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!  

Waiting on Wednesday (22): Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Waiting on Wednesday's is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. *It appears that Breaking the Spine hasn't been active since 2016, but I still want to credit them as the creators.

For this week's Waiting on Wednesday I'm spotlighting Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

Publisher: Entangled Publishing LLC (Red Tower Books)

Publication date: May 2, 2023

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 that this book is already published so I don't really have to wait to read it, but I wanted to spotlight it as my Waiting On Wednesday because everybody and their mother read this book in 2023, and I feel so out of the loop not having read it yet. So this post is my formal statement that I will get to this book this year, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lives up to all the hype that it's been getting.

Smoke and Mirrors: The Trueheart by Helene Opocensky

Title: Smoke and Mirrors: The Trueheart

Author: Helene Opocensky

Publication date:  October 10, 2020

Pages: 380

Quick Thoughts

I was surprised at how much I loved this book. Fantasy books are always a bit hit and miss to me. I do admit that I am pretty picky with the genre, but this one really hit the mark for me.

What I loved most about this book was the all of the worldbuilding. Every element was developed with a great attention to detail. The history, the way the magic works, the reasons behind everything that happens, past and present, nothing was left out. The writing truly puts you inside the story, so you are surrounded by it in the best way possible.

The characters were also deeply developed, so I felt connected to all of them. They all had a purpose in the story, none of them felt like they were there just to take up space, which I really liked.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I don't have any complaints. If you're looking for a fantasy book with lots of attention given to the world-building, this book might be for you!

The Wise One by K.T Anglehart (Scottish Scrolls #1)

Title: The Wise One

Series: The Scottish Scrolls

Author: K.T. Anglehart

Expected Publication Date: October 28, 2020

Publisher: Kat Biggie Press

Pages: 213 (epub.)

Introduction

There's something wrong with McKenna. She's always thought so, but after her 17th birthday, things start getting even weirder than they usually are. She's having vivid dreams, and seems to be influencing things. When she goes to her fathers for answers, they are forced to tell her the truth. Her birth mother, a mystic, left to protect her, and she is a Wise One.

They don't offer any other details, so McKenna knows that she must find her mother to to get the whole story. So, she ventures out to across Ireland, knowing that going back to living half in the dark about who is no longer an option.

McKenna

McKenna was an extremely annoying protagonist with very childish tendencies. She was written more like a fourteen year old than someone that just turned seventeen. Everything she does is done without thinking, literally at all. She had no plan for her trip to Ireland, or how she was going to find her mom when she got there, she didn't consider how her parents would feel and she didn't spend a second thinking about the consequences of any of her actions.

McKenna's Journey

I know this is a fantasy novel, but McKenna's journey, both to and around Ireland, was painfully unrealistic, and also painfully irresponsible. First, McKenna leaves without her parents knowing (with, I might add, all their savings stolen from a safe.) She had absolutely no plan. She dragged a person she barely knew with her. Neither of them had passports, and they still managed to get to Ireland, in a way that is so completely out of the realm of possibility that it actually baffled me when I read it, even with McKenna's abilities.

It was also outrageously irresponsible for her to agree to a ride from Cillian, and even more ridiculous that Nissa was the one that suggested it. Neither one of them were a poster child for rational thinking.

To me, everything just seemed like it worked out too perfectly, too much of the time. No obstacle stayed an obstacle, as everything just conveniently fell into place all of the time. I know parts of it were planted that way, but because so much just worked out on it's own, by the end the conflicts didn't hold very much weight to me.

Pace

This wasn't a long book, but unfortunately, there was a lot of time that felt like nothing was happening that was relevant to the story. There was a lot of filler on the road with Cillian that added nothing to plot.

Nissa

I didn't mind Nissa, and I liked her journey throughout the book, but it felt like Nissa was a part of the story most of the time just to be a quirky sidekick to balance McKenna out, and although I didn't mind Nissa's story/journey throughout the book, it was no more realistic than McKenna's was.

Cillian

I liked Cillian's character and his role in the book, although I didn't care much for the feelings that were growing between McKenna and him. It didn't feel like it was based on anything. They didn't know very much about each other on a personal level, so unless McKenna's Wise One influence was working it's mojo on Cillian, there just seemed to be no reason why they would like each other, so to me, it wasn't a very interesting aspect of the story.

Ending

The last 30 pages or so are about the most exciting part of the the whole book. It's the only part of the book where it actually feels like things are moving along at a good pace, and what ultimately upped my rating to two stars on Goodreads.

Conclusion

I was not a fan of this book, even though I so badly wanted to be. I even posted my very first Waiting on Wednesday for it, specifically stating how excited I was to get my hands on this book, but it really missed the mark for me. I liked the ending, but I don't think I will be continuing on with this series.

Kiera's Quest: Awakenings by Kristy Bown

Publish Date: October 19 2011
Published By: MuseItUp

*Received from the author in exchange for honest review

Introduction
       Kiera leads a pretty normal life, she has a small group of friends, and lives with her uncle, in a small town. Although, she always feels that something is missing. For years she has been dreaming of a different world. She gets chased by an unseen force, that is always getting closer and closer to catching her. But somebody always saves her. For years the same person has been saving her. It shouldn't matter though, because those are just dreams. Then she unintentionally meets Zakk. He is the prince of the world of Zantar, but the Witch Queen, has put a curse on him, turning him into a doll, so that she can rule the kingdom, and turn it into what ever evil thing that she desires.
       Even though Kiera just met Zakk, she somehow feel so connected to him. Like they have known each other forever, and she knows she has to help him.

Cover
       I don't really like the cover, I mean I guess it's just because I don't like the way the shadow looks, but at least the shadow is trying to make the cover look kind of spooky

The Witch Queen
       I wish that this book offered up a little bit of back story for the Witch Queen. Like maybe how she went about becoming the Witch Queen. Why did she want to rule Zantar so badly. This is a series though, so maybe you'll learn more about her in the sequel and so on.

Zakk and Kiera
       I know what you are thinking. Whenever you come across a book that with a male and female that have some sort of connection, you think,
        "Oh yay! insta-love! I'm so excited for the to declare their love for each other on the 20th page!"
       That is what I thought was going to happen, too. I am happy to be able to say that, that is most defiantly not what happened. In fact, nothing really romantic happens between them at all.

Conclusion

       This book was short, (only 75 pages) but pretty good. I would recommend this to younger teens that just want to get started in YA books, and that don't want something that is too complicated.

The Promise by C.E Wilson

Date Published: July 18, 2013


*Received from the author in exchange for honest review

Introduction
       Lily was once 6 feet tall. She has a good life despite her rough childhood. She has married a wonderful guy named Erik, and everything is perfect. Until one day she discovers that she is shrinking. I'ts only a little bit at first, then right before her eyes she's down to 4 feet. Now all she can do is try to continue to live her normal life, with the ever- present worry that the shrinking might not ever stop.

 Cover
       I don't like this cover, It's obvious that it's Lily, but I cannot stand entire faces on covers.

Lily
       I liked Lily. She knows how to stand on her own, and hates being treated like a child. I admire the fact that she stayed pretty strong even though she was rapidly shrinking all the time

Erik
       Erik was so sweet! Every time I read this book, Erik would say something so adorable to Lily. Some of these things were cheesy, but adorable at the same time.
       Just as I felt bad for Lily, I felt bad for Erik too. Throughout the entire book, Erik felt as if Lily was slipping through his fingers, and that he could do nothing to help her. It was just so sad...*sigh*

Conclusion
       This book is a fairly quick read, pretty light. I read it in a matter of days. Guys and girls could read this book and I think they could both enjoy it. I for one, really liked it