The Fourth Wing

 

Thanks to a friend lending me their copy of The Fourth Wing I could bypass the hundreds of people on the library waiting list. 

I will admit the warning almost made me not read any farther, I can handle some of the things listed but intense gore is not my style. Thankfully the story did not go deep into describing the injuries. 

With Violet having trained to be a scribe for her entire life I expected more reluctance to physical activity from her, she did complain about it but did not seem to shy away from it. I also expected her to excel at book learning which she did. It would have been nice if her illness was explained a bit more, it seemed to randomly disappear then suddenly reappear. My other thought was Violet's name, it does not fit in the world with the other names. I get that Xander wanted to nickname her Violence so it fits that but beyond that the rest of the names sound more magical and Violet's is just too ordinary. 

Dain was another character that was complicated but also annoying. Despite him being Violet's best friend I felt like they would never have been friends outside the academy. The two constantly butted heads and it is hard to see Dain having any fun in life even as a child since he is such a stickler for the rules. 

Xander is a confusing character, he is old enough to make his own decisions but also the age of hot headed young men. I found him unbelieve a lot of time and yet moments of being a hot headed young man showed up. 

The rest of the cast sort of felt like an after thought at times. I only learned a few thing about each of them and it was hard to get a good grasp on their personality. 

Even though the story was long I wanted more world building. More information on the things around them, more information on how the different species of dragons look, and even more on how the side character's dragons looked. 

Other then those few complains I thoroughly enjoyed The Fourth Wing. Several steamy scenes, bad language, and blood but it seemed to all fit into the story. The opening really drew me in and from the first couple of paragraphs I was hooked on the writing style. I hope that more of Violet's father is mentioned further in the series and why she trained as a scribe when her mother was dead set on her being a rider.