Fourth Wing – Rebecca Yarros

Fourth Wing is a high fantasy romance novel, the first book in the Empyrean series, and it’s one of the biggest BookTok books in recent memory. For a few years now, it’s been near impossible to scroll a bookish social media feed without seeing it. So, of course, I had to pick it up for myself to see what all the fuss is about.

The story is set in the fantasy kingdom of Navarre, specifically the Basgiath War College. Navarre is constantly under attack, protected by dragon magic and maintained by the graduates of the college, each of whom trains in one of four quadrants: healers, scribes, infantry, and riders. The main character, Violet Sorrengail, has geared her whole life to becoming a scribe as her late father was before her, but her mother – General Lilith Sorrengail – insists that she become a rider instead. The book takes its name – Fourth Wing – from the squad to which Violet is assigned for training.

Training to ride dragons is no picnic, and Violet faces danger on a daily basis. Each student is hoping to ‘bond’ with a dragon that they will ride for the duration of their military careers (a dangerous enough pursuit in and of itself), and there are more students than there are dragons, so in addition to facing fire-breathing monsters and the physical risks that entails, the students often kill each other off to increase their own chances of success. Oh, and the children of the rebels in the last big war are training at the military college now too, so as the daughter of a General who killed most of their parents, Violet has a big ol’ target on her back.

This is the barest bones explanation of the magic and lore of Fourth Wing. I’ll admit, I don’t often read high fantasy, and my eyes tend to glaze over when authors start using a lot of made up words to describe complicated magic systems. So, fair warning: if you’re not into that kind of thing, this probably isn’t the book for you. There are also a lot of very drawn-out battle sequences, and they often introduce a lot of new information that’s hard to process while you’re trying to focus on whether the characters live or die. The main character recites historical facts under her breath to ‘calm herself down’ (laziest world-building ever), and there are telepathic connections between whomever-is-convenient so crucial information can be communicated without any timeline/geography issues. That all might be par-for-the-course for most high fantasy fans, but it’s a bit of a drag for recreational readers.

What I did like about Fourth Wing – and what I found most interesting – was the depiction of the main character’s disability and the accessibility accommodations made for her during her training. That might sound out-of-left-field for a romantasy novel, especially one that isn’t widely marketed as being About Disability or For People With Disabilities (that I’ve seen, anyway), but it’s a significant factor in the story.

Violet lives with a non-specific chronic condition that weakens her joints and ligaments, making it hard for her to develop the physical strength she needs to become a rider or recover the injuries she incurs in training. Yarros does a good job of weaving this into Violet’s narrative – she’s not a two-dimensional Disabled Character, rather her disability is one of her many dimensions. Her character is clearly informed by Yarros’s own experience living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Yarros said in interviews after Fourth Wing‘s release that she intentionally set out to write a story about a heroic character with chronic illness, the kind of character she herself would have loved to read.

There’s a fairly simple black-and-white response to Violet’s disability in Basgiath War College: the good guys accept Violet’s specific needs and support her in finding accommodations for them, the bad guys make fun of her for being “weak” and try to exploit her challenges for their own gain. It’s not the most creative characterisation you’ll ever see, but it’s a handy shorthand at least. What sticks in my mind most is the scene where Violet is presented with a saddle to wear while riding her dragon. All of the other able-bodied riders can simply hold on, but Violet’s condition makes this challenging, so her dragon and her superiors work together to find a solution for her. Even though Violet is reluctant to use it at first, it evens the playing field. It’s easy to see the real-world parallels for, say, someone who is initially reluctant to use a wheelchair or a walker and subsequently discovers how much freedom and independence it gives them.

It’s also nice to read a high fantasy books that integrates genuine queerness for its characters – too often, queer characters in traditional fantasy either don’t exist or are coded as villains. Fourth Wing isn’t a Queer Book, and there’s not a single ‘coming out’ storyline, and the queer characters aren’t punished or killed. It’s just a regular ol’ fact of life in this world that some characters sleep with people who have the same bits, or use they/them pronouns. I wish that wasn’t such a breath of fresh air.

Speaking of sex: I came to Fourth Wing expecting a lot of it. It’s a BookTok book after all, and we know how much romantasy readers love smut. As it turns out, there are only two sex scenes – they’re pretty good, but they felt a little jarring. The tone of Fourth Wing is very Young Adult, it could easily be read as a teenage boarding school novel (with dragons), so when a character suddenly mentions orgasms or casually objectifies a hottie in the training room, it feels dissonant with the whole Vibe. It’s like if Katniss Everdeen occasionally mentioned how horny she was while fighting for her life – weird, right?

Finally, without spoiling anything, I will say that Fourth Wing has an excellent twist presented on the final page. So, even with my qualms about it, I finished it with a smile and a respectful tip of the hat in Yarros’s direction. There have been two subsequent books published in the Empyrean series – Iron Flame and Onyx Storm. I don’t know that I’m desperate to seek them out, but I’d probably give them a go if I was shipwrecked with them on a desert island.

Read Fourth Wing on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Fourth Wing:

• “It is too YA for adults and the sex scenes are too adult for young readers, so there is no one left.” – Nite Ize Customer Service
• “I didn’t make it to page 2. I don’t need to read 250+ F-bombs to know this book isn’t for me.” – dHoward
• “I don’t want to read the book thru another gender. I have been reading SCIFI for 50+ years and am disappointed. Is this what SCIFI has become? One must be willing to become another gender?” – sveikas
• “This book is an insult to writing.” – Will o.
• “If Fourth Wing has 0 haters, I’m DEAD… This is a book bout how the main character is h0rny all the time, anything else past that is shotty, cheap writing. WHICH IS FINE IF IT WASNT MARKETED AS A FANTASY!!! Any fantasy element in here is watered down more than a church’s communion wine!! IM SERIOUS! FANTASY READERS, don’t get your hopes up!! The dragons are just big telapathic horses with swords for tails… and the magic and lore is utterly ABSENT… I would burn it if I didn’t respect written word.” – Alaura