Fourth Wing: The Epitome of Lazy Writing
Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three
I said in my Booktok post that I wasn’t going to read Fourth Wing, but with the Iron Flame release drama and the criticisms thrown at Rebecca Yarros, I’ve become obsessed with this book. This is a hellfire. What the hell is happening?! There’s so much wrong surrounding Fourth Wing and I want to talk about it all.
Fast-Lit, Red Tower, and the “New Adult” Genre
Fourth Wing has been called a “fast fashion” book. Fast fashion refers to cheap clothes that are made in sweatshops and sold at a rapid speed to appeal to hot trends. Think Temu or Shein and the influencers that represent them. Once the trend dies, they scrap all their shit clothes and start chasing the new trend. People have compared Red Tower and Fourth Wing to fast fashion and, I agree to an extent. Fast fashion tends to be cheap. This shit ain’t cheap. Books are expensive. However, the shoddy quality inside and out and the rapid release schedule are very fast fashion adjacent. I want to make it clear that this is not new. Remember the 2010s supernatural craze or the 20-teens YA dystopia boom? There was a lot of fast-lit in those genres. Fourth Wing is just the Fallen of “new adult” romantic fantasy, but more corporate.
Red Tower is the shiny, brand-new imprint of Entangled Publishing. They specialize in “New Adult,” a genre that doesn’t exist. Red Tower’s first book was Fourth Wing. Rebecca Yarros was already an established author under Entangled. Rumors say that Red Tower approached her and asked her to write a romantic fantasy “new adult” series. I cannot find the source that says this. If you guys know, tell me the source and I’ll add it here. In all of the interviews I’ve read, Yarros says that she approached them with the idea. It doesn’t matter either way. It’s clear from reading the book that she was after a check. There is no love, no passion present whilst making this series. Entangled saw how popular Sarah J Maas and her ilk were so they went “We want that money” and created Red Tower. Fourth Wing was pushed hard by Red Tower. For a fantasy debut, they unprecedentedly produced over 350,000 copies on their first run. That’s insane! They knew that they had a hit on their hands so they were pumping them out real quick. With the power of social media and FOMO, Fourth Wing became one of the biggest releases in years. There’s already a TV show in the works! The 5 book-long series isn’t even complete! I was shocked when Iron Flame came out. Fourth Wing came out in May of 2023. Iron Flame came out on November 7. Six months to write a 600-page sequel is wild! I suspect that Yarros wrote books 1 and 2 at the same time but damn! Six months?! That’s Warrior Cats level of production and, much like Warrior Cats, quality is not guaranteed.
Iron Flame’s release was rocky, to say the least. Upside-down maps, upside-down text, missing pages, missing chapters, torn and beaten down corners, patchy sprayed edges, thin paper, and many, many more mistakes were present on many of the pre-orders. The state of these books is indicative of a frenzied release and production schedule. Since this is fast-lit, they had to pump out the book as fast as possible while the trend was hot. Red Tower is operating like Temu. Screw quality, shit it out, make money. I have not seen frenzied releases like this in the book world ever before. No matter the quality of the story, the book tends to be in good shape. It should be. Warriors is a soulless product too, but the books feel and look good with little to no production errors. Fans deserve better. It’s so awful that Red Tower allowed the books to be shipped in such a sorry state. They clearly do not care.
Red Tower specializes in “New Adult,” a genre that doesn’t exist. I despise this label. Marines from the YT channel My Name is Marines had a live discussion with two librarians where they attempted to define “new adult.” It’s an interesting discussion. I highly recommend it. Personally, I think “new adult” is not a valid categorization at all. Proponents say that “new adult” books are “light, easy-to-read stories that follow early 20-year-olds as they navigate the adult world.” This is bullshit because the books that are commonly called “new adult” are not about growing up and getting used to the adult world. From what I can tell, they’re explicitly sexual romances either set in college or featuring college-aged characters. Click here. Look at this. This is a curated list generated by Goodreads based on users’ shelves. Genres are nebulous of course and some books fall into more than one genre, but it’s really telling to me that fans of this “genre” seem to only shelf erotica, romances, and romantic fantasies as “new adult.” Some of these books are just YA! Throne of Glass is on this list, but that’s a YA series! It doesn’t even qualify. So what is “new adult,” really? Is it just erotica? Why separate “new adult” erotica from “adult” erotica? Is there a difference?????
If you were to look at YA sections in bookstores, libraries, or on online lists, you’d find horror, fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary, romance, memoirs, and many others because YA is not a genre. It’s an age group. YA books tend to sound “young” in the writing because they are written for teenagers. They tend to follow teen protagonists and tackle problems teenagers face. YR (young readers) is the same but for children. They have their own tropes and whatnot, but for the most part, YR/YA are age groups. Books within them are appropriate for their ages. They’re curated. “Adult” fiction is everything else. That’s it. “New adult” is not a demographic. It’s not even a genre with its own distinct tropes. It’s just adult fiction. I do not understand why this category needs to exist. Again, what’s a “new adult” book? Is it just books with 20-year-old main characters? Why do 20-year-olds need their own section? Children and teens make sense, but 20-year-olds? I get wanting to read books about navigating the scary adult world as a “new adult,” but again, that is not what these books are about! That’s not what November 9 is about! That’s not what Crescent City is about! Most fiction that comes out today features main characters in their early to mid-20s (it’s pretty rare nowadays to read a book about a character over 30) so do all of those books fall into “new adult?” Does Tampa by Alissa Nutting count as “new adult?!” It’s about a 20-something-year-old woman… doing stuff. “Adult” books are not harder to read than YA or whatever. I keep seeing this excuse and it’s the stupidest thing. Are you not looking? There are plenty of approachable “adult” books out there. Remember, “adult books” are just everything that is not YA or YR. That’s it. Cozy mysteries are “adult.” I get wanting to read a book that features a character in your age range, but why do college-aged people need their own section? What are we protecting them from? “New adult” is a marketing buzzphrase. That’s it.
Sarah J Maas
SJM. The biggest romantic fantasy author living today. She sparked this current version of dogshit romantic fantasy that we see in droves today. I’ve only read Throne of Glass and that was enough for me to never pick up a book by her again. I despise that book. Maybe one day I’ll talk about it. However, like Star Wars, she so inescapable that I basically know all about her other stuff from osmosis. And from watching Cari Can Reads plot breakdowns. SJM popularized these wide but shallow “new adult” romantic fantasies about a decade ago with A Court of Thorns and Roses. She tends to write bland, main leads who end up becoming the most powerful whatever by the end of everything. The character doesn’t even have to try. She trips, falls, and becomes a god. There are two boys- one light and good and the other dark and bad- who are stupidly powerful and stupidly gorgeous. They’re always “the most beautiful whatever Blank has ever seen.” It’s bad and boring. The main lead gets with the brooding bad boy who is abusive and weird. The plots are mostly irrelevant. It’s all about the forced, lazy-as-hell romance between the main lead and one of the boys. Whenever the plot is relevant, it’s convoluted and poorly constructed. SJM’s worldbuilding boils down to taking shit from other cultures and mutilating them to fit her weird faerie sex fantasies. Anachronistic language and slang are spouted off all of the time, completely disregarding whatever time period the story is supposed to take place in. The characters are extremely fucking rich, but they care about the poor, guys 🥹. They totally care. That’s why they hoard their wealth. So that the peasantry doesn’t dirty their hands on the money. In fact, whenever a character is supposed to be bad, they’re not really. They have a tragic past or they actually don’t kill people because they’re too good for this world. Can’t have morally gray main characters. Those are too hard to write! Lots of explicit, horrifically written sex scenes all over the place. Poor pacing across the board. SJM doesn’t have an editor so she can just shit out 700-page long books with no plot. It’s just awful… and yet, she is so popular.
I get it though, honestly. This is fun trash. Everyone has their slop and if your slop is SJM, more power to ya. I don’t respect her work at all. There are serious problems with diversity, how trauma is handled, sexism, abusive relationships, etc. People have rightfully called out these things over the years which is good. I’m not here to talk about that nor to defend her as a person or writer. Quite frankly, I don’t like SJM at all. BUT, you can tell she is having fun and that’s what I want to pinpoint. We seem to be in an ACOTAR copycat era, much like the Twilight and Hunger Games eras of yesteryear. And like usual, the copycats are worse than the originals. Fourth Wing is taking so many aspects from SJM, but they’re worse because Yarros didn’t try. Whether or not SJM puts effort into her work is up to debate, but you cannot say she’s not having a blast writing what she writes. Crescent City is just a reality TV show in book form and she knows that. You can tell that she loves what she does and that she loves her characters. I get it, SJM fans. I get it. No shame here. Like what you like. But Fourth Wing is the complete opposite. Yarros did not give a single fuck. You can tell from reading it. She and Red Tower released this trash to pander to SJM fans and those fans deserve better. This shit talks down to them. After the Iron Flame debacle, I saw a lot of Fourth Wing fans express disappointment that the second one was worse. Check out the reviews. Many fans did not like Iron Flame and I feel that they will hate the rest of them because they’re only going to get worse. This is not a series written by someone who cares about her work.
If you like SJM or these popcorn romantic fantasies, please do not read Fourth Wing. It disrespects you. You deserve better.
Also, I want to drop this video here about toxic tropes in romance. It’s mostly about Colleen Hoover, but I think it’s an important video to watch for those who enjoy these weirdly toxic love stories. Enjoy what you like, but be critical and aware.
Rebecca Yarros
I try not to reference current events a lot because I like to keep my reviews evergreen but well… I can’t ignore this. After the initial attack from Hamas on Israel, Yarros took a fence-sitting approach by vaguely saying she was anti-war and that children are not collateral damage. Here’s the thing, there is no fence sitting in this conflict. I am not going to get into the history of Israel and Palestine. That is not my place. I do not support what Hamas is doing to innocents but I do understand why they’re fighting. After being dehumanized for so long, it makes sense why they’re fighting back so it is cringe as hell that Yarros took the “but both sides” approach. Fence-sitting means you side with the powerful, not the oppressed. Maintaining neutrality in conflicts like this is harmful because you’re silently saying that you’re fine with the current/previous state of things- a status quo that is/was actively harming others within it. It’s not hurting you so why should you care, right? It’s gross. Yarros is a military wife so she’s probably blinded by America’s pro-military propaganda. I don’t know. I hope she grows out of this, learns, and does better but I have my doubts. Oh and btw, PLEASE do not start arguing with me about this. I’m just going to delete your comment. Take that shit to Twitter.
Moving on, let’s talk about her bastardizing Scottish Gaelic (gal-lick). I’m not Scottish so I’ll let this Tiktoker explain how Yarros fucked up the language. I want to talk about how lazy this is. I really hate it when authors like SJM and Yarros take languages, monsters, lore, and holidays from real-world cultures and bastardize them to fit their shit-ass fantasy books instead of taking the time to make their own lore. SJM did this with Calan Mai, a Welsh holiday that celebrates the beginning of summer. She took this real celebration and turned it into a hedonistic faerie sex ritual. Yarros took Scottish Gaelic words to “spice up” her fantasy even though she doesn’t know how to pronounce them. How?! How do you write something and you can’t even pronounce what you wrote!? Just make up your own shit at that point instead of ruining another culture’s holidays, traditions, and language. It’s so lazy. I despise laziness in writing. Writing a novel is hard and mentally draining. When authors go “eh, fuck it” and shit out some low-effort trash like Fourth Wing, it rustles my jimmies to put it lightly. If you do use another culture’s, well, culture, treat it with respect. Do extensive research and perhaps consult others within that culture for their input. Fucking try, damn you. Or you know, you can just make up your own shit. Stretch those creative muscles and all that.
I do not like Rebecca Yarros. She rubs me wrong.
Booktok is Not That Bad- Addendum
This part is an addendum to my previous post about Booktok. I find most of the discourse around it to be baseless but there are some issues I forgot to talk about.
Jessica Karl of Bloomberg wrote an article where she briefly compares TikTok to fast fashion. Now, I compared Red Tower to fast fashion because they share similar traits, but blaming the “fast-itification” of publishing on TikTok is flawed. Granted the bulk of the article is not about that, but the “TikTok is to blame for all of this” sentiment is loudly present. Booktok is just an online community. It doesn’t have that much sway on the industry believe it or not. It just seems like that because the trend cycle right now (which is “new adult” fantasy/romance, a concept that’s been around for about a decade now) is so loud and prevalent. Red Tower thinks that by operating like Temu and pandering to the “new adult” crowd, they can make a shit-ton of money with no effort or quality control. While they were proven right with Fourth Wing, their plan bit them in the ass with Iron Flame. While there are fans who like Iron Flame, I have a strong feeling that the other three books that are supposed to come out will only get worse and worse, pushing away the majority of the fans. The quality of the story is subjective. The quality of the physical book is not. A horribly printed book is a horribly printed book no matter who you ask.
As I said in my Booktok post, Booktok is massive and varied. It’s not a monolith so it’s downright offensive honestly to blame all of publishing’s greed on people who just like to read. This is capitalism trying to make money by quickly shitting out garbage to appeal to a trend while it’s still hot. All businesses do this. Publishers are pandering to “new adult” fans who are on Booktok, not Booktok as a whole. Booktube (and probably Bookstergram) led to the rise of SJM and “new adult,” not Booktok. Booktok just made it bigger. Once the “new adult” romantic fantasy trend inevitably dies, Red Tower is fucked. You may have a few supporters left behind but like all trends, they fizzle out with time. Now, I do want to address that yes, the consumer dictates whether or not a product is successful. SJM got popular because people bought her stuff. Same with Fourth Wing. Vote with your wallet and all that. However, this does not mean that people who buy bad books are encouraging publishers to only release bad books. It encourages them to release books that fall into whatever genre that’s popular, but it’s not making them only release one genre. Detractors are solely blaming consumers for the supposed deluge of poorly written books which I find deeply stupid. Bad books have always been a thing. They’re not getting worse. They’re at the same level they’ve always been. It just seems like every new book that’s popular on TikTok is terrible because those are the only ones people talk about. Negativity bias and all that. Besides, publishing is an expensive process. Cranking out crowd-pleasing stuff keeps these companies in business thus allowing them to release other, more varied stories that appeal to other people. I said this before: it is bad business to just focus on one fleeting group of people. The business won’t last much longer once they move on especially if you’re a massive publisher. Perhaps a small indie press will be fine, but those are not the ones detractors usually talk about when it comes to this discussion.
People will like what they like no matter what. There’s no such thing as an objectively great book. Good writing is extremely subjective. There will always be someone who disagrees. Always. The opposite is not entirely true with poorly written material, however. There are objectively bad books, like Crystal Keepers by JM Arlen. In my opinion, books are only objectively bad if they’re incomprehensible like Antigua: The Land of Fairies, Wizards, and Heroes or deeply offensive like Save the Pearls. No publisher worth their salt is ever going to release a book as bad as Crystal Keepers or Antigua. That’s why they’re self-published. Fourth Wing is bad, but not that bad. Y’all have not experienced a truly bad book and you never will if you stick with traditional publishing. Booktokers, as far as I know, are not encouraging publishers to release incomprehensible trash. Even if they are, trad-pubs would not do it.
The people who like Fourth Wing are not ruining anything. They deserve better and I hope they realize soon that Red Tower doesn’t care about them, but they’re not killing the entire industry. This sentiment speaks volumes about how blinded by negativity people are and how narrow their scope of everything is. Do you have any idea how many books get released daily? There are so many damn books out there and not all of them can be as dogshit as Fourth Wing. If you think every book that comes out today is poorly written, then I feel sorry for you. You’re inevitably going to run out of books to read because you’re too far up your own ass to read new stuff because you think ALL OF IT sucks. I know I’m being mean here, but I despise this logic. I can’t stand people who say stupid stuff like “oh I only read/watch old stuff because all the new stuff is bad.” Bro, you’re just announcing to the world that you’re incredibly ignorant, elitist, stupid, and narrow-minded. Not every single book, movie, video game, whatever before 2020 was good. There was trash back then too! I genuinely hate people like this. Don’t talk to me if you think like this. You’re not worth my time.
People are spreading negativity about one of the most diverse, and accessible entertainment mediums we have. And they’re blaming other people for these (supposed) issues and not the soulless businesses who are doing these things! That pisses me off. Let people read what they like. Stop trying to lessen the amount of stories that are being told just because you want publishers to cater to your definition of good. I hate this idea that just because a few of these books are bad (and I do mean a few) we should shame those who enjoy them. This is sickening to me. We can all be duped by marketing. You’ve probably contributed to this supposed “bad book precedent” at least once. If you bought Harry Potter, you did this! It’s awful to shame people for enjoying what they enjoy (especially when what they enjoy is not hurting anyone). The publishing industry is doing what it’s always done for decades: cater to a wide audience. You will find good books if you look. It’s not hard.
The situation with Iron Flame is a special case. Red Tower’s rapid release schedule fucked them over. They released books that were poorly made and they were called out for it. Booktok did not force Red Tower to release these books in the state that they were in. Red Tower did that themselves. Regardless of what you think about the text within, the outward book should not have been in that state. There are fans out there who laughed off the errors and I agree that they shouldn’t have. They received a bad product. Some mistakes can be laughed off like an upside-down map, but missing chapters? Upside-down text? No. That’s unacceptable. Don’t let shit like this slide because if you do you’ll only encourage shoddier physical products. This is something I’ve seen detractors say and I 100% agree. Call out bullshit when you see it. But, again, Booktok did not birth this. They didn’t ask for this! Booktok is just a reading community. No one asks to be marketed to.
I’ve said in my old post that the bad editing problem that people complain about is an issue with the authors, not the publishers. Once your book is in the hands of a publishing editor, it’s done. Period. It’s finished. As the author, you should have hired a developmental editor way before you sent your book off to an agent. Publishers release what they think will sell regardless of quality. I’m starting to think people are simply confusing publishing editors with developmental editors therefore they assume publishing editors aren’t doing their jobs well when they are. They are different types of editors, guys. I talked about “the editing problem” in detail in my last post.
If publishers were to gatekeep who got published based on some random’s arbitrary definition of good, we would not have as many stories as we have now. This could lead to marginalized voices being even more snuffed out. This is why I hate this talking point! It’s a slippery slope you’re trying to go down. Unless they’re writing pure hate speech or horrific disinformation, authors should be able to have their stories told regardless of quality. It’s already difficult getting traditionally published in the first place so why do you want to make it harder? The reading community, for the most part, is pretty damn good at sniffing out bullshit and holding authors and publishers accountable whenever they do fuck up. Be critical of what you read and who you are reading. We really don’t need publishers to hold our hands and shield us from “the bad books.” Build up your media literacy skills, read what you like, and speak out when you see harmful shit.
There are so many (oh so many) independent presses and imprints all over the place, all specializing in various things and not all of them adhere to trends. Some of them may offer developmental editing services, but as far as I know about traditional publishing, most don’t. If you guys know of publishing houses big or small who do developmentally edit author’s manuscripts, please let me know and give me a source. I’ll add it down below. My point is, that editing issues happen and have been happening for years, way before Booktok existed so why are we blaming a social media community for authors’ laziness?
I don’t even like defending traditional publishers. I’m more of an indie fan. I’m just sick and tired of this “Booktok bad” rhetoric. There’s more mediocrity coming out of the trad-pub world than good or bad books. I rather read a shit book than a mediocre one. Since book publishing is a business, companies are going to prioritize money over creativity hence why there’s so much mediocrity and trend-chasing. Every now and then, I read a great traditionally published book, but only after I’ve done extensive vetting beforehand to determine if it was worth my time. I don’t normally vet indie stuff because indie books are super cheap. However, I recommend you guys to vet trad-pub books and indies. Read/watch reviews and whatnot before you buy them. Or y’know… use the library.
With all of that being said, I do have problems with Booktok and social media in general. Social media encourages overconsumption for clout which is a problem. Prominent reviewers would bulk-buy books in stacks of 10 or 20 and show off these buys to their audience. These mass buys are called “book hauls.” This was (and still is) a huge thing on Booktube as well. Youtuber According to Alina made a video discussing Booktok’s overconsumption [Click]. In it, they mention how TikTok’s algorithm encourages its users to post every day to be seen. Unless you’re some sort of god, no one can read a book a day and make a thoughtful review on it. So, they resort to book hauls and one-sentence reviews of books they skimmed because those are easier to crank out. Booktube is the same way though not as bad.
I like how Alina discusses how this haul content is bad for everyone. Creators burn themselves out trying to appease the algorithm gods and audiences feel alienated because they think they need to read and own 50 books to seem like readers. Reading a lot is seen as a virtue to some people so to realize that they cannot afford to bulk buy books makes them feel morally inferior. There’s also this competitive side to all of it where, in order to be seen as an “avid reader,” you need to read all 50 of those books in a month. This is impossible unless you’re some sort of godlike entity. I’ve seen many people buy 40+ books that they’re never going to read and I’ve seen people sit in front of bookshelves overflowing with books that they never read. Books are just tools for appearances instead of entertainment. And, after a while, these same creators make “unhaul” videos where they get rid of their dragon horde because obviously, they weren’t going to read all that. This sucks for everyone involved.
You don’t need to sit on a throne of books like Krimson Rouge to be a reader. Books are expensive and they take up a lot of space. Libraries are wonderful so use them please. It’s incredibly wasteful to bulk buy shit you’re not going to use. Buy books that you want to own. Don’t impulse buy. Make sure that the book you’re going to get is something you want to own. If not, donate it. Sometimes you pick up a bad book and that sucks, but it sucks even more if you randomly buy 20 bad books at once. Avoid that trap. Buy books for cheap! Go to used bookstores or thrift stores and find stuff there. That’s what I do. I also use ThriftBooks and Halfpriced Books for online buying. Be smart with your money, guys. Reading is fun. You should get books because you like their stories.
TikTok, and “influencer” culture in general, has a problem with commodifying hobbies, overbuying junk, and wasting material. From what I can tell, clout, FOMO, algorithms, and money are what drive these behaviors. I hate this. I’ve always hated this. Don’t read to improve your Goodreads stats. Don’t read to appease the algorithm. Don’t read to impress your friends. Read because you enjoy reading. Do stuff because you enjoy it. If you can make a living doing it that’s cool, but don’t let it get to a point where you feel forced to do it. You, first and foremost, should enjoy what you do. Be smart and have fun.
Massive book hauls suck. Consumerism to this extreme degree sucks. Do a library haul if you’re gonna do a haul. The overconsumption and commodification of books is a negative to all of us. Booktok and Booktube promote these behaviors and that should be criticized. Reading is not a virtue and books are more than products (most of them, at least). If you’re just reading a book to show off, you’re not reading. There’s a lot more I can say but watch Alina’s video.
I do want to comment on the end of that video though where they talk about the “Tiktokification” of literature. They fear that literature may become homogenized and authors may have to rely on TikTok to get their books out there. Bytedance, TikTok’s parent company, is thinking about getting into publishing. If they do, they’ll have control over who gets to be seen on TikTok. Now, I can see this happening but I don’t see it succeeding. Writing is too intimate to be commodified to such a large extent. After a while, people will get sick and tired of the same thing over and over and, as the quality suffers, people will leave and go back to reading books written by people who give a damn. Again, look at what happened to Iron Flame. No one likes lazy shit like this. Yarros’ fantasy series is only going to get worse because she doesn’t give a damn about it. There’s already a sizeable amount of people who dislike Red Tower’s antics so yeah… I just don’t see literature as a whole becoming homogenized. Maybe more imprints will try but not the whole industry. Art can’t be art if it’s all the same. Plus I think American publishers will make a huge stink about Bytedance’s publishing house if they ever make one. No one likes Bytedance, especially the old fucks who run America’s government.
I’m going to put this video by Marines here because I like her take. It’s very validating tbh to know I’m not the only one with these thoughts. A lot of this Booktok backlash reminds me of the Twilight and Booktube eras when people bitched about how the industry was dying because of them. They didn’t kill anything and neither will Booktok. I just think it’s sad that Booktokers are getting so much hate for simply enjoying books on TikTok. Who are they hurting? It’s horrible to blame people for problems they didn’t ask for. Anyway, Marines does talk about how Red Tower’s shenanigans may influence other publishers to do similar quick, but pricey releases and yeah I totally agree, but again, I just don’t see it overtaking the entire industry. People will get pissed if they keep dropping $40 on books that only get worse and worse inside and out. That’s the weird thing about comparing this industry to fast fashion. Fast fashion is cheap. Special edition books are not. Hype alone can’t keep you afloat for long in most cases. Anyway, this post is getting too long and I haven’t even talked about Fourth Wing!
EDIT 4/15/24: After much reflecting, I no longer agree with the notion that Red Tower is operating like Temu or any other fast fashion company. On a surface, the rapid release schedules and the shoddy quality of the product itself (ignoring the text of the book) do seem comparable, but on a deeper level this comparison is flawed and quite frankly stupid. Red Tower is doing what the rest of the industry does, release trendy books to make money. The shit-ass quality of Iron Flame’s pre-orders is unacceptable though and it is still indicative of a frenzied printing process on Red Tower’s end. Red Tower still deserved to be raked across the coals for that. However, they’re not Temu or Shein and we really shouldn’t compare them. Fast fashion is way WAY more harmful to human life and to the environment than a shitty book. A bad book == human rights violations. When you buy from Red Tower, you’re getting a shoddy book. When you buy from Temu, you’re supporting a vile industry that abuses their workers and actively harms the environment. Comparing the two is cringe. Point blank period. I’m honestly embarrassed I pushed this dogshit.
That Bloomberg article is bad. It’s more about Yarros’ misuse of Scottish Gaelic, but since people only read the headlines, it caused this bad take to take-off. Like I keep saying throughout this piece, the book industry is working as intended. I think people simply don’t know how the publishing industry works, but they’re so desperate to be smarter than the “BookTok girlies” who fell for Red Tower’s admittedly phenomenal marketing tactics that they spread this ignorant bullshit. And I fell for it too, but I was wrong hence this add-on. So yeah… be aware that I no longer stand by this. The publishing industry is working as intended, Red Tower is not Temu, books =/= fast fashion, rapidly released books have existed for decades, but people are just now discovering it and are losing their minds, and I was wrong.
Watch this video. I am so glad I stumbled across this. It’s not just me who thinks the backlash toward Booktok is reactionary and illogical! She also goes into deep detail about how the industry actually works and it’s many problems. It’s enlightening. Give it a watch. Plus read my Booktok post. This post is a sequel to that one after all so read that one too if ya want. I repeat what I said in that one in this one, but… please read it anyway. I’m proud of it and no one reads it :(
Hey all, I have a full review of the entire book (linked above as part two). Read that instead. It’s better than this.
Fourth Wing Review
Author: Rebecca Yarros Genre: “New Adult” Romantic Fantasy Year of Publication: 2023 Pages: 498 (e-book)
Writing: 1/10 Plot: 1/10 Characters: 1/10 Creativity: 1/10
Overall: 1/10
Spoiler warning I guess…
The Plot: This trash fire is about Violet Sorrengail, the daughter of General Sorrengail. She is forced to join the dragon rider army because her mom said so. Violet supposedly has EDS, though it is never explicitly stated in the book. Every now and then, Violet will complain about how fragile her body is while she’s doing backflips and shit. This is the only time I’m going to reference EDS because it doesn’t matter in the book so it doesn’t matter here.
The dragon rider military school/bootcamp encourages their recruits to kill each other to “weed out the weak.” For some reason, they allow the children of murdered rebels to become dragon riders, the most exalted unit in the military and in the country. Okay sure, let’s just give the rebels power. Violet is afraid that the hunky brooding bad boy Xaden Riorson, son of the dead rebel leader, is going to kill her one day because her mom killed his dad even though he does not show any interest in killing her at all throughout the book. Violet’s childhood friend Dain is always fretting over her and tries over and over to get her out of the murderous dragon school, but Violet refuses to do so even though she doesn’t like being in the dragon school. Xander does the exact same shit Dain does but she’s cool with him because he’s hot I guess. Blah blah blah, Violet bonds with two dragons because she’s so special, and blah blah blah kill me. I could not finish this hunk of shit! I got 42% of the way through before I gave up. There is no plot. This book is 500 pages of side quests. I know from reading spoilers that the rebels are the good guys, Violet’s dead brother is alive, Violet gets stupid time-stopping and lightning-casting powers, and she fucks Xander or whatever his name is. This book sucks. I knew it was bad going in, but no one told me it was so boring! I read this thinking it would be a fun bad read like The Dragon War trilogy, but no! It’s just boring! Nothing happens!
The story doesn’t even ease you in. It just starts. There’s no inciting incident. As soon as the book starts, Violet is sent off to murder school against her will immediately. We don’t even get a chance to learn who she is, what her life was like before this point, what her relationship with her family is like, what she thinks about the government, and how the world works. Nothing. We’re just dumped straight into the deep end without a life jacket. No effort. Yarros didn’t even try.
The Writing: The cringe alone took 50 years off my life. The characters talk like 13-year-olds, the prose is juvenile, there are run-on sentences everywhere, hardly anything is described (and when they are the descriptions are vague and half-assed), hardly anything is explained, the tone is all over the place, and the diction does not match the setting.
“My chest heaves with exertion, my lungs burning by the time I reach the stone corridor leading to General Sorrengail’s office. This is what six months of intense physical training has given me- the ability to barely climb six flights of stairs with a thirty pound pack.
I’m so fucked.”
Cringey and wordy.
“Mom braces her hands on the immaculate surface of her desk and leans in slightly as she stands, looking us over with narrowed, appraising eyes that mirror the dragons’ carved into the furniture’s massive legs.”
Clunky as hell. How do you intentionally write a sentence this bad? How? Teach me.
“Mira’s never done arguing with Mom, and the frustrating thing about it is that Mom has always respected her for it. Double standard for the win.”
“Double standard for the win…”
“What. The. Hell. My fingernails bite into my palms as I curl my hands into fists.”
What the hell is “Hell” in this universe if they do not believe in any kind of hell? They have a religion but it’s completely skipped over because Yarros didn’t give a shit. Do they have a Hell? I have no idea and neither does Yarros, I’m assuming.
“‘She’s batshit crazy,’ Mira says…”
“Batshit crazy…”
“Hell, the riders have their own citadel. Pretentious, egotistical fucks.”
…
“Envy clenches my chest.”
How can an emotion clench your chest? Do you mean “Envious, I clenched my fists” or something?
“‘That’s bullshit,’ I seethe.”
“I seethe.” What a clunky tag, man. You don’t seethe out loud! Seethe means “to suffer violent internal excitement.” You seethe in silence. You don’t “seethe” in your speech. Good lord!
“‘…With a name like Sorrengail, I bet you were the first to volunteer this year.’
‘I was more like volun-told.’”
“Volun-told” That’s not even clever. It doesn’t make sense!
“He’s tall, with wind blown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong, curved and covered with tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even- everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they looked carved, and yet they’re so astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth… Even the diagonal scar that bisects his left eyebrow and marks the top corner of his cheek only makes him hotter. Flaming hot. Scorching hot. Gets-you-into-trouble-and-you-like-it level of hot.”
This paragraph is horrendously written. Let’s break it down.
“He’s tall, with wind blown black hair and dark brows.”
Okay fine.
“The line of his jaw is strong, curved and covered with tawny skin and dark stubble…”
So he only has skin on his jaw? That’s horrifying.
“…and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow.”
“Ripple?” Ripple like water? That’s horrifying! Yarros!
“And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even- everything about him is.”
1) I hate his eye color. Black eyes with flecks of gold. That’s disgusting and too fanfic-y for my liking. What is he? A grown-up Black Eyed Child? I hate it. 2) Contrast to what? What do his eyes contrast against? His face? His body? WHAT? What about his damn eyes is so startling and contrasting? What the fuck are you talking about, Yarros!?
“His features are so harsh that they looked carved, and yet they’re so astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth…”
I genuinely cannot picture what this fucker is supposed to look like. In my mind, he’s a creepy, skinless black-eyed child with muscles that ripple around like water whenever he moves with the face of a Greek statue. Okay. Sexy.
“Even the diagonal scar that bisects his left eyebrow and marks the top corner of his cheek only makes him hotter. Flaming hot. Scorching hot. Gets-you-into-trouble-and-you-like-it level of hot.”
1) I don’t like the fetishization of scars. It rubs me wrong. 2) What in the hell is that last half? Flaming hot like Cheetos? Fuck this paragraph. All of these are from Chapter One by the way. The cringe starts as soon as you open the book.
Oh and don’t worry. I have more.
“Scraping the rain from my face with the leather on my shoulder, I glance back to see where Jack is.”
Ch 2
“Scraping?!” How the fuck do you scrape water from your face? Does Yarros not know what scrape means?
Violet: “‘I’m supposed to be up here obviously… Don’t worry- if someone sees us, I’ll just say I was overcome with lust at first sight and couldn’t wait another second to get you out of your pants.’
Dain: ‘Ever the smart ass.’”
Ch 3
…
Xaden: “‘And I bet you feel pretty badass right now, don’t you first years?’”
Ch 3
“Badass…”
“At least one of us is getting a few much-needed orgasms.”
Ch 4
WHAT?
There’s so much. I have over 200 highlights and I only read half of the book. The writing is just that bad. I am not sure what time period this book is supposed to be set in. I’m picturing modern day without technology for my own sake because I cannot handle the idea of this being set in a typical ye olden fantasy world. If that was the intent, then… I don’t even know. I cannot comprehend this level of half-assery. Yarros needs to pay for her crimes against fantasy. The diction here does not match the world and Yarros doesn’t even try to make it match! These people talk like how a 60-year-old thinks 2023 teenagers talk! It reeks of “How do you do fellow kids.” Remember that this book is not a YA. This was written for adults. I find that insulting frankly. I want to read adults who talk like adults. What the fuck is this shit?!
Speaking of “fuck” and “shit,” the swearing is incredibly juvenile and out of place. The characters swear like they just discovered swear words. It breaks the tone of every scene. And because of this lazy garbage, all the characters talk exactly the same way making their dialogue indistinguishable from each other! Even the dragons talk in quips and snips. These characters keep saying the word “hell” when they don’t believe in a “hell.” Why?! Yarros didn’t even try to make up her own slang!
The Worldbuilding: This is some of the laziest shit I’ve seen in a long while. Firstly, the deadly war college. I despise the idea of a war college, for one. I don’t like academic settings in general. I find it boring. I don’t want to read about school! However, I am fascinated by fantasy militaries and how they function. Give me boot camp, not school. The dragon school (whatever its name was. I don’t remember nor do I care) is not only dull and uncreative, it doesn’t make sense. The recruits are allowed to kill one another which is so fucked up. Why in the world would they allow such intense animosity to form within their military? The narrative keeps saying that the killing weeds out the weak, but what that actually does is encourage distrust amongst the soldiers. As a military unit, you want loyalty and dedication to the unit, to each other, and to the country. So, by letting your goddamn warriors kill each other for no reason is going to fuck up your unity! Psychopaths like Jack, Violet’s number-one bully, are the real liabilities. You don’t want crazed maniacs like him in your army. They’re gonna wreck shit!
Secondly, the recruits are allowed to fuck each other. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Allowing that causes SO many problems. The only reason why Yarros allowed this is because she wanted Violet and Xan to have sex because sex = romance I suppose.
Thirdly, we don’t see the recruits learn anything cool or important. Granted I only got halfway through but from what I’ve heard, nothing cool happens after the point I stopped. During the chapters I read, all we got were scenes of hand-to-hand combat training, a few exposition dumps set in a classroom, and a scant number of dragon scenes. We don’t see the recruits learn how to mount dragons. We don’t see them learn how to hold onto dragons. We don’t see them practice formations or discuss aerial battle strategies. Most of the pages are eaten up by boring as hell “romance” drama. It’s lame.
Fourthly, rebel children are forced to join the riders. Why in the hell would the Empire or whatever they’re called (I don’t remember nor do I care) allow rebels’ children to achieve that much power and influence? The idea is that they may die during training but why don’t you just kill them outright? Xandra, Imogen, and others were able to rise above and become full dragon riders. I know from spoilers that Xad was working with the rebels all along which is no surprise. The evil government just made their enemies stronger.
Fifthly, the dragons. We are told that there have been fewer dragons willing to bond with a human but the war school’s conscription rate has been steady. Why are they conscripting so many recruits when dragons are scarce? What the fuck is the point? The dragons seem to dislike humans and find them inferior so why in the world are they allowing them to ride on their backs? We are told that dragons are allied with humans to protect their home from other magical creatures. Humans create wards and the dragons channel their magic through the wards to create barriers around their home. Why couldn’t the dragons make their own wards? Couldn’t they have drawn the symbols themselves? They don’t need humans to make them. Also, riders ride bareback on the dragons. They don’t have saddles. I really don’t need to explain why not being strapped down in a saddle while riding a flying creature is a bad idea. It makes no sense for them to not have saddles from the jump. Violet gets one because she’s special.
Sixthly, the magic. There is no magic system here. It’s just stupid, contrived bullshit. Dragons give their riders powers and the powers range from controlling the weather to unlocking doors. There is no consistency or rule set. Yarros went “eh, I’ll give this character shadow magic because fuck it.”
Seventhly(?), the war. I don’t know why they’re fighting. I think there are some magical creatures who want the land’s magic, I guess. I don’t know. Yarros didn’t care enough to make it make sense. Instead of weaving lore throughout the story, she just dumps it on us in a few early scenes and expects us to remember it while she bombards us with filler until it’s relevant again at the end.
Eightly, these dragon riders do not use bows. In fact, I don’t think archery is ever mentioned. These dragon riders are taught how to swing swords and throw daggers. When will they ever be off their dragons to fight in a melee? Why aren’t they taught how to shoot arrows? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
And lastly, let’s not forget about how Yarros took words from a culture she’s not a part of and slapped them into her world to make it more exotic because she can’t be fucked to make up her own shit. Laziness is the word of the day here.
The Characters: The worst thing. I loathe the characters. Violet is an obnoxious, passive, and flippant character who behaves like a 15-year-old. We are told that she’s smart but we’re not shown. For some reason, she bonds with two dragons- something that has never happened before. Plus these two dragons are the rarest, most powerful, and the most badass out of all the dragons. I despise the term “Mary Sue” as it is too vague, and doesn’t work when applied to non-fanfic work, but… Violet is a Mary Sue. She has done nothing to deserve all the good things that happen to her. I really hate how she only kills one guy (Jack) while in death school. We can’t have our main character be morally gray. She needs to be completely clean and morally superior. This reminds me of Celeana from Crown of Midnight, the second book of the Throne of Glass series. Instead of doing her job, Celeana tells her targets to run away because I guess she’s too morally good to kill even though she’s a fucking assassin. This is cowardly shit. Yarros is too scared to make her character a bad person so she has her kill the one guy who is utterly unhinged even though Violet is trapped in a school that encourages its students to kill one another. It doesn’t make sense in-universe for Violet to be a partial pacifist.
Violet is very passive. Passive main characters can be fine if done well, but in this case, Violet just sits around and shit happens to her. It makes her boring to follow because she doesn’t have any goals. She was forced to join the military by her mom which she resents, but when Dain offers her a way to escape she doubles down on her mother’s decision. That doesn’t make sense to me. Why is she still here if she hates it here so much? What’s stopping her from leaving? Her mom? Just say no! You’re an adult Violet! I get that her mom is demanding but she’s not holding anything above Violet’s head to keep her there. Violet has no reason to stay. She has zero motivation! She’s boring!
Okay, so Xaden. He is your typical brooding bad-boy love interest. He love/hates Violet, he broods a lot, and he’s a rebel. That’s it. I find the “bad boy” trope to be overdone, boring, toxic, and indicative of a poor writer. I don’t think it has ever been done well, even when it was fresh. It’s a terrible trope down to its roots. Romances are deceptively hard to write. In order to have a decent romance, you- the author- have to know your characters intimately. You have to know exactly why your characters like each other, how well they work together, why they work well together, what makes them fall in love, how compatible their traits are, etc. You have to know these people you created and write their interactions in a way that convinces your audience that these people do belong together. That’s hard. It takes a lot of skill, introspection, and work to do it well. Some people can write romance effortlessly, but some can’t and need to work on it. Lazy authors, however, don’t even try. Instead of attempting to convince the audience of their pair’s love, lazy authors instead make both parties horny as hell and lie to the audience that they’re in love. Lust is easy to write, love is not. Lust =/= Love. Yarros doesn’t understand this it seems. Instead of showing Xanny Boy and Violet falling in love, she instead chose to show off how horny they are for each other because that’s easier to write. Laziness is the word of the day.
The other characters are not worth talking about because they have no personalities or presence in the story. There’s Dain, Violet’s overprotective lover boy, but I don’t care about him because fuck this book I’m done.
Don’t read this. Yarros did not care about this trash and you shouldn’t either. Read books written by people who give a damn.
I want to end this by stating that this is not the end of the world. The publishing industry is not dying or whatever. It’s working as intended. Don’t like that? Read indie. This is just one, albeit a very loud, case of soulless corporatism. I wanted to talk about this whole thing because I found it fascinating. Fourth Wing is a complete waste of paper. It is the epitome of laziness in book form. Do not read it.
Sources:
Red Tower: Nerd Daily
Iron Flame misprints: Insider, MSN
Rebecca Yarros interviews: Goodreads, Fanbase Press, New York Times
The Misuse of Gaelic/RY’s statements on Hamas and the conflict: The Mary Sue TikTok 1, TikTok 2, Distractify
Other: Youtube 1, Youtube 2, Youtube 3, Youtube 4, Youtube 5, Bloomberg
