Book Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

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Listen, I don’t usually like books about dragons. I truly did not think this was my thing. Every time someone told me to read Fourth Wing, I nodded politely the way you do when someone recommends a podcast that’s eleven hundred episodes long.

Surprise, surprise: Fourth Wing rocks.

The spoiler-free setup: Violet Sorrengard, bookish and physically fragile in a world that punishes both, is forced into a war college where cadets bond with dragons — or die trying. The school actively wants to kill her, one of the most dangerous cadets there has a generational grudge against her family name, and you can see exactly where that’s going. (You want it to go there. That’s the whole point.)

What I Loved About Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

I’m a sucker for a great enemies-to-lovers arc, and this book absolutely crushed it in that department. As a writer, I pay attention to the mechanics: you have to believe the hostility, you need a slow burn long enough that you’re begging for the turn, and the turn has to feel earned instead of scheduled. Fourth Wing clears all three, and it does it while juggling a training-ground plot that keeps real consequences on the table.

The other thing Yarros understands — deeply, structurally — is momentum. This is a quick pageturner with no fluff: every chapter ends with a hook, the set pieces escalate, and the dragons have actual personalities instead of being scaly airplanes. It’s clear Rebecca Yarros embodies the romantasy genre and knows exactly why people pick up these books. She delivers on every promise the premise makes, which is rarer than it should be.

I read it fast and I resented every obligation that interrupted me, which is the highest compliment I can pay a fantasy book about a subject I thought I didn’t care about.

What I Didn’t Love About Fourth Wing

The prose itself is workmanlike — it gets you there, but it rarely sparkles, and Violet’s dialog isn’t as pithy or clever as I wanted it to be for someone framed as the smart one in the room. If you’re coming for sentence-level fireworks, this isn’t that book. It’s an engine, not a poem. Once I accepted that, I had a great time.

Final Thoughts on Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

My final score: 4 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spice rating: 3 out of 5 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️

Do I recommend this book? 👍 Yes!

If you loved the training-and-trials energy of Quicksilver or you’re hunting for your next read after ACOTAR, this belongs on your TBR. I bought the sequel immediately, which tells you everything my star rating can’t. More romantasy picks live in my Kindle Unlimited roundup and on my book reviews shelf.

🔥 A New Romantasy on Kindle Unlimited: The Ash Trials

And if dragon school left you wanting more deadly-competition romantasy: My romantasy novel The Ash Trials is on Kindle Unlimited: deadly trials, a slow-burn romance, and a heroine with everything to prove. If tonight’s the night you stay up too late with a book, I’d love it to be mine.