is going for–a melodramatic story dripping with every emotion possible–and that is what she does with her story. FW knows what it is, is not ashamed of what it is, and Yarros leans into it and says. Hey, you’re here for a story that mashes up the magical school trope with dragons and steamy romance and life-or-death stakes at every turn, so I’m going to give you exactly that, and at 11.

And trust me, EVERYTHING in this novel is cranked up to 11. And even though it made me roll my eyes frequently, I still kind of had a sneaky affection for it. I mean, you all remember the super cringey dialogue in Star Wars episode 2 when Anakin was confessing his love for Padme and everything was so super dramatic and over the top? This book feels a lot like that–but at the same time, I do remember being a teenager in love. And, sad to say, I was pretty over the top and cringey. So, I get it. Fourth Wing took me back to those days when everything just seemed SO important and everything felt like it was going to be forever and life-or-death. But of course, I’m not that age any more, so many times I just found myself shaking my head as the narrator carried on with all of this.

And I will say, that’s another thing I liked–the Audible narrator REALLY went hard into the melodrama. She gave it her ALL, and I was impressed. Rebecca Soler narrated it, and I think she deserves praise for her effort here. 

I also liked the fact that Yarros does give Violet some time to feel her feelings, in particular there’s a few scenes where Violet is regretting doing something she really had no choice but to do, and it caused others severe harm. Yarros lets her be human here before jumping back on the plot train, and I thought it was a nice moment to reflect on the concept of moral injury. Moral injury is one of the main themes of book 2 of the Raven’s Tale series, the Treacherous Fire, so I appreciated that. It’s an important topic. 

Finally, I really liked the dragons. Yarros I felt like does them justice here, at least in terms of how powerful they feel, how otherly they are in terms of not just being like humans, and also she has some fun ideas like how dragons share a mental bond with their riders. It’s an idea that Chris Paolini used well in Eragon, and I felt like Yarros does even more with it, in terms of how the bond is not just mental but emotional. Again, Yarros cranks up the emotion to 11 in FW and this is no exception. That’s certainly appropriate when you’re talking about dragons! 

But...

So…yeah, that’s what I appreciated about Fourth Wing. Now comes my grumbles. And keep in mind, romantasy is not really my genre, and I’m not the target audience, and if you loved FW, this is by no means a dig against you. I hate when book reviewers get on their high horse about stuff like this and act like anyone who enjoys something that is frankly popcorn entertainment that has some heart to it is just a ignoramus who enjoys crap and doesn’t understand “high art”. Because that’s just a bunch of crap. And this is coming from an absolute lover of Shakespeare and other works of so-called high art. People who engage in this kind of snobbery are really just posturing. They’re not engaging in real criticism, imo. 

But that said, I couldn’t help but feel like most of the plot was extremely contrived. Yarros set up the whole dragon riding school, the bonds between dragon riders, and everything else in an obvious way to force the romantic plot to sizzle. I mean, I get it, that’s what most of the readers came for. But you can feel the plot machinery creaking in the background. Like the life-or-death stakes of the training is completely over-the-top. Look, I’m a veteran, and I’ve done both enlisted and officer training, and as a psychiatrist I’ve treated men and women who have done some of the most grueling training regimens known, such as that for ranger training, SERE training, and all that, and the dragon riding school is NUTS. You’re killing off cadets before they even get a chance to train! It’s wasteful, and just plain silly. And what’s worse, while the characters acknowledge the danger, they do not react in a way that was, at least for me, believable. No matter how high these stakes were jacked up like this, everyone in the school was still overly preoccupied with who is sleeping with who, who has a grudge against who, and all that, so that it seemed more like middle school drama, when everyone there should be scared out of their minds! In real military training, even with much lower stakes than this, the emphasis is HEAVILY on working together. You rise and fall together, as a team–want to know why? Because a military group that can act as a coherent unit wins. That bond between brothers and sisters in arms is what keeps you alive. But here, they allow so much backstabbing, infighting, and general catty nonsense that I’m like–these idiots deserve to get shredded by griffon riders. 

Another thing I struggled with was the dialogue. Everyone talks like 2023 millennials. People are ‘vibing’ and everyone drops nonstop f-bombs. And yet, we have medieval armor and weapons and dragons. That’s not really complaint about “realism”--this is fantasy–but more about how Yarros didn’t seem to think her readers could handle characters having even a slightly different manner of speech. This is one way you can signal to your readers that this is a world different from 2020s suburban college campus. This is another world where young people are training to bond with dragons to save their kingdom from sworn enemies. But no. Not only that, there was quite a bit of ventriloquist syndrome, meaning everyone had the same snarky 2023 manner of speech, and man they were downright insolent with their dragons. It seems to me that being snotty with a thirty ton firebreathing lizard is not a good idea, and yet characters do this a lot and it honestly took a lot off of the impact that her otherwise great dragon work went for. Maybe it’s just me, but I would never mouth off to a dragon who had lived for centuries and could squash me like a grape on a whim or turn me into a shishkebob at will.

Then there’s the romance plot. And see, here is where I think Yarros might have strained the most. This is obviously a romance with fantasy frills. Nothing at all wrong with that. But there’s a danger when you mix genres like this–you want to make sure the genres don’t wind up at cross purposes. I think this is a very popular book because it’s primarily a romance, and I think it does work on that level. It’s a bodice-ripper at heart, and it hits all the tropes and plot points that fans of this kind of story will expect and enjoy. But then she combines it with the dragon-riding college and the epic save-the-kingdom fantasy, and there are more than a few places where it seems like the characters should be worrying more about not getting ripped to pieces or allowing their home to be destroyed, but instead they are worrying about who likes who, and whether or not their passion can be contained when they are around someone they find super-ultra-mega-hot!

The Spice Must Flow

It made for a strange dissonance more than a few times in me. Which brings me to the spice…funny thing, for most of the book, I was feeling like the books reputation for being so spicy had been exaggerated. There’s a few passionate kisses, and LOTS of tension, and lots of long descriptions of hot guys and how the protagonist and her friends are really enjoying them, but otherwise that was it. That is…until I hit about the 75% mark, and Yarros, shall we say, let’s the bodice rip. And everything is described in explicit detail. So, if you’re into that thing, have at it. She doesn’t hold back, but then this is not a book aiming at subtlety or subtext. It’s about a subtle as a steamroller crashing into a semi, then catching on fire and causing a nearby oil refinery to explode. 

Final Thoughts...For Now

So, there you have it. Overall I think Fourth Wing is what it is–a Michael Bay movie of a novel. Everything is cranked up to 11, it’s all pretty silly and contrived, and yet occasionally Yarros does hit a real moment of genuine feeling that I thought was well done. It’s maybe inevitable that that would happen, since she uses all the gentle subtlety of a firehose, and sandblasts the reader with as much as she can, but hey, you can’t say Yarros didn’t put effort into entertaining you. I tend to look for more nuanced characters, more real-feeling worldbuilding, but those things are not really on Yarros’ agenda here. She’s going for the jugular and delivers exactly the goods many romance readers want, with some added fantasy stuff to make it sparkle. Not my cup of tea, but I can see the appeal of it, certainly. 

As for my writing journey, as I mentioned in my April update, book 2 of the Raven’s Tale, The Treacherous Fire is still being reviewed by agents and publishers–a painfully long process–but that just means I’m hard at work on book 3, The Black Millennium. Books 4 and 6 are already written and the rest of the 9 book series I have been planning in depth for going on 30 years now, so it’s a labor of love and dream slowly coming true. And if you want to support what I do, grab a copy of King of the Forgotten Darkness, it’s about a young man living in a utopian society who must illegally enter a magical world of war and chaos to save someone he thought long dead. Or if non-fiction is more your jam, check out my other books right here on the website. Finally, if YOU want me to get more into the psychology of the story and what I think some of the symbols are about, let me know in the comments, and I'll see you next time!