Fourth Wing

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My real rating is somewhere between 2.5 and 2.75. I can't decide on a final number. I rounded up because Goodreads doesn't give you the option to do partial stars.

This book reminds me of Twilight, in the way that everyone seems to have become obsessed with it. We are all focusing on the story and deciding that that is amazing while ignoring the poor writing. There is enough swearing in this book to fill at least two or three chapters. It was so prolific, and all I could think was that swearing is the language of the uneducated. Is that the truth? No. But it didn't help lift the writing up. It was like the author couldn't think of any other way to express emotion besides throwing an F-bomb repeatedly. It made all of the characters flat. If they had any lines where they showed emotion, they showed it the same way, F-bombs and other swear words. I don't swear, so I may just be hyper sensitive to it, but I don't think that is it. I truly think that there are indescribably high amount of swear words in this book. I get it, it's New Adult and not YA. In theory, the author is writing for adults and not kids, but that doesn't mean common decency just flies out the window. Also, with all the publicity this book has received, there is no way teens are not reading this, which terrifies me.

Past the swearing comes my second problem, which I feel is an even bigger problem because I know teens are reading this. There are EXTREMELY graphic sex scenes. I was listening to the audio book, and had to switch over to the kindle version because my mother was in the next room and the sex scenes were headed towards 10 minutes in length or longer. This book is high fantasy. There were plenty of ways to put that the characters were together without turning it into complete porn.

I'm so frustrated with this book. The premise was great. It could have been everything everyone is saying it is. Take away the unnecessary parts mentioned above, give it some better writing, and it would have been great. The actual storyline was interesting, and the ending made me almost want to read the sequel that is coming out, almost. I just know that there will be more of the same in the next book, and I can't deal with that. Let's just say, I'm disappointed.

Content warning: Graphic sex, Language, Murder

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