by Rebecca Yarros ★★★★★
I first came across Fourth Wing when I noticed it in the #1 position on Amazon's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2023 So Far. But beyond that selection, I looked at how the reviews were trending. At the time, there were more than 21,000 reviews (it's now over 34,000), and the average was a whopping 4.8 stars. It has to be good for that many people to love it, right? In need of a palate cleanser after the difficult read that was The Whispers, I decided I'd limit the likelihood of another clunker and see what all the hype is about. And I'm happy to say that I get why so many people love this book: it's pretty great.
Fourth Wing is set at Basgiath War College in the mythical land of Navarre. It opens on Conscription Day, where thousands of twenty-year-olds assemble to take their place among the healers, scribes, or infantry. The most elite of them try to join the most selective branch and become dragon riders.
Our heroine is Violet Sorrengail. Bookish and smart, yet frail, she always imagined a future as a scribe, just as her father had been. But her mother is a rider and a general in the army, and she has other ideas. Against Violet's wishes, her mother insists she attempt to be a rider as well. But this isn't an idle push in a different direction. The stakes are the highest possible for those trying to become riders: from the opening conscription challenge through bonding with a dragon, there are dozens of opportunities to fail, and any failure when attempting to become a rider equals death.
In addition to the general peril of the tasks at hand, there is also a ruthlessness among the members of the War College. Fewer classmates means better opportunities to bond a dragon, and so the murder of fellow classmates, while perhaps not encouraged, is certainly allowed, making every waking moment one filled with potential death. Yarros creates an interesting caste within the college of students who carry "rebellion relics". They are the children of adults involved in a rebellious uprising six years prior. All of the adults were executed, and the children were only spared execution as well by being forced into conscription as riders. As a result, they all tend to possess a brooding darkness -- you could think of them as the "Slytherin" of Basgiath. To further complicate things for Violet, those children of the rebels all intensely hate her because Violet's mother was responsible for ordering their parents' execution.
The novel is packed with a ton of genre-bending elements. There is the basic plot -- Violet's unlikely journey through her first year at Basgiath War College -- which stirred up memories of one of my all-time favorite books, Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline, based on Conroy's first year at The Citadel military college. There are dragons and dragon riders, which of course evokes memories of plenty of fantasy novels, with Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series top of mind. And then there's some romance, and a potential love triangle, which starts out feeling like something from a YA novel, but ends up a lot more R-rated and steamy, and more akin to what you might find in a novel with Fabio on the cover. Add to this a nuanced backstory and some misdirection on who the reader should trust and believe, and Fourth Wing truly has something for everyone.
There is depth to the story and characters, which elevates the story and I'm sure plays a big role in the stellar reviews. Yarros handles relationships well, whether it's the strained relationship between Violet and her mother, the love between Violet and her sister, or the friendships Violet forges with her classmates. The romance is the romance; honestly I could have done without it, and while it was almost humorous at times, it works for what it is meant to be. Yarros also does a standout job of presenting how her characters handle loss. Whether it's grieving the loss of family members or their classmates, there is an undercurrent of sadness and longing that affects many of the characters and hardens them to the task at hand. Despite the intensity of their training, Yarros does a pretty good job reminding us that they're only in their early twenties and still figuring out a lot of life.
I suspect a lot of the hype and enjoyment of the book is related to how Yarros turns a straightforward "year 1 as a student story" into something more. I can't help but compare that to the Harry Potter books (except, of course, Harry never had hot magical sex with Ginny Weasley -- at least not within the pages of any of the books!). Those novels changed significantly for me with the third book in the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban. Where books 1 and 2 were decent and straightforward YA novels, The Prisoner of Azkaban took the story to a more nuanced and mature level. Yarros does the same thing here, but all within the pages of a single book. I get why people are so drawn to the story.
Overall, it's a winner. It's fun, and while it feels derivative of several other novels, it also combines those stories and plots in its own unique way. Book 2, Iron Flame, is already set for release this November (I've already ordered my copy!), and so if you fall in love with the characters, you'll have the opportunity to spend more time with them before long (well, at least with those who survive Fourth Wing). It's a compelling read and like the other 34,000+ readers who have this trending at almost 5 stars, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Next Best of 2023: #5 - Still Life
Previous Best of 2023: #7 - Rubicon