Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros)

Fourth Wing
The Empyrean series, Book 1
Rebecca Yarros
Entangled
Fiction, Fantasy/Romance
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Violet Sorrengail never wanted to be a dragon rider. Her mother, sister, and brother all bonded with great beasts and developed powerful sigils - unique abilities sparked from the melding of human mind and dragon magic - but Violet was always more at home in the libraries with her father, the scribe... or, at least, she was until he died, not long after an army of traitors killed her brother and nearly tore the empire apart. Even then, Violet wanted nothing more than to join the scribes. It's not like she's up to the challenges of riding anyway, with her frail constitution and weak joints. But her mother has decided that Sorrengails are dragon riders, and demands she enroll in Navarre's dragon corps in her twentieth year.
Just getting to Basgaith, training academy for aspiring riders, is a deadly test. The physical conditioning alone might kill her. If not, the other students might finish the job; there are far fewer dragons willing to bond a rider than there are cadets, and culling the weak links from the ranks is as much a part of training as their lessons. Bearing the name of the great General Sorrengail will only put a larger target on her back, particularly when her weak physical condition becomes all too apparent. But the greatest danger of all may come from an unexpected place: Xaran Riorson, a third-year wingleader of the Fourth Wing. Tall, lean, impossibly handsome, and impossibly dangerous, he has every reason to hate Violet and the Sorrengail name; his father was the leader of the failed rebellion, and was said to have killed Violet's beloved brother in the final battle - after which Violet's own mother executed the man. From the moment they lay eyes on each other, sparks fly... but are they sparks of hatred, or something else? Even as she struggles to untangle that knot, Violet starts seeing hints that all is not as it seems, in Basgaith or the greater nation of Navarre.

REVIEW: I've been hearing a lot of decent buzz about this book, and was somewhat surprised to actually find it available via Libby and my library. It promises a melding of fantasy, action, danger, and romance (plus dragons), and delivers on pretty much all accounts.
From the first pages, Violet's rocky relationship with her successful dragon rider mother is abundantly clear, as is her own thwarted desire to become a scribe like her father. Her sister offers what help she can, but can't arrange what she most wants, a way out; even if she sneaks away to the scribes, she'd be found and drug back, plus she'd have added yet another black mark to the family name (after being born "fragile", prone to pulled muscles and popped joints and broken bones). Having resigned herself to go, and probably die for her efforts (the mortality rate even for more fit cadets is high, so her expecting to die in Basgaith isn't an exaggeration), she finds something she never expected, a fighting spirit in her own sheltered heart. When a longtime family friend steps up to help protect her in her first year, even trying to arrange a way for her to get back to the libraries and scribes, her appreciation of his efforts starts turning to frustration, as she starts learning what she is capable of when push comes to shove. And pushed and shoved she is, indeed; she makes her first enemy before setting foot in Basgaith proper, and faces setbacks and dangers aplenty. Every step forward, she has to earn with her own blood, sweat, and tears (but especially blood). Xaran and the other children of executed rebels - all of whom were marked when their parents were killed, all of whom were forced to come to Basgaith in the not-so-secret hope that the dragons would do them in (hopes thwarted when, despite what Navarre's leaders anticipated, the dragons instead bonded with some of them, but then humans consistently overestimate their understanding and "control" of the beasts) - add more complications, particularly when Violet's heart (and other regions) keep fighting with her brain over how to react to the brooding, enigmatic man. She never is a victim in this or other relationships, though, and actively rejects efforts to coddle, manipulate, or pigeonhole her. Even at her weakest points, she owns her actions and decisions.
All of this may seem familiar as far as it goes, and if I'm being fully honest it is, but it still plays out decently. A familiar story can still be enjoyable, after all, and I cared enough about the characters and their situation to enjoy it. Several of the supporting cast members also embody familiar roles and tropes, doing their jobs in the plot competently enough to get a pass and not tip over into cliche territory (though sometimes they were barely a step away from the edge).
It's worth pausing here briefly to talk about Navarre's dragons. Rather than "scaly puppies" or "horses with wings", the dragons of this world are well and truly dragons, great scaled firebreathers with their own enigmatic minds, keeping their own counsels, and only allowing humans limited glimpses into their world. Still, they are loyal to their riders, needing humans as much as humans need them to survive in this world of magic and danger, for all that they sometimes don't quite seem to understand people or their limitations.
Getting back to the story itself, as Violet and her fellow cadets earn their proverbial stripes at Basgaith, they explain the world of Navarre and the dragons and the ongoing battles with the enemy nation of griffin riders to the reader, showing that the harshness of their training isn't just for show; as riders, they can look forward to battles and violence and a high probability of an early grave. The high death toll of the academy is almost negligible compared to what full-fledged riders deal with on a daily basis. Along the way, hints crop up here and there that the official party line may not be the entire truth, though it takes a while for Violet to connect the dots. (In her defense, being targeted for murder by her classmates does make a somewhat valid reason for distraction.) There's also the expected thawing of relations with Xaran, though there are still secrets in his past that he carefully conceals with deflections and nonanswers... secrets that may bite them both as the story moves toward the climax.
Here is where Fourth Wing almost lost a half star, with a few surprise revelations right at the end that, rather than baiting the hook for the next installment, instead put a foot over that line it kept walking, the one between trope and cliche. I decided to forgive it those late stumbles, though, and a few other quibbles (and the odd eye-roll) throughout. While it may not be stunningly original, Fourth Wing did its job in entertaining me, and there were some pretty decent dragons.

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