The YA Formula: N + 1 + s'mores
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Fourth Wing
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Spoiler: Yes, I’ll be reading the next books…..take my gripes with that in mind, please, no hate mail or death threats. And so we begin . . .
Well book lovers everywhere, I have completed the journey that millions of other WINE moms have bravely trudged through over the last couple of years. A journey spoken of in hushed, reverent tones, once compared to climbing Mount Everest, witnessing the Northern Lights, enlightenment without hallucinogens, or more apt to the themes of the book, that orgasm that literally and figuratively blows your mind. And oh boy, did it live up to the hype. Please imagine the heaviest possible sarcasm dripping from every word of that sentence.
I just turned 40, so let me offer a few soft admissions to properly frame this review. I genuinely am a softy (no really, I am . . .despite some of you who know me probably shaking your head thinking "that's a lie"). I will tear up at almost any coming-of-age romance story if you give me even a halfway competent emotional arc. I also like dragons. Maybe not with the feral devotion of some friends who recommended this book to me, but yes, dragons are cool. Flying lizards that spit things that burn, poison, melt, freeze, and otherwise ruin your day. What is not to love. It is basically the adult version of a four-year-old with a magnifying glass lighting things on fire. Cool.
Now, add mage style powers for hot young adults, sprinkle in danger, rivalry, and destiny, and on paper, I am absolutely in. This. Sounds. Like. My. Jam. Truly.
Get ready for me obnoxiously punctuating sentences. It's in light of Yarros who loves separating sentences into single words with periods. This is not a stylistic flourish. It is indicative of the level of intellectual rigor Yarros brings to this entire endeavor. Before diving into the substance of my opinion, let’s pause and appreciate this absolute gem.
Where oh where to begin. Let me try something rare for me and keep this succinct. It is absolutely no surprise that this book was written by someone who feels compelled to inform millions of strangers that she is “blissfully married” to her “hero,” whom she loves and adores, much like she loves and adores all military heroes everywhere, while also taking a moment to brag about being a mom of six but of course she’s just in “survival mode” . . . yeah ok.[1]
Am I supposed to applaud. Stand. Salute. Request an autograph. Not because she is a bestselling author, mind you, but because she has accomplished the astonishing feat of being married and having children, something only millions upon millions of other people have also managed to pull off. Cheers. To. You. Truly.
I am willing to bet real money that this same person is or has been the president of the PTA, organizes color coded bake sales, and owns at least one inspirational wall sign purchased from Hobby Lobby. With that perfectly predictable energy established, predictability that I can 100% say flows throughout the book beginning on page 1, we can finally begin the review.
Before I go fully agro, which, trust me, you are mere paragraphs away from experiencing, I should admit there were two or three genuinely good scenes, mostly toward the end, that hooked me just enough to ensure I will almost certainly read the rest of the series. Credit where credit is due.
That said, this book is not merely flawed. It is significantly flawed. And I mean significant. Please read that word slowly. Maybe twice.
Three things became painfully obvious within the first chapter, presented here in no particular order.
First, Yarros does me the courtesy of setting expectations extremely low immediately. Fifth grade subject matter paired with a first grade writing style. Thank you. I appreciate honesty in marketing, even when it is accidental.
Second, the smut level was clearly never going to meet my ChatGPT calibrated expectations. At this stage, we are hovering around a firm D minus. We are talking teenage fanfic energy with the literary sophistication of a scented Bath and Body Works candle named Forbidden Flame.
Here is why, with a little context.
Set the scene. Mortal generational enemies. One is a beautiful, very horny twenty year old heroine. The other is a brooding male hunk who is obviously dangerous, misunderstood, and destined to ruin her life in a sexy way.
And here is the line we are given to convey all of that tension.
Flaming hot. Scorching hot. Gets you into trouble and you like it level of hot.
Now, at this point in the book, spoiler alert because nothing here matters, our heroine genuinely believes one of them will eventually kill the other. But sure, who does not get turned on by a little existential danger. Am. I. Right. See how annoying that is.
Even assuming Yarros herself does not get nearly enough, she could still do better than this low effort PG level thirst. Especially when we are reminded that the protagonist has only slept with two men, yet is already mentally drafting her next solo fantasy session starring enemy muscle man. Add in the author’s ongoing struggle with basic English mechanics and punctuation abuse, and we are officially in real winner territory.
Third, the pièce de résistance, the punctuation stunt. There are certain inexcusable shortcuts an author can take. I thought I had seen them all. I was wrong. Not once, not twice, but three times, Yarros deploys the strategy of placing punctuation after every single word as if that somehow substitutes for emphasis, tension, or talent. I have been warned this is a recurring theme.
Here is my response, delivered in the same language.
“Your. Writing. Style. Is. Not. Clever. At. All. Idiot.”
With that groundwork laid, things only get weirder from here.
On a slightly positive note, one of the supposedly main characters is killed almost immediately. And yes, that was genuinely surprising. Twice. No sarcasm.
Fast forward through the first half of the book and here are the broad takeaways.
Kids murdering kids. Are we supposed to support this. I guess. Maybe. No one blinks an eye as the so called good guys run war games where roughly seventy percent of the youth die. Seventy percent. That is not training. That is a youth attrition program. But sure, let’s label them the virtuous side and keep moving.
Another guy is introduced, Hunk Number Two, and for a brief shining moment I genuinely thought we were heading into MMF territory. Hope flickered. Alas, that dream dies quickly when it turns out he is kind of a douche and absolutely not worth her time, lovely or otherwise.
Then there is the charm problem. Or rather, the complete absence of charm. I was mostly bored for about one hundred and fifty pages while my wonderful friend, who recommended this book with evangelical fervor, kept insisting that it is “about dragons.” Which is fascinating, because somewhere between page one hundred and fifty and two hundred, dragons are still mostly theoretical.
This is the point where my attention span started doing whatever this is.
Time and time again, we get ample evidence supporting my suspicion that our author has lived a very boring, yet charming, existence. Again, just a guess. No concrete evidence. Maybe I will DM her on Instagram for specifics. Here is another quote that highlights what I imagine happens when you are generally bored but want to think dirty thoughts that are probably not appropriate for the intended audience.
“I can do quite a few things with my tongue. You’d be impressed.”
Ah yes, the line that launched a thousand dry panties. This is what happens when a sex scene is written by someone whose only exposure to dirty talk is overhearing teenagers at Chili’s. It is supposed to sound seductive, but instead reads like something a dental hygienist might say before a cleaning.
You just know Yarros typed this line and leaned back thinking . . .
Meanwhile, I was probably like this.....
This brings me to the overarching theme. I have been told by some, I will refrain from naming names, that porn gives young men unrealistic expectations about sex. I do not agree with this argument, just to be clear. But then we have fanfic Indiana Jones over here writing page after page after page where, as kids are dying everywhere and Violet herself is constantly on the brink of death, ninety percent of her inner monologue is about sex. Being horny. Gasping. Groping. Flirting.
The mere sight of Hunk Number Two, briefly, and then Hunk Number One permanently, makes her instantly ready to go. This book is a master class in portraying women as perpetually aroused, perpetually distracted, and perpetually driven by desire above all else. Some might call that unrealistic or dangerous. I am not making that argument. I am just pointing at it and raising an eyebrow.
Do I roll my eyes and laugh when a lengthy sex scene, complete with lightning literally blowing out windows, implies that a twenty-four-year-old guy gets off four times in ten minutes and hot 20 year old chick gets off five times. Yes. Absolutely. And in case you were wondering, that would be n plus one, the sacred equation of YA fantasy. Whatever pleasure the man experiences, the woman must experience n plus one. And of course, every taste, lick, and encounter must inexplicably taste like smores. Because that is real. Obviously.
(n+1) + s’mores = YA Romance Teen Formula
So, what went right.
The final chapters were thrilling. There was a big battle. Several extremely predictable twists occurred exactly when expected. Hunk Number Two, as predicted around page twenty-five, turned out to be a betraying asshole. Hunk Number One ended up being both incredible in bed and a genuinely good guy. Violet learned that her kingdom is full of lies and that she has probably been fighting for the wrong side all along. She pivots, joins the previously identified bad guys, and oh yes, her dead brother turns out not to be dead and is also on the new team.
The dragons, when they finally mattered, were pretty cool.
But let’s not pretend. This book was about dragons. It absolutely was not about dragons. I repeated, it was not about dragons. It was about sex. Lots and lots of sex. The dragons were just the sidepiece, much like the ones many of us maybe wish we had.
The. End.
[1] I need to be abundantly clear that this is not indicative of anything about our military, whether they are heroes, etc...etc... it is a point about the need to brag to strangers about being married to a service person......some might think that's turning military service of a spouse into a way to get attention....some.....