Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Title: Fourth Wing

Author: Rebecca Yarros

Pages: 517

Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books

Publication date: May 2, 2023

Goodreads synopsis

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

Thoughts

Okay, BookTok. I'll give it to you. I bought this fully expecting it to fall short of the hype, because you can't trust everything you see on the internet, but I get it. I understand the hype. I can't remember the last time I flew through the pages of a fantasy book as fast as this one. There are so many things I really liked about this book. I loved the connection between the dragons and their riders. I loved Tairn's personality and Andarna's contrast from him. The interactions between the three of them were so fun to read. I liked the setting of the war college, I liked the relationships between the other cadets. And of course, I really liked Xaden.

I enjoyed the relationship between Violet and Xaden. I wish the enemies part of the promised enemies to lovers trope had lasted a little bit longer, just to really build some tension, but other than that, I looked forward to the Violet and Xaden scenes.

One of my only gripes with this book is that Violet is not a very interesting protagonist. The characters that she interacts with all have personalities, so I feel like it's easy to overlook that Violet doesn't have one.

Reading about how small and fragile she is does get old pretty fast. I have come to understand that she is breakable because she has a disability, however, this is not stated in the book, and if I hadn't read other's reviews of this novel, I may not have put together that she was disabled. So many protagonists are written to be small and fragile without being disabled that it would be easy to lump her in with those, which is really a shame. If it was framed differently, the disability representation would have been amazing.

The only other thing I would say may be difficult for readers is the striking similarities between this story and other fantasy material. I know completely original ideas are hard to come by these days, and I think this book was marketed as Divergent meets GoT, but I think it's important to note that it really is just Divergent with dragons and sex scenes. I am not complaining, but if you're looking for something all new and groundbreaking, this might not be the book for you.

Overall I really enjoyed this novel and BookTok did steer me right this time. I'm going to continue with this series despite my lukewarm opinion on Violet. I have hope that throughout the series she'll become someone actually interesting, but until then, there's more than enough dragons to distract me from her.

First Line Friday (25): Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

First Line Friday is a bookish tag hosted over at Abstract Books that is used to showcase your favourite first lines of books.

There really is something to be said about a good first line, and I'm going to be using this tag from now on to showcase my current read's first lines.

My current read this week is Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo.

Alex approached Black Elm as if she were sidling up to a wild animal, cautious in her walk up the long, curving driveway, careful not to show her fear. How many times had she made this walk? But today was different.

Goodreads synopsis

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

--

After reading Ninth House earlier this year and having a rather lukewarm opinion on it, I wasn't sure if I was going to bother picking up this sequel, but now that I'm a little under 100 pages into Hell Bent I think I'm glad that I'm continuing. I'm glad so far, anyway. You can add Hell Bent to your Goodreads TBR here!  

Pride or Die by CL Montblanc

Title: Pride or Die

Author: CL Montblanc

Pages: 336

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Expected publication date: April 15, 2025

*ARC provieded by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

The LGBTQ+ club at Hillview High is in danger after a cheerleader is assaulted during a pep rally, and they're the only ones that were close enough to her to blame.

The school and the police seem happy to let the club members go down for the crime. Nobody is trying very hard to find out who is really behind the assault, so with nobody to help them clear their names, they have to take matters into their own hands if they want a shot at saving their club and their futures.

Thoughts

I don't have too much to say about this one. It's a quick and funny teenage sleuthing story and I enjoyed it. The relationships between all the club members was sweet and really gave the story some heart. I did predict who the culprit was pretty early on in the story, but predicting the assailant didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story at all. All in all a good debut, and I'll be looking forward to more from this author.

First Line Friday (24): Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

First Line Friday is a bookish tag hosted over at Abstract Books that is used to showcase your favourite first lines of books.

There really is something to be said about a good first line, and I'm going to be using this tag from now on to showcase my current read's first lines.

My current read this week is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

Conscription Day is always the deadliest. Maybe that's why the sunrise is especially beautiful this morning--because I know it might be my last.

Goodreads synopsis

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

--

I know, I know. Everybody has already read this book. But I'm just getting to it know and I'm excited to share the first line. I'm flying through the pages, too. So I'm excited that soon I'll be able to understand what all the hype is truly about. You can add Fourth Wing to your Goodreads TBR here!

Look Up, Handsome by Jack Strange

Author: Jack Strange

Pages: 405

Publisher: One More Chapter

Publication date: September 26, 2024

Intro

Hay-On-Wye is on the verge of losing its only queer bookshop, and the owner, Quinn, has no idea what he's going to do. 

This close to Christmas, Quinn can't believe that he's being evicted by his own stepfather, and it feels like he'll need a miracle to make it through to the new year with his shop still in his possession.

Quinn had no idea that help would come in the form of Noah, a handsome and famous novelist who just so happens to be visiting his hometown for the holidays. Quinn will take all the help that Noah is willing to give, and he wouldn't complain if he happened to fall in love along the way.

Thoughts

I really thought that I would love this cozy, Hallmark feeling, read. The story had potential, but too many things missed the mark for me. Most notably, I didn't feel any chemistry between Noah and Quinn. Obviously for a romance centered story, this is bad news. I feel like they had a few awkward and dry conversations, and started to call that falling in love. I didn't even really buy that they would have had chemistry as friends. I was constantly waiting to feel a connection growing between the two of them in a way that would be at all noteworthy, but I finished the book without feeling any kind of spark that would have made me actually care about the relationship.

Another thing that was tough for me was that the plot felt very repetitive at times. Quinn would panic about losing his shop, plan an event to raise community awareness, and then wait for Noah to show up, either at the event or at Quinn's apartment after. 

I feel like a lot of the repetitiveness was hard to get through because the author tended to do a lot of telling instead of showing. This also felt like it diluted the chance of a good Hermione/ghostwriting subplot, which I would have loved to go deeper into.

Overall, this one missed the mark for me because I didn't feel connected to any of the characters. It had good potential, but ultimately fell short of execution.  

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Title: The Dinner

Author: Herman Koch

Pages: 306

Publisher: Hogarth

Publication date: January 1 2009

Intro

Two couples dine together at a restaurant. Each aware that their children have done something awful together. Over the courses, the events of the night they all know they must talk about are revealed, and tensions between the diners reach a boiling point

My thoughts

I really don't have much to say about this novel. It's the first novel that BookTok has ever influenced me to buy, and I really thought I was going to like it more than I did. It did deliver a tense atmosphere that I loved, but I found that none of the characters were at all likeable. I can forgive a cast of unlikeable characters pretty easily if they're at least a little bit interesting, but I also found that none of the characters were fully developed or fleshed out enough for me to forgive their unlikeable personalities for the sake of the plot. It was hard to care about what happened/what will happen to the characters after the story ends because of this.

Overall, I have a very lukewarm opinion on this one. It's just okay. It was fine for something quick but it's unlikely that this will ever be a story I revisit.  

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander

Title: Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

Author: Jenny Hollander

Pages: 292

Publication date: February 6, 2024

Intro

Nine years after an event dubbed "Scarlet Christmas" occurred, Charlie Colbert has completely rebuilt her life. Engaged and holding a high position at a magazine, Charlie knows that a movie being made about Scarlet Christmas could tear apart everything that she's worked so hard for.

Charlie doesn't remember everything about that night, and she doesn't know exactly what the movie could reveal. In order to prevent the movie from being made, she has to confront the memories hidden within herself, and she's not so sure she's going to like what she finds.

My thoughts

I am sad to say that this is one of the novels that I liked the idea of more than I enjoyed the actual story.

There are definitely things that I enjoyed about this book. I will always love a murky memory story. An "I don't know what happened bit it wasn't good and I think I had something to do with it" story. I also really liked the dual timeline. THEN, as Charlie pieces together the awful night nine years ago, and NOW  as she does everything she can to avoid the prevent the movie from being made and potentially destroying her life.

The premise was there. The foundation was strong. I really thought this would be at least a four star read for me, and it was shaping up to be one, for awhile at least. I was really enjoying Charlie's descent into paranoia. But soon, the plot became slow and repetitive, and around the 50% mark, I found myself losing interest. I continued reading because I was waiting for the reveal at the end, but I found even the climax to be lackluster. 

This story isn't what I hoped it would be, but I would give the author another look because there were aspects of the writing that I did enjoy. This story just fell a little short for me overall.