Welcome to this week’s post about the books I have been reading. I have finished one quite long book as you can see…

This book is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, #01 The Empyrean. I chose this because I needed a change from the kind of books I have been struggling with recently and I thought that a “Romantasy” and a Young Adult read might do the trick. Anyway, this is the blurb:

“Welcome to the brutal and elite world of Basgiath War College, where everyone has an agenda, and every night could be your last . . .

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general – also known as her tough-as-talons mother – has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away . . . because dragons don’t bond to ‘fragile’ humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter – like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Alliances will be forged. Lives will be lost. Traitors will become allies . . . or even lovers. But sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.”

Well, that seemed quite interesting and I love books and TV series with dragons, having read Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight and its sequels a long time ago. It took me a week to finish the book and in many ways I enjoyed it, awarding four stars on Goodreads. Then, I thought about it a bit more. Here is the review that I eventually wrote. It is really worth reading other opinions as they are very varied. Some of the longer and more negative ones are enlightening! Oh, and as I wrote my response I knocked it down to three stars!

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am in two minds about this book. In many ways it was an enjoyable and escapist fantasy adventure with some sex thrown in for entertainment value. In others it was a collection of plagiarism from well known fantasy authors with a nasty theme of killing off expendable young people in fairly inventive ways.

There were very few original ideas in the book. I immediately thought of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern, although the female characters in this book had, thankfully, some more up-to-date views!

So, it was good for escapism, but very derivative and I won’t bother to read the sequels.

View all my reviews

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I haven’t decided which book I am going to read next. There is one that I started and then put aside, or I might look at my Kindle list or browse the library’s ebook catalogue. How wonderful it is that there are so many books to choose from!

Happy Reading to you all.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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