To be honest, I had never heard of this series until about a year ago. When I heard it involved dragons and dragon riders, I was like…I’m in! I’m a huge fan of Daenerys and Drogon from The Game of Thrones – so this sounded right up my alley.
According to my Goodreads account, I started this book on January 27, 2025 and finished it on January 13, 2026. Please let me clarify. This has nothing to do with this book. I’m one of those types of people who likes to start things, put it down, and then proceed to forget about it. This happens in all aspects of my life. I’m a procrastinator too. It’s a terrible combination. (This is why I didn’t post on Watch. Read. Write. from February 2025 until January 2026 too.) I just wanted to clear this up before I continue with this book review.
As with everything else I post on here, I write and speak spoilers, so if you haven’t read this book yet, and don’t want to know, stop reading this post now. I will spoil it!
Fourth Wing begins with an introduction to the world of Navarre, a fantasy world where dragons and humans live side by side (kind of like horses and humans in our world). We find out they’re fighting a six hundred year war – hence the need for a military school called, Basgiath War College. It is at this college where most of the plot takes place. It kind of reminded me of Divergent by Veronica Roth in a way.
The heroine is Violet Sorrengail. She is the daughter of the General of Navarre. You’d think this would give her some perks…but no. Sounds like (to me) her mother (the general) hates her. Violet was meant to be a Scribe in the Scribe Quadrant, like her father, but her mom signed her up to be in the Fourth Quadrant (dragon rider) instead. Her brother, Brennan passed away in battle a number of years ago, leaving Violet’s family in shreds. Her mother LOVED him and no matter what Violet did, she just couldn’t measure up to him, in her mother’s eyes. He had been a dragon rider himself, and a brilliant one at that.
At school, Violet has to learn how to fight and do all kinds of death-defying feats in order to graduate. Failure is death and believe me, there’s a lot of that in this book.
During her training, she meets a young man, Xaden Riorson, who has a good reason to hate her mother. He’s the leader of the Fourth Wing, and the son of a deceased leader of a group of rebels (Violet’s mother is responsible for Xaden’s father’s death.). He’s one of her instructors. Of course, because he’s aware of who her mom is, he pushes her hard. He even nicknames her Violence or Violent, of which I approve. Those are really cool nicknames, in my opinion.
Each rider is bonded to a dragon. The dragons get to pick who they bond with. If the dragons don’t like the student, they burn them alive. And get this…if a dragon dies the human they’re bonded to dies too. But if the human dies, the dragon lives and moves on to another rider. This gives the dragons a higher ranking in the hierarchy between dragons and humans.
The students who are rejected by the dragons are burned alive which gives me House of the Dragon vibes when Rhaenrya is trying to find riders to ride the dragons into war in season two. (I have not read Fire & Blood yet.)
Violet is lucky enough to not only be bonded with one dragon, she gets two. One dragon is named Tairn. He’s very old and one of the biggest dragons in size. He hadn’t had a rider he bonded with in years. He’s like a grumpy old man, but in dragon form. He chooses Violet because she tried defending Andarna, who is a child dragon, who he’s very protective of. She’s smaller and golden, who also chooses Violet for trying to protect her. Andarna can stop time, though adult dragons don’t have powers of their own. It’s only after they choose the human they bond with, do powers show up, and the human is the one who gets the powers. Tairn gives Violet the power to control lightning, but it takes awhile for the power to reveal itself.
Tairn is bonded to Sgaeyl, another dragon, who just so happens to be bonded to Xaden. (Xaden’s power is to control shadows.) Which means Tairn and Sgaeyl can’t be apart for very long and everyone (Tairn, Sgaeyl, Xaden, Violet and Andarna) can read each other’s minds. Think of one of those family group texts but without phones or moving your mouths. Sometimes their exchanges are hilarious and relatable.
Sexual tension arises between Xaden and Violet until they can’t fight their feelings anymore. It’s a from-enemies-to-lovers trope, basically. Things get so physical between them they destroy furniture. They better not buy IKEA, because I don’t think it would hold up.
As the story continues, we find out the truth about the war. Things aren’t really as they seem. We find out mythical creatures are actually real, and guess what? They’re fighting these creatures in the war and they’re very hard to kill. Friends die. They get injured. There’s so much destruction.
This book is exciting and suspenseful. I couldn’t put the book down during the action parts in particular.
But the ending…wow. Talk about a cliffhanger! I am not going to spoil the cliffhanger because it’s just so mind blowing! 🤯 After I finished this book, I quickly started the next book, Iron Flame, just to find out what happened!
I’m glad I don’t have to wait to read the second book in the series because ugh, cliffhangers suck. To all who had to wait, I salute you. I know how hard that is.
Overall, it’s a good book! A very fast read. Interesting characters, who make you laugh and cry. I found myself completely immersed into this world. I can see it playing out like a movie onscreen. I couldn’t put the book down at times.
My rating for Fourth Wing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
If you have read this book, what did you think? Please feel free to share your thoughts below!
Until next time… ✌🏻
Watch. Read. Write. 