Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros

Book Title: Fourth Wing

Author: Rebecca Yarros

Series: The Empyrean #1

Date Started: June 18th  2025

Date Completed: June 29th 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure, Action

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

This book takes a leisurely, indulgent journey to get to the heart of its story - but when it gets there, it undeniably kicks ass. It is addictive, exciting and glorious escapism, but it wasn't until the last 100 pages that I totally jumped on board.

I have notes from the middle of the book complaining about the sacrifice of story for a couple of hundred pages of smut and angst, and there was a point where it felt like we weren't going to move beyond sexy dragon training for this first instalment. I can't lie and say it wasn't fun - the whole thing was hard to put down - but I really wanted more. The book did eventually deliver, and it's cleverly set up that I'm itching for more.

As a side note, I appreciate that the characters are set up so deliberately in the world order, but Violet really is the perfect example of nepotism in action. Yarros doesn't seem to want to draw critical attention to the fact that she'd be dead 20 times if it weren't for tiny actions of favouritism that really let her skip some ladder rungs (I don't mean the saddle or her medical support, I'll get to that). None of this means Violet doesn't work hard - she absolutely does, and has to carry the expectations of her name - but in the current climate, I think it's a useful example of the status quo's normalisation of nepotism.

With that said, it made my heart happy to see the story adapt to Violet's personal abilities and challenges, particularly in its clear point that there's no shame in using mobility aids or your body having different needs. It is nebulous, so I don't know if identifying it as a disability is right or not, but it struck me nevertheless. I would really love it to be more explicitly represented in future books, especially in this of story and genre.

I'm excited to pick up the next one now that the world building, the politics, the relationships and the real threat are set up in prime position. It would've been nice to get a bit more of it in this first book, but I recognise the care that's gone into establishing how we feel about the actions and emotions of Violet and her peers - I'm sure Yarros will make it hurt sooner rather than later.

I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

Book Title: I Capture the Castle

Author: Dodo Smith

Date Started: June 8th  2025

Date Completed: June 18th 2025

Genres: Historical, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I love the film version of I Capture the Castle, and have had the novel on my shelf for a decade and a half. There are some moments that have always stuck with me (the Midsummer rights, the writing study in the ruined castle, Cassandra and Stephen in the woods and then beside the Thames), but it was a pleasure to rediscover the whole story in its own right.

A British classic, it is beautiful and melancholic and fanciful and quaint. I certainly haven't read many contemporary 1930s/40s stories that aren't WWII focused. I wasn't aware of the history of the book before reading (Dodie Smith and her husband, a conscientious objector, left Britain during the war for California) but it makes sense in its nostalgic nature, reflecting on the everyday lives of people making connections with others unlike themselves, and the messes we make even with the best of intentions. It is a timeless representation of girlhood, both in its moments of exact shared experience as well as the wild imaginings of adventure.

More so than the film, the book is such a collection of character portraits. Despite being told in first person by Cassandra, who spends varying amounts of times with different people, it struck me how full each character was in their own rite, and the ways that that impacted Cassandra's life. She's not a passive protagonist, but is navigating the decisions of those around her as much as her own - and it's so interesting to learn more and more about these people from their actions that we might not have expected.

I'm so used to first person narrators (especially young women) being intentionally headstrong or sickly sweet or just seeming to care so much about what the reader thinks of them - notably, the reader over the characters they're existing beside. Cassandra is so inexcusably herself and strikingly kind and intelligent and growing as she learns that's not always enough.

Faithbreaker, Hannah Kaner

Book Title: Faithbreaker

Author: Hannah Kaner

Series: Fallen Gods #3

Date Started: May 13th  2025

Date Completed: June 5th 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Action

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

What a series to dive into across a year. It definitely started on a high and felt like walking down a very long mountain to reach the valley at the bottom, in both the good and the bad of that. This final book had my attention drifting until two thirds in, but I admit I got goosebumps at the finale.

What I remember loving so much about Godkiller was the sense of an epic landscape and history woven in between this closely whispered story of a trio of strangers and a rogue little god. In Faithbreaker, those characters and their lives had been so lost in the noise, the sweeping war, the tumultuous world building, and the cresting wave of the plot that at times they felt almost forgotten.

I miss what was achieved in that first book, but I especially miss knowing Kissen like the back of my hand, longing for Elo to find what was right for him, for Inara to stand her ground and Skedi to win me over. By the end they felt most like pieces on a chess board - which is thrilling in itself, but not quite how I wanted to part with them.

That all being said, I have to praise the vast normalised representation that is so organic and natural you almost forget it's there. The ease at which Kaner paints all of her characters in hopes and beliefs and ambitions, not regardless of their backgrounds - their disabilities, race, gender, class, sexual orientation etc etc - but because of or in spite of it. It felt effortless and I would really love to read more stories that make it so.