Fourth Wing Read a long – Chapters 6-15

I am weak, and this is bad….

Don’t judge me, but I am struggling with this big time. I’m at Chapter 15 and I’m at the point where the only way I can read this is to force myself to physically pick the book up. I have actually started reading other things at the same time.

It’s plain to me now that I just don’t care about this book. I do not care about the characters, or the world, or what’s happening between anything.

I think what finally sent me over the cliff here was one hyperbole too many. Violet is so small and so weak, yet she always triumphs and never messes up. Xaden is so strong and so scary, his dragon is so rare and so powerful. Riders never bond to two dragons, never, yet Violet does. Such-and-such dragon hasn’t been seen in a hundred billion years and everyone wants it, but it picks weak, not-at-all-strong Violet.

I just can’t. I am unfortunately reminded of the constant reminders in ACOTAR of how Rhysand is the strongest and most powerful and most whatever high lord in a century or millenia or parsec, I don’t know. Use of language like this makes it all too easy to pick out what is going to happen next, and you know what that does? It makes a book predictable as fuck and not at all exciting. And that’s a book I do not want to waste my time reading.

To contrast, I have been re-listening to the audiobooks of “The Folk of the Air” trilogy (some of, if not, my all-time favorites) and even outside of the way more sophisticated and elegant use of language and vocabulary (and don’t call me a snob, I’ve read plenty of books that use the phrase “orc cock” way too much, but I do NOT like being talked down to, and I feel like Fourth Wing thinks its audience is naïve and stupid and will consume poison if it’s presented in a pretty package), the way the plot is structured and the characters are crafted is just light years, LIGHT YEARS, beyond this crap. Jude actually fucks up; she’s good, but not the best; Cardan is an ass, you never actually know whether they hate or love each other until close to the end; THE ENTIRE PLOT IS NOT TELEGRAPHED WITH A 4 STORY TALL BLINKING NEON SIGN.

I actually gave away my hardback to my tattoo artist’s kids (who get all of my YA/NA books once I’m done), and will (if I suddenly develop a taste for masochism) pick it back up on e-book.

…One day, when I’m on my death bed and looking for the next great adventure, and I quite literally have nothing left to do but die.