”A dragon without its Rider is a tragedy, A Rider without its dragon is dead.”
Finally, I found time to read a book this year. I was beginning to feel sad that I haven't read any books this year. To not make that a reality, I had to squeeze out time to read a book. However, I wish I had more time to read more books, because this isn't me.
Today, I will be reviewing the first book in ’The Empyrean Series’ titled ’Fourth Wing’ written by Rebecca Yarros. This book was published in May 2023 with 498 pages. This series is expected to be five books in length.
The Empyrean Series is my first read about dragons. For a long time I have been wanting to pick a book about dragons to read but none has grabbed my attention. Game of thrones would have been it but I watched the TV series already. So the Empyrean Series basically revolves around the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders.
Little About The Synopsis.
A 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail has spent her life preparing and training to join the Scribe Quadrant as her father had trained her since her early years. Violet opted for this life so she could live a quiet life among books, knowledge and history. However, her mother, General Lilith Sorrengail had other plans. Violent choice of Quadrant was changed to that of Rider's Quadrant by force. Now she finds herself competing with hundreds of candidates to become one of the dragon riders of Navarre.
As she competes with her competitors who have spent their lives training for this very moment, Violet lags terribly behind because she is weak, has no strong background training, and her petite, frail body structure makes her become a target. At Basgiath war college, Violent is faced with rigorous training to become a dragon rider. As her training commenced, made good friends who helped her become stronger and she encountered also Xaden Riorson, the wingleader of the Fourth Wing who is hell bent on killing her for her mother's sin but later he can’t seem to decide whether to kill her or help her survive long enough to bond a dragon of her own.
Will Violent survive Basgiath? Will Xaden still kill her for her mother's sin?
My Review And Rating.
This book made me escape my reality into a world that is so much interesting that regardless it was a world where war happens consistently. I didn't care about that. Yarros created an interesting, a vivid yet easy-to-understand fantasy/magical world. Her world build was like watching a movie but in this case, you are not. You are actually reading words. Her narrative techniques were awesome, her descriptive technique top notch. As I read each word, I could easily picture or form a picture in my mind.
In the aspect of world building in the Fantasy genre, I discover that writers find it difficult to grab their readers' attention and make their journey easy. With this book, it was easy for me, I did have to go back to the glossary to remind myself about names or magical terms and locations. I see this book as a masterclass in worldbuilding. From the very first page, Yarros mapped out the world clearly and compellingly for her readers to understand easily. So immediately when I started, I was sucked right in.
Now, let's talk about the characters. The heroine, Violent Sorrengail is a badass, but a complicated, stubborn, sometimes rude and annoying character. She made me almost claw out my eyes and rip out my hair one after the other but I didn't let her have that power over me. Yarros wrote her character as a multidimensional one, she starts off as a weak, and introverted character and then deeper into the story she evolves into a strong, stubborn, outspoken, silly and annoying character. I started rooting for her from the beginning, but towards the end, I felt like spanking her or punching her in the face. I will say Yarros did a fantastic job with her character to elicit such emotions from me.
The hero Xaden Riorson, is a character that I saw as the villain of the story. To top it off Yarros attached some rebellious story to him but in the end he becomes the hero and the characters that stole my heart. Xaden is an elusive, eerie, and intriguing character. I have so many questions about him but Yarros is keeping us in the dark for now.
The rest of the characters were fantastic to read. Some were the comic relief of the story, some were annoying, some were heroic, while some were the glue that brings the whole story together. Also, let's forget, the Dragons were not just animals in the story. They were also animals that added a lot of humor to the dialogues. They remind me of the dragons that were used in the movie ’The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ and *’Game of thrones’”.
Soon, according to some rumors flying around, this series will be adapted into motion pictures soon. In my opinion, if enjoyed watching Divergent, hunger games, then this book series is for you. Don't miss out on it.
Rating this book, I will give it 4 out of 5 stars. It was good, I enjoyed reading it BUT, in the end, I felt like Yarros didn't actually write this book herself considering some many grammatical errors, her interviews that I have watched and not researching well the Scottish dialect that was used in the book.
All images above are from my E-library
Header images compiled in Canva.
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