Audiobook Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Fourth Wing
Series: The Empyrean #1
Author: Rebecca Yarros

Narrators:
Rebecca Soler
Teddy Hamilton
Published: May 2, 2023
Audiobook: 20 hours 43 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: November 15-27, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Audiobook Description:

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

Jessica’s Review:

Fourth Wing has been the book of the year, and it is outside of my normal genres, so I wasn’t really interested in reading it.  I had also heard the narration was terrible, so it had two strikes against it.  Then I heard that the narration was redone and well… there are dragons in it… so I decided to go for it, the second book in the series had been released so I was thinking that I wont have to wait for it then if I enjoyed this one! Big mistake: After I had started Fourth Wing, my dear fellow book friends informed me that there are supposed to be 5 books in this series! NOOOOO! I had thought it was just two!  Oh well….

My main interest in listening to it was the dragons, and they were so worth it! I love these dragons!!  It almost seems like the author didn’t really know what type of genre she wanted because the characters at time seemed like horny teenagers, but this is aimed for adults. I guess the horny teenagers part is because these candidates don’t know if they will even make it through school. And some don’t! We get lots of death.

There is a lot of chemistry between Violet and Xaden. Do they want each other or not? DO they hate each other or not?  We do get some spicy scenes. A little bit too spicy for me! I apparently like the closed door/ fade to black romance/ sweet romance stories/ and don’t need much details. We do get details aplenty here!

We have lots of action and again: DRAGONS!!  I also liked Violet.  She starts out weak but does grow over the course of the novel. I can’t wait to see what happens with her next. And then we have that ending!

I had no issues with the narration, like I previously said they must have redone it and fixed all the previous issues.  There are two narrators, but mainly it is Rebecca Soler doing her job. She portrayed Violet well. 

I did enjoy Fourth Wing, but don’t see how people are going crazy over this book and paying extreme amounts of money for that rare first edition with the dragon sprayed edges. There are some gorgeous editions that are out there now with special book boxes. I’ll definitely listen to the second one sometime soon and then I guess I will have to wait for the next three books to be written and come out just like everyone else!

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK