[book post] Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Feb. 4th, 2026 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluaI managed to miss the explosion of "romantasy" as a genre so entirely that, when I went to a writer's workshop a year and a half ago, and a fellow workshopper read one of my stories and was like "yo, you could totally make this into a romantasy and make bank," I was like "oh cool, thanks! what's romantasy, again?" And when another workshopper sidled up to me afterwards and said, hey, this is good but it is absolutely not romantasy, do NOT take that other person's advice," I was like "oh cool, thanks! uh, what's romantasy, exactly?"
I then proceeded to spend all my time post-workshop frittering around writing a bunch of Exactly What I Want To Write without bothering to learn a single damn thing about The State Of Modern Publishing or researching the market at all, so, y'know, thank you kindly fellow students & sorry that your thoughts were so wasted upon me...!
But even so, I managed to vaguely glean a couple factoids and takes about this whole "romantasy" thing. Y'know, the sorts of takes you see on Tumblrs and in Substacks and such—"let women enjoy things" vs "they're pornographic trash" or whatever. Which sure rhymed with some stuff I remember hearing when Twilight was a hit, so when I finally got around to reading Fourth Wing, I was expecting... something like Twilight, right? Something not-really-to-my-tastes but nonetheless satisfying and pulpy? Like, I read the whole series back then, and while I didn't love them and wouldn't have read them if they weren't a popular phenomenon, like... they were in fact a pretty good time! I remember the third book in particular having a very satisfying progression and a cool final battle! I liked the weird Americana backstory stuff with that Jasper guy! The vampire baseball shit was legitimately charming! It was very easy for me to read those books, even as a judgy know-it-all teenager, and see what the appeal was.
I say this to establish some non-snob credentials because I worry I come off like a dragon here sometimes. "I can enjoy fun and normal and kinda trashy things," I say, persuasively and convincingly.
But like... Fourth Wing... really...?
Even in the depths of my virus-induced delirium, I found myself cringing at so much of the language—every instance of "for the win" was like nails on the chalkboard of my soul; so much of the language was just stupid or self-contradictory on a line-by-line level. And by God it repeats itself, often, as though it's worried you're... only barely skimming the text? only half-paying attention? so you need basic stuff repeated to you over and over? but it managed to do this so much it annoyed me even in the depths of my virus-induced delirium! Ahhh!!! (I commented on Tumblr that part of this might just be a "house style" thing? I guess?? if so I hate it???)
And there's so many logical/plausibility inconsistencies—each minor in their own right, each which might be easy to overlook on their own—but they pile up so much I was just left wondering what the stakes were or what basic facts were or who or what I was supposed to care about, so often, that I was just confused and annoyed most of the time.
Like:
This section is literally me just scrolling through my Kindle notes and rambling on everything I marked with a "???". It gets so long oh my God.
* In the opening we establish that our protagonist has some kind of Ehlers-Danlos-kinda-thing that makes her prone to injury, BUT she gets livid if anyone points out "you are more prone to injury," except her internal monologue is constantly telling us she is convinced she is in fact going to die due to being more prone to injury, and this tension would make sense if she were like "look I really WANT this I am just WILLFULLY IGNORING this problem," except she doesn't even WANT to be a dragon rider—she's doing it because her mom is forcing (???) her to, even though she's a twenty-fucking-year-old woman who could surely make her own damn choices (???)
* ALSO, even though her mom and older brother and sister are all decorated skilled dragon riders she somehow misses the memo on "wear the right boots on day one or you will fucking die" & thus has to get bailed out of that situation (??? h-how? do they not. send. an equipment list. or something)...
* Also being a dragon rider is prestigious and cool so it's the ONLY part of the military that only takes volunteers.. EXCEPT for the dangerous traitors' kids, who are in fact forced into it (book forgets about the "facts" it tells us halfway through SO many times I stg), and also left unanswered is "how is this in fact so popular and prestigious if canonically something like ~50% of kids die before they even get to ride a dragon," like come on I do not think people would be clamoring to be a Navy Seal with that kind of death rate yaknow, and also how is this an efficient use of military resources; at some point they start complaining about how there's "fewer dragon riders than there used to be" but also it's legal (???) to murder your classmates whenever; perhaps you would have more dragon riders if you didn't just let them kill each other whenever? EXCEPT, of course, sometimes you CAN'T murder each other, and you find out the exceptions 0.8 seconds before a murder attempt when our protag quotes the "codex" at us...
* Speaking of which, classic case of "the narration keeps telling us our protag is So Super Smart but the only way they know to *show* us she's smart is Having Her Read And/Or Quote A Book," so when I'm waiting THE ENTIRE BOOK for her to figure out she's being lied to about something that has been OBVIOUS since at least 20% in & the hunky romantic lead is like "WOW YOU'RE SO BRILLIANT, I LOVE YOUR MIND," I'm just like. I do not believe you sir.
* Also it's trying to say something (?) about disability, which actually would be cool and interesting, except it's like, "Everyone has to learn to ride their dragon BAREBACK," and when she's not strong enough to do it, they make a saddle for her dragon, and we're left mostly thinking "...why the fuck isn't everyone else using a saddle then? are they fucking stupid?" and also her whole Ehlers-Danlos-kinda-thing isn't ever a major plot point; it's just there to give her extra sympathy/pity points when the narrator wants you to and to be conveniently ignored when it's not, so like, who the fuck knows there...
* There's a whole Thing about how the humans only exist at the dragons' mercy, because they need humans to channel their magic, and if the dragons didn't need that they'd have no need for humans at all... but later on, when she learns about the Hidden Magical Powers of baby dragons, the dragons are like "please don't tell anyone; the humans will hunt them/experiment on them if they know," and I'm like... didn't we establish Dragons Have All The Power Here? Can't they just torch anyone who touches their kids? Sure feels like you just needed a contrived excuse for why Only Our Protagonist can have this information!
* Our protagonist is constantly getting horribly injured and constantly refusing to let healers heal her because it will make her look "weak." What. Huh. How. Why. Who the fuck is running this army. I'm pretty sure even Sparta wasn't this fucking stupid with their resources
Okay good God that's enough of that you get the point.
I think the author knows on some level how dumb this is, and is even leaning into that in parts. (Lol @ the bit where we get one paragraph of the character going "wow, it's eerie how fast we get inured to death around here," followed by an IMMEDIATE NEXT PARAGRAPH of "wow my love interest sure is looking hot 'n' hunky today teehee.")
But characters seem to remember or forget about stakes and motivations so randomly that it was kind of impossible for me to enjoy on a dumb trash level? It's a hard thing to put a finger on because everything's so wordy and vague, just—gaheilghaelig.
There was a moment of promise, actually, when I remember perking up and thinking it was about to get interesting. It's when they're first getting assessed by the dragons they're going to bond with, and one of the dragons approaches her and, they like, kinda feel her up a little? and I was like oh WOW okay I thought this was too vanilla of a book for this, but if we have some kind of weird monsterfucking or like weird psychic bond stuff or whatever, that could be a little juicy at least—
—and, okay, no, that turned out to be platonic and normal (and yeah sorry I don't know why my brain's built like that either), but then we're intro'd to the dragon she's actually bonded to and he has an actual personality and shit so I'm like maybe she at least gets Weird Vibes with him? and a big No on that front; We Must Focus On Her Boring Human Dude Love Interest. Sigh.
(How do you fuck up the Sasuke-alike character, by the way. "Edgy bad boy" is a trope as old as time, and I'm brave enough to admit I am in fact basic enough to be into it. I liked Kylo Ren, for fuck's sake. I am not complicated to please on this front. And yet it bored me here?)
I was reading on Kindle so it took me a while to notice out how long this thing is. (I could tell I was starting to recover from said virus when I started getting pissed about "how am I STILL reading this thing good God.") And holy Jesus fucking christ, it's 200k words??? Barely anything happens! I could've read FOUR Bel-Amis in that time. FOUR. And Bel-Ami was such a banger!
...in conclusion I do not think I am the right person to aim to try and write anything in the category of "romantasy" anytime soon.
I then proceeded to spend all my time post-workshop frittering around writing a bunch of Exactly What I Want To Write without bothering to learn a single damn thing about The State Of Modern Publishing or researching the market at all, so, y'know, thank you kindly fellow students & sorry that your thoughts were so wasted upon me...!
But even so, I managed to vaguely glean a couple factoids and takes about this whole "romantasy" thing. Y'know, the sorts of takes you see on Tumblrs and in Substacks and such—"let women enjoy things" vs "they're pornographic trash" or whatever. Which sure rhymed with some stuff I remember hearing when Twilight was a hit, so when I finally got around to reading Fourth Wing, I was expecting... something like Twilight, right? Something not-really-to-my-tastes but nonetheless satisfying and pulpy? Like, I read the whole series back then, and while I didn't love them and wouldn't have read them if they weren't a popular phenomenon, like... they were in fact a pretty good time! I remember the third book in particular having a very satisfying progression and a cool final battle! I liked the weird Americana backstory stuff with that Jasper guy! The vampire baseball shit was legitimately charming! It was very easy for me to read those books, even as a judgy know-it-all teenager, and see what the appeal was.
I say this to establish some non-snob credentials because I worry I come off like a dragon here sometimes. "I can enjoy fun and normal and kinda trashy things," I say, persuasively and convincingly.
But like... Fourth Wing... really...?
Even in the depths of my virus-induced delirium, I found myself cringing at so much of the language—every instance of "for the win" was like nails on the chalkboard of my soul; so much of the language was just stupid or self-contradictory on a line-by-line level. And by God it repeats itself, often, as though it's worried you're... only barely skimming the text? only half-paying attention? so you need basic stuff repeated to you over and over? but it managed to do this so much it annoyed me even in the depths of my virus-induced delirium! Ahhh!!! (I commented on Tumblr that part of this might just be a "house style" thing? I guess?? if so I hate it???)
And there's so many logical/plausibility inconsistencies—each minor in their own right, each which might be easy to overlook on their own—but they pile up so much I was just left wondering what the stakes were or what basic facts were or who or what I was supposed to care about, so often, that I was just confused and annoyed most of the time.
Like:
This section is literally me just scrolling through my Kindle notes and rambling on everything I marked with a "???". It gets so long oh my God.
* In the opening we establish that our protagonist has some kind of Ehlers-Danlos-kinda-thing that makes her prone to injury, BUT she gets livid if anyone points out "you are more prone to injury," except her internal monologue is constantly telling us she is convinced she is in fact going to die due to being more prone to injury, and this tension would make sense if she were like "look I really WANT this I am just WILLFULLY IGNORING this problem," except she doesn't even WANT to be a dragon rider—she's doing it because her mom is forcing (???) her to, even though she's a twenty-fucking-year-old woman who could surely make her own damn choices (???)
* ALSO, even though her mom and older brother and sister are all decorated skilled dragon riders she somehow misses the memo on "wear the right boots on day one or you will fucking die" & thus has to get bailed out of that situation (??? h-how? do they not. send. an equipment list. or something)...
* Also being a dragon rider is prestigious and cool so it's the ONLY part of the military that only takes volunteers.. EXCEPT for the dangerous traitors' kids, who are in fact forced into it (book forgets about the "facts" it tells us halfway through SO many times I stg), and also left unanswered is "how is this in fact so popular and prestigious if canonically something like ~50% of kids die before they even get to ride a dragon," like come on I do not think people would be clamoring to be a Navy Seal with that kind of death rate yaknow, and also how is this an efficient use of military resources; at some point they start complaining about how there's "fewer dragon riders than there used to be" but also it's legal (???) to murder your classmates whenever; perhaps you would have more dragon riders if you didn't just let them kill each other whenever? EXCEPT, of course, sometimes you CAN'T murder each other, and you find out the exceptions 0.8 seconds before a murder attempt when our protag quotes the "codex" at us...
* Speaking of which, classic case of "the narration keeps telling us our protag is So Super Smart but the only way they know to *show* us she's smart is Having Her Read And/Or Quote A Book," so when I'm waiting THE ENTIRE BOOK for her to figure out she's being lied to about something that has been OBVIOUS since at least 20% in & the hunky romantic lead is like "WOW YOU'RE SO BRILLIANT, I LOVE YOUR MIND," I'm just like. I do not believe you sir.
* Also it's trying to say something (?) about disability, which actually would be cool and interesting, except it's like, "Everyone has to learn to ride their dragon BAREBACK," and when she's not strong enough to do it, they make a saddle for her dragon, and we're left mostly thinking "...why the fuck isn't everyone else using a saddle then? are they fucking stupid?" and also her whole Ehlers-Danlos-kinda-thing isn't ever a major plot point; it's just there to give her extra sympathy/pity points when the narrator wants you to and to be conveniently ignored when it's not, so like, who the fuck knows there...
* There's a whole Thing about how the humans only exist at the dragons' mercy, because they need humans to channel their magic, and if the dragons didn't need that they'd have no need for humans at all... but later on, when she learns about the Hidden Magical Powers of baby dragons, the dragons are like "please don't tell anyone; the humans will hunt them/experiment on them if they know," and I'm like... didn't we establish Dragons Have All The Power Here? Can't they just torch anyone who touches their kids? Sure feels like you just needed a contrived excuse for why Only Our Protagonist can have this information!
* Our protagonist is constantly getting horribly injured and constantly refusing to let healers heal her because it will make her look "weak." What. Huh. How. Why. Who the fuck is running this army. I'm pretty sure even Sparta wasn't this fucking stupid with their resources
Okay good God that's enough of that you get the point.
I think the author knows on some level how dumb this is, and is even leaning into that in parts. (Lol @ the bit where we get one paragraph of the character going "wow, it's eerie how fast we get inured to death around here," followed by an IMMEDIATE NEXT PARAGRAPH of "wow my love interest sure is looking hot 'n' hunky today teehee.")
But characters seem to remember or forget about stakes and motivations so randomly that it was kind of impossible for me to enjoy on a dumb trash level? It's a hard thing to put a finger on because everything's so wordy and vague, just—gaheilghaelig.
There was a moment of promise, actually, when I remember perking up and thinking it was about to get interesting. It's when they're first getting assessed by the dragons they're going to bond with, and one of the dragons approaches her and, they like, kinda feel her up a little? and I was like oh WOW okay I thought this was too vanilla of a book for this, but if we have some kind of weird monsterfucking or like weird psychic bond stuff or whatever, that could be a little juicy at least—
—and, okay, no, that turned out to be platonic and normal (and yeah sorry I don't know why my brain's built like that either), but then we're intro'd to the dragon she's actually bonded to and he has an actual personality and shit so I'm like maybe she at least gets Weird Vibes with him? and a big No on that front; We Must Focus On Her Boring Human Dude Love Interest. Sigh.
(How do you fuck up the Sasuke-alike character, by the way. "Edgy bad boy" is a trope as old as time, and I'm brave enough to admit I am in fact basic enough to be into it. I liked Kylo Ren, for fuck's sake. I am not complicated to please on this front. And yet it bored me here?)
I was reading on Kindle so it took me a while to notice out how long this thing is. (I could tell I was starting to recover from said virus when I started getting pissed about "how am I STILL reading this thing good God.") And holy Jesus fucking christ, it's 200k words??? Barely anything happens! I could've read FOUR Bel-Amis in that time. FOUR. And Bel-Ami was such a banger!
...in conclusion I do not think I am the right person to aim to try and write anything in the category of "romantasy" anytime soon.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 12:47 am (UTC)so the funny thing is my ex once got me to read ruby dixon's 'fire in his blood' books that sounded so similar i actually had to pull out the book tracker list to double check it wasn't that. (dragons, similar kind of idiotic protagonists and forced focus on romance, etc)
so. yeah. it is Absolutely an in-vogue style and i hate it as much as you do.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 02:10 am (UTC)i'm kinda coming to the conclusion that there's Something a lot of books sold under the "romance" category are doing that is just not for me... it's weird in that i can name romcom movies i've enjoyed, and certainly there are romantic plots in things-that-are-not-marketed-as-romance that i've really enjoyed, but e.g. i picked up four different reasonably-well-reviewed paperback romances last year b/c i was aiming to steal tricks i'd been told they did well, and, while none of them drove me as crazy as Fourth Wing, everyone one of them was a DNF, just felt very blah and boring!
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Date: 2026-02-08 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-10 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 07:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 10:47 am (UTC)I feel like I should Defend the Honour of Romantasy, but tbh the romantasy I like seems to be quite a different beastie than this plus ACOTAR et al :P
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Date: 2026-02-05 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 10:54 am (UTC)Also I too love an edgy bad boy but it's so hard to find an edgy bad boy worthy of love these days tbh :(
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Date: 2026-02-10 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-11 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 11:47 pm (UTC)Seriously, though: And by God it repeats itself, often, as though it's worried you're... only barely skimming the text? only half-paying attention? so you need basic stuff repeated to you over and over? I think you have it dead to rights. The people I know who have read Fourth Wing define "reading" as "listening to the audiobook at 1.5x or 2x speed while also checking my socials and Netflix on in the background". Which, nothing inherently wrong with that; consume media however you like. But I think publishers know that this is how a certain audience interacts with books and publish some with that in mind—structured so that the important bits catch your attention and you can sort of half pay attention to the other stuff knowing it will be reiterated enough that you won't be lost.
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Date: 2026-02-10 11:54 pm (UTC)and okay, yeah, if they're *expecting* a large part of their audience to be distractedly audiobooking it, that would make certain things about the form make sense, come to think of it... i would think e.g. random podcasts or whatever would fit into that niche better (that's my "damn i gotta do some chores" listening material, at least), but maybe i've just been trying the wrong audiobooks!
no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 05:41 am (UTC)i've been thinking a lot lately about how romance works, because the things i like most have (i THINK) an element in common that only appears in some books. so it's got to not be the POINT of romance novels. which leaves me kind of--kind of like horror--grasping at the like. how does this work. what is the itch that is getting scratched.... why does it satisfy... like i definitely read romance because i read fic, but there's also something a bit structurally different there than in a one shot HEA. squints at romance novels again. tell me your secrets
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Date: 2026-02-10 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 04:13 pm (UTC)I have never ready romantasy but I will bet anything that your style is not it. But it was a joy to read through these reaction notes :D
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Date: 2026-02-11 12:19 am (UTC)glad you enjoyed the writeup!
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Date: 2026-02-11 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 12:38 am (UTC)My three big takeaways were this, the sheer stupidity of murder-is-legal military academy, and the fact that BONDING A DRAGON GIVES YOU THE COVETED ABILITY TO USE A BALLPOINT PEN
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Date: 2026-02-10 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-08 11:19 pm (UTC)I guess the density of stuff I rolled my eyes at was high enough that I wasn't trying to enforce expectations of coherent worldbuilding or streamlined writing, which I guess led to me enjoying the bits I enjoyed a lot more than I would have otherwise? 🤔 And anything I didn't enjoy just got cheerfully tossed in the "Vi cannot be in the same scene as Xaden without spending at least half a page thinking about how hot he is and how much she hates him, news at 11." pile.
IMO Xaden looks like an edgy bad boy on the surface but the narrative goes too far out of the way to make sure that he's humanized and "not that bad" too quickly to hit the trope right, though YMMV since that's actually not a trope that usually appeals to me. The one thing I thought the book did do quite interestingly was the whole discussion around dragon mating bonds and shielding and consent--it felt like it was in conversation with the Pern novels (which largely took dragons mating->their humans also having sex as a given) in neat ways.
Otherwise, the high points for me were mostly the dragon descriptions and personalities; FWIW, I do think the second book gets a little bit better in that it expands the world out more, there's a bit more of an actual plot and actual worldbuilding, and as a result the "will they now or later" is... still a significant part of the book, alas, but not quite as significantly so as the first book. I don't think it's any better on a prose level, though, so I suspect even next time you end up feverish you'll probably have better options. XD
(Incidentally, my "liveblog" of the first book + as far as I read in the second so far is here if you'd like to read longer-form snark about all the many things I was also unimpressed by. :D )
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Date: 2026-02-11 12:16 am (UTC)i do appreciate the need to read Cool Dragon Stuff, tho; def read some pern novels in my youth. so definitely get the appeal of that part of it all~
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Date: 2026-02-11 07:12 am (UTC)Hah yes! Like, as someone who genuinely doesn't like enemies-to-lovers or the "misunderstandings driven by overhearing half a conversation and then refusing to have an adult conversation about it" trope in most circumstances in general, I wouldn't have minded (and would probably have actively liked) the ~deconstruction if it had leaned more into the deconstruction aspects, but instead it just sort of... continues with her still hating him but for thinner reasons now? Which somehow makes it even more annoying. XD
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Date: 2026-02-09 01:42 am (UTC)Yes, I remember boggling about the same thing. Real dril "someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this" energy.
I do think it's very funny that Yarros, having spent ten years writing down-the-line military romances, then wrote Fourth Wing because her publisher wanted fantasy pitches -- and because her publisher didn't even pick Yarros's preferred pitch.
When her publisher came to her for a fantasy pitch in 2022, she was intrigued.
“She asked for five pitches, and I gave them to her in the order of what I wanted to write. They picked No. 3, which had dragons and a military unit. She suggested a military war college instead of just having it be a unit. ‘Fourth Wing’ was born from there,” she shared. “I always like to write about war from a perspective that makes you question why it’s happening, and how it affects the people serving in it. It felt like a natural way to continue that theme.”
no subject
Date: 2026-02-11 12:25 am (UTC)