Iron Flame

Rebecca Yarros

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

My Review

I LOVED Fourth Wing. Finished it within two days of buying it, and immediately went out to buy Iron Flame the next day. Unfortunately my book two experience didn’t measure up.

Some of these complaints I’ve seen in reviews for Fourth Wing, but they didn’t seem as egregious to me in the first book, and the gripping story made up for them. Book two is different, for me.

Writing like this is why people think they hate YA books. This isn’t a YA series, but the writing feels like it—not in a good way. The characters may technically be adults but don’t think or act like it.

The book was twice as long as it needed to be, clearly in need of another round of copy edits. There’s a lot of adverbs, slang, and filler words, including modern phrases that really pull you out of the fantasy world immersion (like “endgame”).

It could use some developmental edits too, because the story didn’t make sense half the time.

The relationship drama was completely contrived and utterly exhausting. What Xaden did in Fourth Wing makes perfect sense, and Violet should know that, BUT Violet somehow went from a 20-year-old scholar to a teenage idiot between books.

Putting the rebel kids in the most prestigious branch of the military didn’t make sense to begin with, but I overlooked it for the story’s sake in book one. Now, the entire military acts like teenagers with bad fanfic logic, and it stands out a lot more.

Half the time, the “foreshadowing” isn’t there and it feels like stuff is being added as she thinks of it; when it is there, it’s basically just bonking readers on the head. I don’t see how so many people were shocked at the ending.

The worldbuilding and rules are inconsistent; the story and the characters both contradict themselves frequently.

Dialogue among the squad feels juvenile, contrived, and unnatural. While I love Violet’s squadmates, half of their interactions in this book felt like cardboard characters spouting lines that want to be “bad@ss” or funny and fall flat.

A lot of info dumping is injected in dialogue as well, in a very obvious way.

As you get closer to the end, there’s honestly just too many new characters. It got hard to keep track of names.

Overall, if you loved Fourth Wing, definitely give this one a try. Just don’t feel bad if you end up DNF’ing; I wouldn’t blame you.