Book Review: Fourth Wing

An interesting book, but not for the reasons you may think

Jul 02, 2025

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros was a book that was interesting on a personal level for me, and not for the reasons you may think. I was well aware of the book’s popularity so it’s pretty safe to say that this review is coming out well past when a lot of people interested in it have already read it. But just incase you haven’t read it and are interested, as always, I’ll refrain from story spoilers.

There were several things in this book that would normally turn me away from it and cause me to not even pick it up.

1. Dragons

2. First person

3. Present tense

4. Enemies to lovers romance

5. Explicit sex scenes

I’ll go through each of these, but first, what’s the story even about?

Fourth Wing is, essentially a military academy story. Check! That is one of my favourite settings or tropes. It’s also fantasy. Another check, though I have been quite burned out from fantasy lately. It follows Violet, the frail, youngest child in a prestigious military family as she enters the deathly dangerous Basgiath War College where the vast majority of students don’t survive their first year. Half way through their first year, the students are expected to bond with dragons, if the dragon is willing. If the dragon isn’t willing, the student turns into a smoking pile of ash. And since dragons will not bond with someone they perceive as weak, Violet’s chances don’t look good.

Let me touch here on the dragons. Of all the points listed above, the dragons were the only thing I knew about before I picked up the book. The title and the cover kind of gave it away and then the blurb spelled it out. I haven’t read a book about dragons since I was in my early teens. It’s one of those fantasy tropes that I’m generally tired of. Kind of like how I feel about zombies in video games. Consequently, I tended to stay away from anything that was about dragons. It’s not that I’m against them, just that they have to be done really well for me to move past that bored fatigue.

And let me tell you, in this book they are done well!

There are three dragons that take centre stage, all of them with very distinct personalities. They were fun to read and there were a number of exchanges between them and their humans that literally had me sniggering aloud.

As soon as I began reading that first page, the next two points became painfully obvious. First person, present tense. Now, I know that this point of view has become increasingly popular ever since the Hunger Games went viral, but I just do not like it. I like being able to see several character’s point of view, which generally lends itself to third person close preferably (it can be done in first person, and even this book has a chapter from the male lead’s point of view at the end, but it’s usually avoided to prevent the story becoming confusing). And present tense feels jarring and just plain wrong. I’m fully aware that this is just a personal preference, and other people adore this point of view. I’ve even written a short story in first person present tense, but that was a short story, under 2,000 words. It works for that, but a whole, quite lengthy novel? That’s a hard sell.

I’m happy to report that I did get used to it. A few chapters in, I didn’t notice it often, and when I did I was engrossed enough in the story that I could look past it. It’s still not enough to make me prefer a book with that point of view, but I’m no longer as adamantly against it either.

Pretty early into the novel I clocked on to the enemies to lovers romance brewing. Violet finding her family’s sworn enemy as jaw-droppingly sexy kind of gave that away. This is my least favourite romance trope as every single media, be it film, book, game, or play that attempts it makes me roll my eyes at how unbelievable it is. Of course, what someone finds believable is largely based on their own life experiences and as someone who simply doesn’t understand the feeling of looking at someone and immediately wanting to fuck without any kind of knowledge about who they are or what they’re like first, enemies to lovers just didn’t work for me. Why would I ever want to go to bed with or find someone attractive who I hate? Why would I be so vulnerable with someone I didn’t even trust? It makes no sense, and was certainly not even close to anything I had experienced.

This is, perhaps, the hardest sell of all for me and I nearly stopped reading the book when I realised that was where it was heading. I am glad I didn’t! This is quite literally the first piece of media I have consumed with this trope where I found it even remotely believable. Yes, I had to look past wanting to go to bed with someone you don’t even know, but at least she didn’t immediately jump his bones. She used some common sense and, even though the want was there, she didn’t act upon it. Once I moved past the desire I didn’t understand, the growth between the two main characters was believable and, by the time they did have sex, I could accept that as a natural progression of their relationship.

Which leads us inevitably to the sex. Maybe I am a prude, but I’m not a huge fan of blow by blow details with the sex spelled out on the page. I’m not completely against it and I’ve certainly read boatloads of smutty fanfiction over the years, but I do have a preference for a fade to black eventually. I think a lot of that is because, usually, nothing character or plot building really happens while they’re banging nasties. It’s just gratuitous which, let’s be real, is the same as porn. Nothing wrong with that, but that’s not what I’m reading a book for. I may not put a book down because of the spiciness (unless that’s pretty much all there is to it), but I will usually skim past it.

Fourth Wing managed to keep me from skimming.

For one thing, there were only two full sex scenes in the whole book (maybe three, if you count grinding against each other as a sex scene). That meant that the focus wasn’t on the sex, but on the characters reaching that point in their relationship. Instantly more interesting and rewarding. Secondly, there was character development happening during the sex scenes. Violet’s magic was flaring out of control at the same time as her self-control was unravelling. The male lead was still very obviously keeping secrets and hiding things from her, even as he revealed others. This kept the scenes interesting beyond just the gratuitous nature of them.

So that’s a lot of text explaining the things I usually don’t like in a book and why the worked for me this time. What else is there?

Two more things I want to discuss:

1. Scene and chapter structure

2. Action sequences

I recently wrote about how, as writers, we should write in scenes and edit in chapters and this book expertly shows us why that is. Every scene serves a purpose in the overall narrative and most chapters end on a cliff hanger which, as we know from my article, is achieved by putting the chapter break in the middle of a scene. This served to pull me along and kept me wanting to read more, to know what was going to happen next, and then, and then, and then.

And finally, the action sequences. This is epitomised in the climax of the novel which has a 30 page (or there abouts, sorry I returned the library book so can’t check) action sequence. Writing action is something I really struggle with. It’s hard to keep it interesting when it’s just blow by blow and it’s hard to keep it fast paced when you try to add some interiority to it. I’ve never more wanted to actually own a copy of a book just so I could go through it with a pen and a highlighter and really deconstruct how Yarros does it. I may have to source an ebook so I can do that electronically in the future.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fourth Wing, and have already hired out the next book ready to start on tomorrow. I am a little annoyed that no where on the cover or in the front matter did it say that it was book 1 of a series but other than that, I happily recommend it.

My next book review will likely be Iron Flame, which is book 2, but no promises on how long that will be as I am a notoriously slow reader. Have you read Fourth Wing? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

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