I Read - ‘Fourth Wing’ by Rebecca Yarros

That's right! Amanda and I are jumping in to the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros... and it's good! The story itself is great.

I'm a big dragon enthusiast, have been since I can remember. I think it started with the movie Dragonheart, now that I think about it! Which came out when I was just two years old. I recommend. The Inheritance Cycle is my favorite series of all time, by far, dragons or no.

Anywho—Fourth Wing does dragons quite well. They're categorized by their color and tail, which I thought was cool--every tail is a different type of weapon (swordtail, daggertail, clubtail, morningstartail, etc). There's magic. There's romance. It takes place at a school for dragon riders, and the main character is a girl who is atypical for the riders in this world. Super cool! I hate giving and getting spoilers so that's all I'll say about the story.

To be clear, I really liked the book, and I'm going to read the rest of the series, and probably anything else that comes out in this world.

BUT. The smutty parts of the book really threw me off. I read ACOTAR. I didn't like it (the sex) there either, really, but I got through it. In Fourth Wing, the story was so good, but the "romance" felt out of place and almost forced, to me.

I've been going back and forth about whether or not this just means I don't like that. It's the genre that I don't like, simply a preference issue. Or is there a better way to do it? Game of Thrones is pretty graphic, but it would be like watching Game of Thrones and then suddenly it switches to a totally X rated sex scene. Completely changes the vibe. Once again I think this is just something I don't like about the genre, not the book.

Which leads me to my next section of completely over-thinking simple tasks... rating the book. I gave the book 4/5 on Goodreads. I'm an author of a singular novel. I feel shitty rating anything less than five stars. Who am I? I'm a very fair rater, in general. Is the book 4 stars to me because the genre? Is that even a fair way to judge a book? Who are we to rate art? Is it the objective portions I should be rating? Are there any, really? No one rates like that. Everyone just rates on their subjective feeling. But in that case, ratings don't even really matter. They tell you an overall trend for the overall population, but that doesn't really tell me whether or not I will like the book.

If you're reading this, Rebecca (lol), just know that you have done a wonderful job. And in the end my four star rating is just a reflection of my personal experience reading Fourth Wing.

Think I have all these thoughts because judging peoples' art feels weird, yet I feel compelled to rate--just for myself, really. I like to look back and remember what I thought of a book. A five star rating tells me something really made an impact, and a four star rating tells me something was lacking, but it was very good.

Alright, that's enough self-justification for one blog post. If you like dragons, you'll probably love Fourth Wing. I'm on to Iron Flame (the second in the series) already and it's also great!