This book very much suffers from middle book syndrome. This is supposed to be a five book series but I’m not sure Yarros has enough story for it, so this is a lot of filler. One issue is that Yarros isn’t necessarily a good enough author to write entertaining filler. Fourth Wing was incredibly derivative of so many other fantasy novels and tropes but it was also action packed, with fun characters, and there was fun world building. It was just a highly readable page turner.
Now? She name drops just about every character from the previous books in the first few chapters but doesn’t remind us who the character is or why we should care about them nor does the book start with a character list. I mean, yes, technically there is a sheet that references the squad members and the world leaders but with the introduction of all the characters from Poromiel last book, there are a lot more characters than that – tons of military leaders, teachers, even other students outside the squad etc. With so many other books available for people to read, an author can’t expect readers to make the time to reread a series so the author needs to do some of the work to help orient the reader if they want them to enjoy the book. It’s their choice for how they do that but in my opinion, Yarros didn’t do the work.
The book is still an easy read, so when I got to the 100 page mark, I was simultaneously surprised to already be at 100 pages while also feeling like nothing had really happened and getting a bit bored. I don’t really care about the venin at this point – like, ooh, stereotypically evil and super powerful but why are they such boring villains?
Technically, things happen – there are random fights and ambushes etc but none of it feels like it really matters or is doing anything to drive the plot forward vs simply spinning our wheels. I think part of the problem is that Yarros is still trying to keep the characters as students at the college but they are also very involved in world politics and she doesn’t know how to balance those, or write the world politics well.
Once we got a bit past the third way mark, there is a mission and I mostly enjoyed the expansion of the world but it also felt like so many missed opportunities: someone reveals some super weird information to Violet and she doesn’t track that person down later with follow up questions to dig more – fortunately that is resolved through alternate means much later but it made me so frustrated with Violet. Yarros also set the scene for something that should have had immense emotional pay off, and it felt squandered, devolving into another scene of Violet saving the day/failed diplomacy. Actually speaking of emotional pay offs, we finally get to see Violet’s dad’s super secret important research and maybe she hasn’t gotten to the good stuff yet but so far, all the knowledge she has gained so far has been pretty underwhelming and not led to any of the answers we might have expected based on the first two novels.
One other very big problem, in my opinion, is that even though most of the book is Xaden and Violet flirting or arguing, Violet thinking about how Xaden is hers and how she’d do anything for him, and Xaden and Violet wanting to take each other’s clothes off, Xaden barely even feels like a real character anymore. There was something interesting about Xaden in the first book and actual banter/chemistry but here? It is just all so angsty and over the top. At least they weren’t arguing about secrets like in Iron Flame but it would have been nice if they had had real conversations about the things that were happening in their world. There were two different scenes where they were in war councils or meetings but instead of the reader getting to really see the dynamics, half of the scene is Violet and Xaden using their secret link to tell each other how much they want each other. Like, yes, I’m sure I would use a secret link like that to make comments about a meeting but the amount of comments and the fact that they weren’t about the topic at hand was annoying/distracting. We get it – Violet and Xaden think they are surrounded by idiots that aren’t worth their time.
And if Xaden is a shell of his former self, don’t even get me started on everyone else. Yes, there are other characters in this book and Violet even has conversations with some of them … but this book is over 700 pages from Violet’s perspective (except for three chapters at the end) and, since Yarros didn’t bother to really spend that much time reestablishing characters from former books or giving them much page time, the character deaths don’t hit. Oh, why should I care about this person that I barely remember and was barely in this novel?
This novel ends on a cliffhanger like the last two, but to me, it wasn’t nearly as successful. At the end of Fourth Wing especially, you just wanted to know what was next because of the possibilities in general and the reveal specifically. This time around, it just feels less shocking. I mean, yes, I am over halfway through this series so of course I will read the next one but I hope the pacing issues are resolved and it has more forward momentum like the previous books with us actually finding out more/anything about the venin.