Can you really fill 500 pages with nothing but posturing and dithering, and call it a book? Apparently you can.
What the heck happened here? Was Rebecca Yarros kidnapped and an imposter wrote this book? Did she crack under the pressure and had to ChatGPT it? Because this doesn't resemble at all the series I've come to know and love, and I'm left pretty speechless (well, not so speechless that I can't rant).
Let's start by asking the most crucial question of all: did anything of consequence actually happen in this book? And the answer is unfortunately no. No plot was furthered, no stakes were raised. In fact, the end of the book is where I thought it would begin, so you can imagine my bewilderment at all the pages in between.
So what were these hundreds of pages filled with? Endless scenes of Violet and Xaden declaring how much they love each other (yeah, we get it) while throwing a fit at anyone who dare disagree (wah wah), interspersed with political intrigue that didn't amount to anything (who are these randos?) and quests that didn't amount to anything either (who even cares).
Where is the tension of the first book? Where are the jaw-dropping reveals of the second? But what the third book lacks from the first two, it amply made up by being inexplicably confusing. There were so many needless characters and locations mentioned, none of which really mattered. I kept flipping back and forth to the map, trying and failing to discern what it is I'm meant to take away from those moments.
Every scene in the first book felt essential and memorable, and the same could be said for the second book (minus the ones related to Violet and Xaden's mind-numbing conflicts). And yet, I come to a close on the third book and can hardly point to even one thing in here that stood out. Honestly, I barely remember what happened because nothing actually did.
And in place of real developments, we get non-reveals disguised under intentionally obscure writing. Instead of calling something or someone by its name, we get treated to vague pronouns like "it", "he", and "she", only for the subject to be divulged many pages later once the reader is good and befuddled. And each time this happened, it was treated like a reveal, as if we readers are too dumb to notice we've been had.
Violet and Xaden's interactions border on insufferable in here. What made their relationship compelling in the first book was the intrigue of enemies-to-lovers. That quickly started wearing thin in the second book, and by the time we get to this one, all the shine had fallen off. The trope is over and done with two books ago, so why is Yarros still harping on it? After all, there's a reason why lovers-who-can't-stand-to-be-apart isn't a trope, and it's because no one wants to read that whiny crap.
Just to cement how far this has deviated from the series I love, we only need to look at the end of this book. What I expected was to be wowed by a supremely shocking development on the fantasy side, something to tide me over for the next however many years it will take Yarros to write the next book. Instead, we get a trivial update on Violet and Xaden's relationship, presented as if it's the sort of epiphany that will keep me coming back for book 4. No, thanks.
At one point while trudging through this, I started to doubt myself and my love for the series, wondering if I'd imagined the whole thing and was just caught up in the hype. Then in a moment of confusion, I went to look something up in the first book and was immediately and thoroughly sucked in, only managing to tear myself away two hours later. Reading them side by side, the difference in the quality and immersiveness of the two books is stark and dispiriting. And when I would rather reread a book I'd already read in the series than the shiny new installment, you know something is terribly wrong.
Which brings us to the question of why does this book even exist in the first place. Did Yarros think this was an essential tale that needed to be told, but it somehow went off the rails during the writing process? Did she take inspiration from Peter Jackson and The Hobbit and try to squeeze as many books as possible out of the smallest amount of content? Or did she get talked into a five-parter by her publishing team against her better judgement? Whatever the reason, I can't help but think this book is such a poor showing, surely many of her readers will not continue from here.
It isn't just that this book is filler. It's that it's such trite, garbled, confused filler as to make me lose confidence in the author and her ability to deliver the rest of the series. This book not only reeks of confusion for the reader, but it also seems like Yarros herself is confused too, as if even she doesn't know where her series is going. And that is disheartening indeed.
When I first started this series, I went in with some trepidation. Rebecca Yarros comes from a romance background, so I thought there was a chance she wouldn't be able to balance fantasy and romance in the same story. I was afraid that she would prioritize the romance to the detriment of the fantasy, and three books in, my worst fears are realized. Maybe her original fanbase is thrilled by this book, but as a reader who got hooked on Fourth Wing primarily because of its fantasy badassery—dragons, signets, heroes and heroines, you name it—this book doesn't deliver any of what I wanted.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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