Ohh, I think this is going to be huge. If you loved Hunger Games and Divergent but want spice levels akin to SJM and Jennifer Armentrout, then this might be for you!

Violet is the daughter of the general of a military school and all her life has thought she would be joining the scribes, but instead joins the dragon riders under pressure from her mother. This was the first bit I couldn't quite get my head around: okay, Violet's dad was a scribe, and spent her childhood  prepping her to be one too, but nothing about Violet's mother's character suggests that she would just let this happen, and then only 6 months before the first entrance exam suddenly declare that her daughter will in fact be joining the riders. But anyway, Violet, small and with chronic pain and highly susceptible to be targeted by other students due to her alleged weakness enters into the graduate-or-die riders group. So far, so pretty predictable.

I listened to this within a couple of days, so suffice it to say that the plot is tense, fast-moving and exciting. The writing, however, leaves a little to be desired. This to me was very obviously a first attempt at fantasy, given how so much exposition and world building comes via the conversations characters have with each other which makes it feel so unnatural. This was especially a problem at the beginning. Aside from this, the tone just feels so dated for a book coming out in 2023. When was the last time anyone said "for the win"? The action scenes were done well though, and hats off to the audiobook narrator who really upped the ante when it got tense and made my heartbeat rise as if I were the one flying on the back of a dragon. 

Which leads me to my next point: the dragons, and the relationships between them and riders, was highly enjoyable. The telepathy and individual manifestations of powers, and just the dragons personalities themselves were really great to read about. It doesn't entirely make sense to me why everyone in the world just seems to accept Basgiath school as a necessary evil, and also why dragons and students alike are so keen on killing the "weakest links" when it's mentioned that there's a dearth of riders, but I guess Yarros had to set up an environment in which Violet is seen as the underdog?

Character wise, there wasn't much fleshing out beyond the core 3 or 4 characters, including 2 love interests but given that his name is literally on the back cover we all know from the get go Violet's (at least for the foreseeable) ending up with Xaden. The building of tension between him and Violet was done well and I also liked Dain's characterisation as good guy but clearly not the right guy and this all struck me as Yarros playing to her strengths, though I've not read any of her other books.

Even though I don't think Fourth Wing brings anything new to fantasy as a genre, it was a fun, exciting read and as the beginning of a series has a lot of potential. I'm looking forward to reading the next instalment.