New year, new me, new book! Well, same me, unfortunately.

Fourth Wing has had a huge hype train since it came out, which confounds me. Having read the entire book now, I can see why it has fans, but not why it has hype. The story is a mediocrely executed adventure/romance with some fun parts and bland enough to have a wide appeal in this genre. But…nothing about it is new. Usually when something gets this level of fandom it’s because, regardless of the quality of the writing, it has something that the readers haven’t encountered before. Something from an existing subgenre that just broke containment somehow. ‘Compete or die’ stories are already popular. ‘Hot bad boys who are secretly good’ are already popular. ‘Dragons’ are already popular, and this particular style of fantasy dragon has been dominant since Anne McCaffery’s books. So why did this book sweep through TikTok? Utterly baffling. Oh well, let’s begin.

We start off with our main character – Violet Sorrengail – on her first day of training at Basgaith War College.

Wait, no we don’t, we start with an epigraph that’s meant to be in-universe.

The following text has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language by Jesinia Neilwart, Curator of the Scribe Quadrant at Basgaith War College. All events are true, and names have been preserved to honor the courage of those fallen. May their souls be commended to Malek.

So is this book meant to be….extant within this universe? It’s not a diary, and it’s written I first person, so….???? Did Jesinia translate this world’s equivalent of a ‘based on true events’ fiction book?

Also there’s multiple very explicit sex scenes so poor Jesinia, who we later find out is a good friend of Violet. Having to think real hard about the proper translation for your friend’s sex life can’t be fun.

So Violet is ready to enter the war college, which has four sections: dragon riders, infantry, healers, and scribes. She’s trained her whole life to go into the scribe school, but six months ago her mother said “nah, you’re going to be a dragon rider.” Since her mom is a big-shot general and has some sort of position of authority at the college (unclear what her role is), that has some weight. Also she threatens to bodily remove Violent from any of the other schools if Violet starts feeling rebellious.

The reason for General Sorrengail’s abrupt change of opinion? Unclear. The book doesn’t even attempt to explain, except for the implication that her mother is just irrationally proud. Violet has two older siblings, a brother who died six years ago and a sister still alive, who are both dragon riders and dear old General doesn’t think a scribe is good enough for her bloodline. Violet’s father, also dead, is the one that wanted her to be a scribe and trained her for it.

Violet goes to visit her mother’s office before the day’s activities begin, and she finds her mother and older sister fighting. Mira, the sister, thinks Violet is too weak for the dragons because she’s short and disabled. Though it’s not called such in the text, she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a condition that the author also has. The General is unmoved.

Mira and Violet retreat to Violet’s room, where Mira decides that since she couldn’t get Violet out of being a dragon rider they’ll have to move on to Plan B. She gives Violet a bunch of stuff to help her out during her training, including armor made from dragon scales and boots with nice grippy soles. For the dumbest reason that you could never imagine.

She also suggests that Violet cut her hair, which is in a long braid that fades from brunette to silver. Apparently her hair will do the fade thing regardless of how short it is, so….magic? We do not find out in this book. Violet refuses to cut it.

“[…]my hair is the only thing about me that’s perfectly healthy. Cutting it would feel like I’m punishing my body for finally doing something well”

I just like this line. It’s illogical, but in a very human way.

We find out that the cadets can kill each other, just not in a handful of specific circumstances, like when they sleep. Supposedly it’s because there’s always more cadets than there are dragons willing to bond. Among other various justifications. All of this becomes increasingly more absurd as we go along.

And then the day begins. There’s six provinces in the country and each one has to spend an unspecified number of new recruits. It’s a mixture of volunteers, criminals, and conscripts. Numbers and mechanics are unknown, but also not important to the story. All of the new recruits split into various lines to be checked in to their chosen profession. The healers, scribes, and infantry are allowed to just walk in, but the riders…

…

…sigh. The riders have to cross an 18-inch wide parapet to get over to their special dragon college, and if you fall off it you die and for some reason everyone is okay with this. The reason given is “if you want to stay on a dragon you have to be able to balance” but ??? Not only are there so many different variables when it comes to wind and weather that a good balancer could fall anyway and a shit one could stay on, not only have they not had any training yet at all except what they do on their own time, but why make the failure option be death???

As Violet stands in line for her turn to cross the Stupid Death Bridge, we are introduced to the concept of relics and the children of traitors. Relics are quasi-tattoos that dragons give people via magic. Six years ago there was a separatist movement that was quashed and all the rebels were killed, but then their kids were given relics and sent to dragon school. Or, if too young, they’ll be in dragon school when they’re old enough.

Because you really want to piss off a bunch of traumatized kids and then give them big badass dragons. For some reason.

The biggest and badassest of these traitor kids is Xaden Riorson, son of the head of the separatist movement. Violet’s mom killed Xaden’s dad so it’s assumed he’s going to be out for blood which is WHY YOU DON’T CREATE TERRORISTS AND THEN PUT THEM IN YOUR ARMY.

Mira leaves Violet to stand in line, and Violet immediately makes friends with the woman standing in front of her. And enemies with the dude standing behind her. How convenient that she was so perfectly places, and all just by happenstance.

Oh, sorry, she doesn’t make enemies with Jack Barlow. He’s just standing there being an ass for no reason. Which, at first, fine. Assholes happen. But we’ll get to him later.

Violet notices that Rhiannan is wearing slippery shoes, and that’ll be dangerous on the parapet which is why Mira gave her the sticky boots. Violet insists that she and Rhiannan switch one boot each, so that they’ll each have one solid foot.

After switching boots they reach the top of the line and see ~*~*~the most beautiful man evar~*~*~ with all the flowery descriptions to make any romance novel proud. This is, of course, Xaden. Despite all assurances that he’s super dangerous and will kill her upon sight, he just kind of sneers about how she’s probably going to fall off the wall anyway. That’s it. Hm, yes, big danger. Much badass.

Anyway, now it’s time to cross the Genre’s Stupidest Bridge. A storm has blown up to make it more dramatic, and now it’s raining. Because of course. Just in time. Rhiannan goes first and then Violet, and she’s too tense and slow to be good at this. To keep herself calmer, she starts to…recite history facts. It’s literally two pages of summary about the world’s basic geography.

I know exposition is hard, but this is just extremely awkward. Especially since the recitation is clearly geared for a reader with no background knowledge, and not something that anyone in-world would memorize unless they’re in kindergarten. Violet does this several times in the book, always with exposition level stuff. Frankly, my biggest gripe about this is that it’s not a bad character trait in concept and you could have dropped some lore with that. Some real esoteric shit. Drop the history of dragon Jack the Ripper or something. Drop the Navarre court case that made Magic Pot legal. Tell me about the country’s weirdest monarch. But “there’s two countries and we’ve got border disputes basically all the time” is a waste. Put the geography in a map and put the ongoing conflict in some narration.

I swear, writers do not appreciate enough the fact that they can just tell the reader stuff . It’s okay. “We still have a draft in place because us and the neighboring country can literally never agree on where our borders are. We’ve been at war for generations.” Easy. It’s fine. Not everything has be part of the narrative, because when you try to do that you get the main character doing…this.

Violet’s nursery school history lesson is interrupted by Jack…randomly throwing the kid behind him off the bridge. Then he says he’ll do Violet next. Keep in mind, they have had no interaction other than standing in line together, and Violet has not really said anything to him or done anything except be short. But he suddenly shifts from kind of an asshole to B-movie horror villain. And according to the rules of this Murder School, that’s cool, because….gotta be ruthless to ride a dragon?

This isn’t ruthless, however. This is unhinged. And we’re supposed to believe that these kids are being trained for a functional military, with a hierarchy and organization and cooperation within units. Which is why maniacal killing machines are generally considered bad for a military. Killing good is all you need to be a criminal, but unit cohesion is necessary for larger movements and trust is important for cohesion and this kid really should be sent directly home. (Or, in this world’s logic, thrown off a tower I guess.)

There’s a tense bit with Violet trying to speed up but also not fall off while Jack chases her. She reaches the end of the bridge safely, where there’s more dragon riders there recording who makes it across alive. Apparently one of the times you can’t kill each other is when there’s a higher-ranking cadet around. Gonna be honest here, it really feels like these rules are being made up on the spot to make Violet either in danger or safe as the scene demands. Because what logic is there to saying ‘you can kill each other, and it’s totally sanctioned, just keep it out of sight.’ If it was one of those unwritten rules where they just kind of ignore/fail to investigate murder, that would make sense. But no, it’s explicit.

There’s no sinister little smile on his lips or playful taunts about how he’ll enjoy killing me now. Ther3e’s nothing but pure malice in his features, promising retribution. […] Jack steps down into the courtyard, his shoulder knocking mine as he walks by, pausing to lean in close. “You’re dead, Sorrengail, and I’m going to be the one to kill you.”

No, really, what the fuck?