Fourth Wing - The Empyrean #1

I grabbed this from the library because it was available immediately. I came in with little background except that it's wildly popular romantasy. If you've read Hunger Games, Red Riding, or a number of other similar series but add some explicit, passionate sex scenes you get the idea. There were some thrilling moments like her first signet power usage or crossing the bridge on the first day.

But it has a thinness to the character's motivations that feels like the book equivalent of eating cotton candy. Violet and Xaden are driven by their passions, either sharing them or suppressing them. There isn't much beyond that. Maybe it's because their own agency is forfeit to their bonded dragons? For comparison, another popular romance book Heated Rivalry follows a similar track of romantic rivals but Ilya's complicated relationship with his own mother and father add texture that I found missing in this book despite very similar elements.

There is another moral element that is shocking. This school casually allows the death or murder of hundreds of students with little concern. It's hard to imagine that degree of trauma not having a more profound impact on them. Violet seems completely out of step with her peers in the murderous impulse for no clear reason other than having a scribe background rather than a military one.

This was a good book! I enjoyed reading it. Though at parts I thought it was a bit too long (but that could partly be because it too so long for me to read it and also because of world building.) the ending was the best part and it really really made me want to read the sequel soon! I’m hoping the next book has more action and less build-up. 4 stars because it was missing something for me to call it amazing, but it was a very good book nonetheless.