I Thought I Had Escaped Cringey YA Tropes | Fourth Wing Review

Yup! Back with another *supposedly* hot take.

I promise I don’t gripe about popular books just for the sake of it. A lot of popular books I’ve enjoyed immensely. However, just because a book sells a bunch of copies doesn’t make it good fiction. And that’s exactly the problem with the Fourth Wing series.

First of all, Violet Sorrengail is abhorrently annoying. She hits every YA MC trope there is and after a while it felt like trying to eat the last of a dozen donuts–sickeningly sweet and full of regret by the end. One of my biggest gripes is the fact that she is disabled (supposedly she has EDS), but this magically disappears after she *checks notes* exercises and goes on runs. The first few chapters quite literally have her breaking bones multiple times, but by wrapping her joints, she is able to physically complete with 6 foot men. Yes, this actually happens.

Violet Sorrengail is described as being sickly pale with “indecisive” eyes that flicker somewhere between blue and amber. Two colors that are rare, I might add. She also has silver streaks in her hair from malnutrition or something, but of course it’s long & gorgeous. She is constantly described as being short and petite–all around weak, if you will. But wouldn’t you know, she survives the bloodthirsty first year of training and bonds one of the strongest, rarest dragons ever! Even though she can’t keep her seat while flying, she remains one of the best riders because they make her a special saddle. Oh, and she wields lightning and bonds to a SECOND rare dragon (unheard of in the book’s lore). So, let’s just check in for a second. Supposedly weak, frail, plain-looking, 20-something young woman becomes not only impervious to her health condition AND becomes the most powerful rider of her generation. Got it.

And we haven’t even gotten into Xaden Riorson yet.

A problematic trope I’ve seen far too often in writing lately is authors’ inability to create weak women. Let me explain that. In an attempt to appeal to the normalcy of readers, authors try to create female characters with struggles that are relatable. However, it is like this is also considered a jab at female empowerment so they need to then backtrack all their “weaknesses” so we the readers know that women can do whatever men can do! *note the sarcasm* Y’all, can we just agree that men ARE physically stronger than women and across the board have faster reflex time, faster running times, etc. Your female assassin/warrior/insert fighting type can still be strong, but you don’t have to prove to us that she’s stronger than everyone else if you’re also trying to make her relatable. Again, Violet Sorrengail is 5 feet tall at MOST. She cannot defeat a full-grown man on a sparring mat.

When it comes to manifesting a power, Violet of course ends up with lightning wielding–an ability not seen in centuries. Wow, the main character has two dragons, lightning wielding, and she’s dating the hottest man ever?

That brings us to the love interest, Xaden. Chapter one our Violet is warned to stay away from him at all costs because he’s the rebel son of the man her mother murdered. So of course that means she’s going to fall for his good looks almost immediately. Xaden is almost six and half feet, gorgeous, and racially ambiguous. This is not the first nor last time I’m sure an author will pair a white female lead with a man who isn’t quite black, but definitely not white either, and he definitely can’t be any other race *again, note the sarcasm* Of course, plain Jane just enthralls Xaden, though we don’t find that out till much later. At first they have to (pretend) hate each other until they get to a point where they want to sleep together too much to stay mad at each other for things their parents did.

Did I also mention their dragons are bonded?! *gasp* whatever will they do?! (Spoiler alert: they will go on to have sex multiple times, despite not really wanting to commit to each other, but also not wanting it to be casual). Will they end up falling in love despite their ridiculously poor communication and short time of knowing each other? Absolutely.

In the midst of this lovey-dovey nonsense, we learn little of the Empyrean world and the dragon lore even less (the whole reason I read this series). Perhaps this is my fault because I don’t know if this story is considered romantacy (romance/fantasy vs a fantasy novel with romance) but it still was cheesy at best. I did go on to read the second book in the series and overall enjoyed reading the story. Why? Because once I lowered my expectations to nothing more than a fun, shallow read, it was good. The raving reviews had made it seem like more, but as someone once said to me, it’s a potato chip kind of story. Yummy, but not much substance and definitely not enough to keep you full.

Shockingly, Xaden was the best part of this story by having a mostly well-rounded backstory and a sympathetic personality once you got to know him. Unfortunately, the story twists him into an idealized fantasy sex object. Also, the plot twist at the end of book two made NO sense and I’m confused why she went that direction. The political tension and different conflicting views and choices brought a lot of depth and interest into the otherwise flat story. This was probably my favorite aspect of the story, aside from humorous dialogue from the dragons.

If you enjoy romance, a light fantasy, or even dragons but don’t care too much about world-building depth or complex characters, you’ll enjoy this. Be warned, there are several explicit sex scenes in each book as well as excessive heavy language. While I skimmed over them, some readers might want to just avoid the series altogether. This series is also for adults; it is NOT YA. I would not recommend this to anyone under 18 at a minimum.

Did you enjoy the Fourth Wing series? What did you enjoy/dislike? Let me know in the comments!