If the CW wrote fantasy, this would be it
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2024 | Rating: 3/5 | Best Sellers in Kindle Store
fourth wing reminds me of every show on the cw i’ve ever seen tropey angsty full of teenage drama that appeals to readers looking for something easy to consume with lots of sex appeal had stephanie meyer written a dragon novel this would have been itfor anyone who has read a fair amount of dragon fantasy fiction this book offers little in the way of novelty a military organization of cadets with dragons check a world at war  check a clumsy bookish wanna be dragon rider check dragons with a psychic bond to their riders check magic check add to this a training process not unlike hunger games in which hopefuls can be legally murdered by other cadets or dragonson the plus side this book is a fast read with enough snappy snarky dialogue to keep things moving a first person pov lets us listen in on all of the protagonists ohsoya drama it has all the expected conflict that teenage romance readers crave a sexy long standing boy next door crush an even sexier contagonist with ihateyoubutiwannadoyou dynamic plus all the dragons you could possibly want the author does a decent job of providing her dragons with a culture of their own even if the human characters feel a bit cardboard her narrative moves at fair clip and rarely bogs us down with unnecessary backgroundon the downside the author does a poor job at times of obeying the rules she has set in her works the dragons are terribly choosy fearsome sensitive to insult and yet they choose a protagonist who is not only physically unable to do her job and has to be rescued over and over and over and over again but she and others give the dragons the very attitude that the author warns us can get riders killed there’s also some absurd world building why would a military organization that is clearly in dire need of soldiers needlessly expend so many people by allowing cadets to murder each other it makes no sense the author chooses fabricated conflict over creating characters and circumstances that generate believable conflict it reads like the author was in a rush to get the book done and it shows the characters spew eye roll inducing laughable dialogue and often make choices that are frustratingly dumb andor out of character clearly a result of the authors need to keep the plot moving and the threat constant what’s worse the author attempts to sell the protagonist as making up for her physical limitations with a keen intellect but she really isn’t all that smart at least not as smart as the author wants us to believe there’s nothing so clever about her solutions that any other cadet wouldn’t have thought of had the same rules applied to the protagonist that applied to all the other characters she would have died ten pages into the book the fact that she is repeatedly rescued by her sister by dain by xander and by her dragon an absurd number of times makes the protagonist hard to respect or admire or even really care for her dragon and her friends are all more compelling and capable than she is it’s perhaps the biggest disappointment herein short its book candy which is not a bad thing to be for most casual fiction and fantasy readers this book is a fun ride that makes no demands of the reader except forgiveness but for serious fans of high fantasy who have already devoured the classics of dragon fiction by masters of the genre this book will feel like a pulpy rip off of every dragon trope written by a horny twenty something authori wish i could give it two scores one for the guilty pleasure of a book that nails all the expected tropes and one for this mediocre pandering work that feels like a cheap rip off of far more capable and caring fantasy authors