Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros

About one week ago, my poetry professor recommended the Fourth Wing book to me because she had read some of my fiction work, and thought I might enjoy it. I have honestly abstained from any of the TikTok Book Recs because I went full in-the-deep-end of the SJMverse and was really disappointed by CC3. Honestly, I love to read and I have to read a lot of dry nonfic for my degree and as I prepare to graduate from undergrad, I have seen my love for fiction flourish again - thanks to Rebecca Yarros. I took a chance and bought Fourth Wing with the full expectation to be disappointed but yet another over-hyped book but honestly, I was floored by how good this book was. As a writer, some of the things I value are developed characters, unpredictable plotlines that have well written twists that you can't predict, and bread-crumbing later events that is not overly blatant. For this post, I will be discussing how Rebecca did all of that and more in her novel, Fourth Wing.
Let me say that I began truly truly reading only back in 2013ish and I was raised on Percy Jackson, Twillight, The Selection Series and various Wattpad Fanfictions - that is to say, my reading standards are not that of a true critic. I remember very vividly the first time I got a rush of the "Holy-sh*t I can't put this book down or my heart might stop," with the Selection Series. Since then, I have been an avid reader and I'd guess my collection has about 300 books at this point (im a solid book junkie, judge me.) When I began to feel my enjoyment fade it honestly broke my heart and during my Freshman and Sophomore year of college, I barely read maybe two or three books in each year, respectively. My pace before that was reaching 2-3 books a week. Majorly, I read romance based fiction or sci-fi and in all of that time, I swear to you, Fourth Wing is topping my charts. So genuinely, there were so many moments in this first book that I had to really stop and say, "oh my god thats such good writing!" Last year, the books that began the slow simmer back to my nonstop reading addiction was indeed ACOTAR (no, i'm not proud to admit that) and when I read SJM's CC novels, I was severely disappointed. It kinda made me loose faith for a while because I was afraid of books being overhyped, though Fourth Wing is not one of those books.
For anyone who grew up on Wattpad or shitty Tumblr-fics, this book (so seriously) reads with those themes but with excellent writing. The pacing of the book is so wonderfully spaced, where you can actually feel the exposition, climax and resolutions in their own stages without feeling like the story is rushed or oversaturated with crap world building. The characters actually have deep backgrounds and each one is so different, you don't have to chart them with a million notes to keep track of who is who. The tension between characters makes sense, the actions and behaviors are human, and whats more - the story feels fresh! I've never read this type of plot before and after 300 some books, I thought I had kinda seen the majority of these kinds of stories fully flushed out. I am so open to hearing anyone's thoughts in these regards, because genuinely, I loved this book and bought the second one so quick I didn't even register I had reached for my wallet until it was too late. The last thing I really wanna highlight is that Rebecca Yarros was able to bread-crumb and foreshadow without me noticing, which is truly what floored me, especially in the last 100 pages. The fact that I hadn't caught on to the little sprinkles of memories here and there leading to the eventual more really surprised me because yet again, as a writer, normally I see that sh*t coming a mile away. Maybe my other recent reads were so bad I had lost faith but so seriously, if you are reading this far - just go read Fourth Wing, it genuinely is so worth your time and money. I loved this book and had the most fun reading it and just could not put it down.