Fourth Wing: Surpassed my lowered expectations

Author: Rebecca Yarros

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book broke book spaces on the internet last year as it became one of the most loved and most hated romantasy books, gaining the honour of sharing thumbnails with A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) in “What to read if you like….” as well as  “What I hate about….”, “Fantasy is dying…”, and “The decline of good literature….” videos on YouTube.

Keeping in mind these polarised opinions, I went into Fourth Wing with caution, keeping my expectations low and crossing my fingers for a semi-readable book. I’m pleased to say, perhaps because of my lowered expectations or just the hyperbolic nature of the internet, I found this book fun.

The story follows Violet, a young woman who had prepared her entire life to become a scribe and is ready to enter the kingdom’s War College to learn how to document history when her mother, the head of the college and a general in the kingdom’s army, informs her that she will be entering the rider’s quadrant and train to become a dragon rider instead.

This poses an issue as Violet has done no preparation for this physically demanding challenge but also because she has a chronic illness that impacts her ability to perform physically demanding tasks—like fighting or riding on the back of a dragon. This is on top of the fact that her mother is responsible for the deaths of several of her classmates’ parents and the rider’s quadrant is an environment in which cadets are encouraged to kill each other in order to cull the weak from the herd.

Now, I do understand that if you were one of the people who read this book in the early days of it being released and expected an epic, political, high fantasy featuring dragons, you may have been disappointed to get a romantasy where the writing of the romance plot is stronger than the fantasy side. And the writing probably won’t be getting any awards for either the prose or the clumsily-developed fantasy world.

But overall, I did find the story engaging and absorbing, and I wanted to keep reading. And with the exception of a few rough patches, the story generally flowed nicely and the writing wasn’t off-putting. I realise that “the writing wasn’t complete garbage” does not sound like a glowing review, but given the amount of flack this book gets, mostly due to its popularity, I felt it necessary to mention, though I should note that my standard for writing is generally readable, which might be a low bar for some.

I should also note that given Violet’s chronic illness, this book has also had a lot of attention on its disability representation. I do think that the author was making some clear attempts to show how making accommodations for non-able-bodied people is something that we should give more thought to (i.e. just because things have always been done one way, doesn’t mean we can’t make modifications to allow more inclusion).

However, it’s also been pointed out, and rightly so, that the practicalities of how much Violet was thrown around during her training and how she was able to keep going sets a perhaps unrealistic standard given her illness. Additionally, the characterisation of being able to tolerate constant pain as a “superpower”, while it might be well-intentioned, is toxic as it paints chronic pain as an acceptable state and the bearers as morally worthy for their suffering. Generally, we should not be framing involuntary and pointless suffering as a moral good, something that builds character or that makes someone a better person as it normalises misery, and our goal as a society should be to reduce that for everyone.

That being said, I had a good time with this book, and I think if you are a fan of romantasy books like ACOTAR and you go into this book with the right expectations, you’ll enjoy it.