Welcome to another read along! My review of the Throne of Glass series and the final book, Kingdom of Ash, will come soon, but I just needed to start jotting down my thoughts regarding Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
If you're new to these "read along" posts, I simply take some time out of my day to jot down my thoughts as I'm reading through books. I always suggest that if you have not read any of these books, to avoid reading these posts because I may inadvertently share spoilers. I don't want to talk about a bunch of spoilers, but I can't help if it happens.
I picked up this book a couple of weeks ago after seeing countless videos on TikTok. Almost all the videos mentioned, "If you loved ACOTAR, you'd love this book," and I even saw a couple of Instagram posts that said, "I loved ACOTAR, and this may be even better than that." I figured that these were very large and hefty claims, so of course, I needed to find out for myself since I love ACOTAR. Note: I'm not taking into account my love for the Throne of Glass series, because I felt like those stories were very different from each other. I will explain more in my overall review of the series.
Before I started on the Crescent Moon series, I figured I could give this a quick read. I just started chapter nine and I needed to stop and start writing this post. So far, we followed Violet as she survived that parapet and is basically surviving her time in the riders quadrant. Dain has been doing his best to keep her alive from afar, while Rhiannon is trying to teach her hand-to-hand skills that can actually keep her alive. We have also met Xander, who I like immediately, and a slew of other characters, including Violet's mother, General Lilith Sorrengail, sister, Mira, and her brother, Brennan.
When we first meet Dain you can already tell that he's the over-bearing mother hen that is just trying to find a way for Violet to leave the Riders. I mean, he has every right to try and get her out of there, but as she had already told him, her mom will make her go through the initial trial again if she leaves. So instead of trying to help her through it, he still keeps trying to find a way to get her out. I can't tell you how irritated I had been getting because Violet has made it extremely clear to him that she refuses to leave out of weakness/fear, but instead of working with her and trying to help her through that, he tries to get her out of there any chance he gets. It's giving, Tamlin vibes if you get my drift.
Then we have Xander, the mysterious, dark, brooding man who watches from afar, but also may potentially have a vendetta against Violet since she is a Sorrengail. I like Xander because he seems like a no non-sense type of character and he's giving me the same vibes Rhysand did. Now do you see where I'm going here? With the opportunities that Xander has had to get rid of Violet, it just leads me to believe that he needs her for something more. What that is, I'm not sure, but also the fact that his dragon seemed to notice her makes me think that something very interesting will happen later on. I just finished the portion where Xander literally tells Dain to stop mother-henning here and actually teach her something that will help her to survive. Again, very much Rhysand vibes.
So far, I really like Violet as a character. I love how she's intelligent and self-aware, so much so that she knows that she's at a huge disadvantage (physically) than the other cadets. I understand Mira's worry and I applaud her for trying to persuade their mother, because as an older sister, I would do the same thing. I know my sister's strengths and weaknesses and I wouldn't want to send my sisters into a situation where I don't think they would be able to survive.
Violet has proven that she has more strength and tolerance for pain than what meets the eye and I love that she can use her intelligence to just be better than the rest. I had always believed that intelligence is far superior than strength and I think Xander understands and knows how much of a skilled rider Violet could be, if she survives.
It took me a little bit to become fully invested, but now I'm invested and I'm excited to see what happens next. I am kind of bummed that the Threshing feels like it's so far away because I really want to know what (and if) dragon Violet bonds with. I mean, she has to bond with a dragon right?