I read "Onyx Storm" by Rebecca Yarros so you don't have to.
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- #booktube #booktok #fantasyromancebooks #romantasy #fantasy #romance
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TIME CODES:
spoiler free: 4:09
spoilers: 16:30
Had to return to my booktube roots to talk about the continuation of the booktok sensation. Fourth Wing took the online book world by storm...Onyx Storm zing (I'm so sorry)
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'hazbin hotel fanfic type dialogue' is a shakespearean mockery battle level insult to someone's writing style ngl
A real nat 20 for vicious mockery
If Violet needed glasses for any kind of eye problems in the book, she would just "push through" the eye problems and refuse to wear glasses to prove how "tuff" she is and how she don't need help or aid in managing her disability.
These Romance with a Hint of Fantasy Books often forget that villain are also characters too, not just plot devices to have a plot because stories are supposed to have villains or a plot.
They’re too busy writing spice for that
They can also be a force of nature, but true, villains should fit the story and have gravitas if they are a force of nature, or a personality and motivations if not.
Also Villains are supposed to contrast or compliment or have to do something with a protagonist or main character. Or the world. So villains unless they are inbetween fun ones, but major should contrast something?
Dunno, she could have something if Violet actually did an ongoing thinking about her mom i guess?
This. That was part of my pet peeves with Fourth Wing: she added deadly stakes and graphic violence similarly to Hunger Games, while forgetting to have these elements make sense in her own universite. Rebecca Yarros low-key reminds me of MrBeast recreating the Squid Games: cruaulty is the point.
@ that’s a really good comparison. They smile similarly for sure.
You talking about the villain or "the villain🥵😏😩💦👅😈"
40:05 Violet getting the ability to dream-walk is so fitting for her because she seems very intrusive and annoying!
🤣🤣🤣
ah so violet is like spongebob in that one dream-walking episode
Bro everytime I read a fantasy where the MC manages to just "power through" an injury/disability is like. Dude. No. If you have a disability, it's gonna disable you. Having a dislocated knee cap is extremely painful since it fucks that WHOLE joint you cant just girlboss through that??
Like I don't think you'd actually be able to walk with a dislocated knee cap
27:58 so I have narcolepsy. My brain doesn’t make the chemical that keeps me awake (or maybe it’s autoimmune and my brain attacks that chemical, we don’t know yet). I cannot simply “stay awake”. I cannot just make myself stay awake. And if I somehow manage to do that, my brain will think I’m sleeping, and start dreaming while my body is awake. I used to have “hallucinations” and got tested for a whole bunch of things before a doc took me seriously and was like “oh damn, you can’t keep yourself awake?”. Yeah. There isn’t a box. Or if there is a box - my box is full of hallucinatory shadow people.
All of the complaints from fans I’ve seen are about how many random background characters are introduced and the readers have no idea who anyone is. THAT MEANS ITS A BADLY WRITTEN BOOK.
The dedication makes me so mad too. Most of the people who are obsessed with fourth wing and booktok in general are the kind of people who bullied me for reading in elementary and middle school and now they act like they’re better than everyone because they read garbage books
This! You hit the nail on the head.
the acknowledgment kinda killed me because fourth wing was literally the opposite of any kind of book a "loser" would read. it was a cookie cutter, intro to fantasy for women who hadn't touched a book since high school. yarros gives off the vibes that she thinks she was unpopular in school because she was lame when it was actually because she was mean
@@hannahk8te I’ve been a lifelong fantasy reader, and I enjoyed Fourth Wing in a way one might watch a reality show as a guilty pleasure. Sure, it wasn’t a great piece of literature, but it was fun and had an intriguing magic system and world. However, Iron Flame seriously showed the cracks, I had to force myself to finish it. I think RY is a romance writer and hasn’t quite got the hang of how to write fantasy. The characters are annoying (mostly), have little to no growth and the world building never truly took off. I happened to wander into the bookshop on the Onyx Storm release date, and saw the price (£20) and immediately put it down. I doubt I’ll ever buy or even read it.
My friend, who is a DIE HARD Fourth Wing fan, did in fact love this book and she's so emotionally invested in Xaden (sp?) and Violet as characters and as a couple and I guess the ending really sent her reeling for her fear for his humanity and the future of their story. So it apparently did hit just right with her target audience, which seems wild to me but different strokes and all that...
Y’know what if she had a good reading experience, I’m happy for her. I’m sure there’s stuff I like that she couldn’t fathom liking either.
People like this scare me
Yeah similar thing here, my mother and older sister are obsessed with these and ask me every week to read them. They've already finished it and told me many times how many times it made them cry etc.... I'm an ASOIAF fan though, so this kind of book just does not do it for me at all, no matter how many times the fans tell me "but the worldbuilding and character development is so deep".....
@@aimeejones9533 I can't even imagine a Fourth Wing fan telling an ASOIAF fan that 💀
i can't believe this is getting a tv adaptation. y'all need to make better things popular instead of trash.
I tried. Nobody listens to me when I tell them to read Angela Montoya
I actually have a feeling that the tv adaptation might end up better then the books😭. There is alot that doesn't make sense in these books and won't translate well to the screen. They really won't have a choice but to alter alot of the story or add things in lol. Thats if the do go through with it.
@that wouldn’t surprise me and honestly it would be kinda funny if the TV was REALLY good cause some passionate director decided to make it their magnum opus.
@@dfretter I can just imagine the whiplash people would get watching the show first and getting the books hyped up by OG fans, only to be left like "what the fuck is this crap"
@@arawin25 this and people will pick up the book thinking it's as good. But I guess it depends who's adapting it. I know Circe has hbo.
The world would implode if someone like Greg Berlanti, the dude behind Riverdale, had his hand in adapting it.
Im reading Onyx Storm, and I just realized... I get it. I understand why people like it. It's the lunchable of fantasy.
It doesn't do anything great, barely even good. But it's so light and acsessable that even people who aren't really into fantasy can read it and have a half-passable experience. It plays it safe using familiar tropes and simple prose. It's not even gateway fantasy. It's the intro to the intro to fantasy. And a safe entry into the YA dystopia space.
“Lunchable of fantasy” is a very good description
It's true that characters can be smart in different ways, but the side cast paint Violet like she's smart in every way. They prop her up as book smart, street smart, and emotionally intelligent all at once. That's the most annoying part.
the most annoying part to me is the phrase “well the fuck aware”.
@dfretter yes! It's so cringe 😅
I have EDS. These books piss me off so much, you can’t just pretend that your kneecap is where it’s supposed to be when it’s not?? It’s one thing to pop a wrist back into place, but the musculature that lets you walk is attached to ALL the bones in your knee, so unless she doesn’t need tendons to walk that girl is done for.
Obviously disabilities affect everyone differently, and some people can walk off a dislocated shoulder while some can’t. However violet’s “representation” sets a dangerous precedent.
Krimson Rogue posted a really long video about book 2 a couple weeks ago, and he included some thoughts from a “council” of people with EDS that he brought together (including one who does some kind of extreme sport or ironman competitions or something like that) that I thought was really good. If you’re interested in hearing what people with EDS think about fourth wing (spoiler: it’s not good lmao) and have seven hours to spare, it’s a good watch
I don’t even have 7 minutes to spare but maybe I can listen to it instead of an audiobook one day. Thanks for letting me know!
He has an entire thing of it on his second channel
It also doesn't help that in Fourth Wing, she describes him so terribly, all you know about him is that he's supposed to be hot. I didn't know he was canonically a POC until Yarros specifically said so 🤨
I wonder if maybe the plan was for it to be ambiguous until fans started to ask
@dfretter honestly wouldn't be surprised 🫣 seems like she was testing the waters
I only read the first horrendous book and am iffy about if I ever will pick up the next and so on.. This is my first time realizing Xaden was not white.. LMAO i am mind blown.. all the book kept telling us from that annoying mcs' pov was that hes like -Zoolander voice- "really really incredibly good looking" and "so so like really hot and stuff" lmao I think alot of us just automatically pictured the same copy/paste shadow daddy we've read 100 times prior.
@SLW-u5c SAME. But also his facial features were kind of a blur to me because she hardly described them so I just kinda started imagining handsome Squidward
I have finally watched this! BE PROUD!
Anyway, I'm Xaden's biggest hater. Him having a mental breakdown because Violet loved someone else before him was NOT cute. Also the contradicting statements got me annoyed. Violet is like "Xaden lets me do what I want!" then Xaden is yelling at her that she can't fight and has to stay behind.
If you asked me to name any of these side characters, I couldn't. The only other character that gets ANYTHING is Xaden. I even forget she has siblings because she truly doesn't care about them. And when that random side character died on the isle of luck, I did not care.
And the fact this book goes NO WHERE. Everything builds to NOTHING.
This was truly bad.
Here are the thoughts I’ve been struggling with:
• This ending was just IF on steroids but with even more of a chaotic plot. Driving me absolutely bonkers. We finally get a battle where Violet’s not letting emotions rule and Xaden is doing his own thing and suddenly we get Xaden channeling - just like IF. Rhiannon’s chapter was so pointless, it would of been better served to have a more explained Xaden chapter earlier in the battle to have us aware of what was going on with Pancheck in a way that gave us more betrayal and time to process. Then back to him at the end. Also on Pancheck, it would have been so much better for a Papa Aetos being venin reveal instead.
• Andarna’s loss was so big for me as a reader that has liked the books, but her coming back in the same book immediately voids those emotions. She should have stayed gone and not come back until next book. Every time we get something to really feel and care about in this book something counters it or it’s not referenced in the same emotional way again because of Violet’s magic ability to never process pain or emotions past what she wants to.
• I enjoyed the world building of this book and the gods but I agree we needed way more lore of each god and how they work. Are they real gods that just watch and don’t participate? Are they gods that once participated? What is the lore?
• Imogen was vital to this book’s end but barely present for the entire book. It felt like whiplash to suddenly care for her again. She was important in IF but now she’s way more front and center for the ending… I just wish we’d gotten more of her and Quinn or her and Vi if it was going to be such a big deal.
What do mean you don't remember pink haired Imogen, the most important character whose hair is pink. Did I mention Imogen's pink hair? Also I like that to "fix" the Hypersexual Black Best Bisexual Woman Friend is to not give her more depth, but to hide her away from the readers and to just focus on Xaderdeen's sexy skin tone in very weird ways.
I vote that we just do with Xaden what we’ve been doing to Renesme from twilight-refuse to call him by his actual name. Xaderdeen. Xantham. Xylitol.
Who’s what hair?
@@Artbyhurricanyounot Ximothy
@@chellyfishing my personal fave is Xanax
@@Artbyhurricanyounot Completely forgot about Renesme, what was Bella thinking? Lol
It's the fact for me that I don't think she still has gotten a tutor to actually know how to pronounce the names SHE wrote in her OWN book after promising she'd do that for book 2. Cause welsh & general celtic culture/history is still just a cutesy backdrop to be used and trashed to these authors
tw: nerd shit warning for one piece made me cackle.
also, i’m willing to bet that there is some super well-written hazbin hotel fanfic. never read from that fandom, but i promise you there’s some *beautiful* writing on AO3. girls will play a farming sim and then write the most masterfully-crafted piece of derivative fiction about a character that puts yarros to shame
I’m sure you’re right. My “Hazbin hotel fanfic” joke wasn’t meant to be a dig at fanfic in and of itself. I’m sure most fanfic writers are better writers than I am. I just wanted to give a sense of “it’s imitating this other thing”.
@ i got you :) i was just playing on the opposite side of your joke to mock becky. like even hazbin hotel fanfic is probably better than this mess. 💀
I think the usual is meant not the well written that authors might even turn in their legally distinct story?!
Someone I know is writing a really dang good hazbin fic.
I was literally an awkward social outcast who got in trouble from teachers for reading in class dozens of times as a kid (before realizing that they didn't care as much if i doodled instead lol), and that dedication feels SO panderingly cringe 😂😭 Like yes it sucks to be ostracised and reading was our favorite escapist cope, but lowkey it gives "never got over it" failgirl energy similar to the guys who still base their identity in "got bullied by jocks". "Sure we might have been called losers and no one liked us, but we have DRAGONS TO RIDE (so THEY'RE the losers actually!!)" girl you can just enjoy the dragons it's not a crusade upon the heavenly corpse war of Nerds vs Preps 😭🤚 unburden yourself of the weight of assuming other people's judgement, Jenny No-Books is probably busy eating her salad and minding her business
But also, arent the popular girls the ones reading and hyping her books the most?! That's why they are on their way to outsell the bible!
I, too, was a social outcast in school for all the nerd stuff I loved. I just found evening groups that also enjoyed my hobby and once I left school it was no longer an issue, just a thing I did after work.
And that was before the internet made it 100 times easier to find others who share your interests.
I pity people that keep their school identity into adulthood. You're meant to grow as a person and find who you are, not cling to the past like it's a life raft. I barely ever thing about my school days now, I have better things to occupy my time.
It’s especially ironic given that Yarros’s fan base are huge bullies to anyone that doesn’t give the books 5 stars. Like, I’ve seen 4 star reviews get dogpiled.
Ironically, it’s a lot of pick me and popular girls reading these books and claiming that they were outcast in society when they were ABSOLUTELY bullying kids who read books in high school.
@@moustik31Lmao, yes! The people reading those books ARE the preps who bully nerds. She is so childish, it's funny. 😂
Don't worry D Fretter. I fight random people on your behalf, but I often wake up in a dumpster with no memory of what happened.
🥹🥰
I’ve been reading/watching reviews from both fans and haters and it fascinates me how little anyone mentions the dragons. Despite Yarros’s claim that they are the “real” main characters. More like main marketing gimmick. Truly innovative to make dragons so boring and irrelevant that they’re barely worth bringing up.
Yeah the dragons are just vehicles that interrupt violet’s inner monologue with stereotypical “grumpy old man” and “angsty teen” voices respectively.
As someone with a form of EDS, wanted to put some of my experience/knowledge out there. EDS (in its many variations) is genetic and something you are born with. But depending on the variation and presentation, symptoms may grow more or less severe with time and in turn become more apparent or disabling. Some people will have really notable lifelong experiences of it as a disability, others come into it later, and some people might not really have a clinical presentation or manifestation of it. This can also be impacted by complications. Repeated dislocations are not good for the body and can lead to things growing permanently weaker (especially when frequent).
Thank you for sharing
How would you like to see an accessible environment for yourself and for people with disabilities? For example, in a fictional world? (Because today's cities would rather make homeless benches than take care of the safety and comfort of citizens, but let's imagine a magical world)
15:13 no but this actually made me realise what I'm missing in a lot of (mostly newer) adult content. The every day troubles and the struggles that arent cussing and sex. My favourite example is still Lord of the rings. It is so honest and filled with real struggles and real emotions and love and friendship. No irony or marvel-esque one-liners. It wasnt afraid to show true severity and hope and depth without being ironic or 'self aware'. I really miss that honesty in new media.
You will never convince me that Rebecca Yarros was one of ”the ones caught reading under her desk.” This is base pandering to girls who want to pretend they were friendless book nerds in middle school now that it’s cool 🙄🙄🙄
My biggest problem with these POC characters is that they're never properly described. They're always this ambiguous brown person who could be anything from Latino, Mediterranean, black, etc. I've seen fans say he's black, Greek, whatever. It's because she doesn't want to pinpoint it and wants everyone who's a bit brown to think they're being represented instead of actually representing someone.
I'm actually writing a story that's set far into the future and race isn't really a thing anymore, because everyone is so mixed, the concept of race doesn't really work anymore. Like that's what I see humanity ending up as once we stop classifying people based on these created race categories and move past it to being humans. Though there are aliens, so I think that helps.
I feel like Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin introduced race in a way that mattered to the story they were trying to tell, but in many other works it's pretty superfluous. That's not always bad; Ray Bradbury had a diverse cast in "The Illustrated Man" at a time in American history when he utterly didn't have to and it actually provides a window into the perception and meaning of race in American society at the time he was writing. Though ultimately, if you turned any of the stories into movies you could cast anybody because their race doesn't matter to the story. Bradbury never asked anybody to give him cookies for this but some contemporary writers do even though the race of characters is window dressing and irrelevant to the story. Which is fine, but it's not a story about race, it's not particularly deep or meaningful representation... I mean, you get what I'm saying.
Exactly this!!
Yarros says he is not white, but doesn't tell us what he actually is, as if POC are all one thing 😅
My favorite part was when Adarna left the group chat.
Honestly, the humor you described is something (else) I blame Joss Whedon properties for - Buffy, Firefly, and Avengers gave people (esp us millennials tbh) the idea that "quippy" humor is both the ideal style and yet also easy to do/translate to literature. Like, one-liners in books are so much harder.
I have beef with Joss Whedon
Angel is my favourite series, thats, i guess still quippy but a fair bit is really more mature.
oh and agents of shield is the best mcu show through never was agnowledged, and great. And the quippy in that works.
There is a place and season 5 buffy wasnt great, except wes and illyria.
I mean why that works because the writers of his shows are very character focused. So that are well explored characters, for the most part. That play off each other.
@marocat4749 quippy is fine sometimes. Like I don’t care about sprinkles on a birthday cake. I do care when it’s on spaghetti.
I know it's very popular to hate on Whedon now post Justice League, but him and Favreau (with Ironman) were the only people to really get quippy humor right in the mcu
@paultorrisi4992 super fair if you like the MCU (the early days cause I hear it’s not as popular these days). My beef with Joss Whedon goes back to before Iron Man ever came out.
I'm learning so much about Onyx Storm, such as Luffy from One Piece is part of the cast somehow. That is what I will believe now and forever.
Nobody’s talking about it but imma speak the truth
39:39 This is such an interesting detail because I doubt the progression of time was long enough for Sawyer to get used to having a TYPICAL prosthetic leg, and now they’re sending him on the battlefield with one that has modifications? 😭
There’s a time skip at some point (no memory of when) and some of the quests is supposed to take a month. but it reads like a really bad weekend.
42:56 Sabaa Tahir's An ember in the ashes, is a great example of YA having actual significant characters who die, also awesome world building 🎉
I’ve heard a lot of good things about that book
You calling Tairn “Terrance” made me cackle 😭 this was a great review and I agree with every point you made!
It's YA, but a recent lovers to enemies book is For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga. It's a Count of Monte Cristo retelling set in fantasy Pakistan with a female lead. Her ex-boyfriend is the one who got her imprisoned in this telling.
Sold
@@DefectedFundie I really really enjoyed this book. Was so surprised by how well it was written.
Of course they are now gender swaping the count of monte cristo and of course its a dude who imprisoned her instead of being another girl
The swearing has even such an easy solution, make your own curse word and be consistent with them, scifi and fantasy media does it all the time, partly to hav eswearing but not being censored while having alien worldbuilding, but it really is a nice tool to have swearing but not think about being crass.
Or dont, she didnt need to have swear words at all i gues if she doesnt want to.
Regarding the whitewashing of Xaden: I wonder if he's whitewashed because of the genre of Romantasy having this issue with male leads being racially ambiguously but still with eurocentric facial features. For example, the vast majority of people reading Fourth Wing came over from reading ACOTR where all the main male leads in the Night Court are described with language that makes them ambiguously tan/brown but the only official illustrations from the publisher make these men very tan but with very prominent euro/white facial features. So, maybe the audience superimposed the pretty prominent description of male leads in this genre onto this book just because it's so prominent.
You’re probably right. The assumption that he’s white makes sense. I thought he was until I saw a tweet or something from Yarros. I got a lot of push back when I mentioned it in my iron flame review and I was like “but you’re a fan and SHE said it??”.
@dfretter I read both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame without realizing that. Mainly because he is poorly described as hot a lot of times, but we are never given specific descriptions about other features like his hair (which should be very unique if he's a person of color), or just any other little details that could identify him instead of just relying on eye color. I understand from a writing point of making a character's appearance ambiguous to allow the audience to fill in the rest. But it's very rude to then accuse said audience for whitewashing the character. If she wanted to make him a certain race, she should have done the work and written his character better. Especially after defending he is a person of color, but then only gives him very poor traits that have been used against black men in media since the minstrel shows.
The fact that this has been compared to fanfic is an insult to 95% of the fanfic I’ve ever read.
When you just think that people are giving these books 4/5 5/5… now thats a mystery of mysteries.
Same as the people who gave any of the Lightlark books similar scores.
@@amaririii_ch That was the same with this vampire book, where the most stupid 16 year old named Grace has to go the a supernatural academy and she is the only one too stupid to figure it out from the getgo (like the reader does). Unfortunatly I forgot the title. Ah, it was 'Crave' and I really couldnt understand how such a dumpsterfire could be someone's all year highlight. To me, personally, it was horrible.
the funny thing is i think the girls who got in trouble reading under the table back in school have enough experience reading books to have better taste than fourth wing :-/
Not gonna lie, aside from Violet's hair, I'm mostly uncertain what anyone looks like. Yarros didn't really spend that much time giving character descriptions, she was more focused in Book 1 on how hot and heavy their hookups were.
Watched two reviews of this book still no idea what's the plot
Plot?? Sorry you must be confused. This is a booktok-darling-romantasy book. We don’t do that here.
@dfretter yeah 😭 i set the bar too high
I was recommended to read Fourth Wing & Iron Flame because I enjoyed ACOTAR. It was painful to read these two books, I almost DNF’d Iron Flame.
The only reason why I finished the book was because of the dragons, they were the best part & carried the story on their backs.
Violet is supposed to be extremely physically weak & fragile, which I don’t think is really reflected in the story. She & Xaden have no chemistry, they just find each other attractive. Calling her “Violent” is so, so cringy.
Jack Barlow coming back to life felt like a cop out.
It’s pretty forgettable, I can’t even remember what the threat was.
There is one place where I actually agree with your take. Death of Mira would have made this book one full notch better.
Everytime I hear you mess up Venon with Venom I here the Eminem soundtrack in my head.
Thanks for once again taking one for the team with this nonsense.
I also find myself getting frustrated at the way Violet can constantly put her pain 'in a box' and just get on with riding a freaking dragon. Something that would tax the most abled bodied person and leave them in severe pain the following day.
I have a friend with fribro and the biggest shame I have is constantly over-estimating what he can do, since I don't have a pain condition. I remember talking him into taking a ten minute walk to an icecream vendor next to my house that turns up in one of those big trailers every year. By the time we got there he was in agony and only the fact that I'd factored in that the place had seating saved him.
A ten minute walk on uneven ground with a half hour rest, then ten minutes back wiped him out. Apparently, he was having a bad day and had been too proud to tell me until afterwards, but even on a good day, there's no way my boy is getting on a dragon. And that's without the joint dislocation that comes with Violet's condition.
You can have all the magic and fantasy you want, but an incurable disability is an incurable disability. If you don't want to write it realistically, keep it out of your saga.
I agree with you on POC especially Xaden. I don’t recall why but I always knew Xaden was a POC character. In Onyx storm it is confirmed when Violent describes his skin tone as “tawny-brown”. Page 20 on physical copy
I'm sorry, is that one character named "Theophany"? As in when a deity reveals itself in physical form?
....as long as Yarros doesn't think she made the word up, you might get your wish, re: the gods doing something
I didn’t even connect those dots. They seemed so far apart when I was reading the book.
@dfretter yeah, like, I'm not sure if she's clever enough. But it could also just be that it's a different version of the name 'Theophania', the byzantine name that 'Tiffany' comes from. Maybe it's a reference to that? Idk if she's clever enough for that either
I’m glad that this series has made book excitement mainstream again, and honestly it’s not an absolutely terrible introduction into fantasy, which can be daunting at first, for people who are normally hard core romance readers, and dragons, they make everything better, but I barely finished the last book. I was soo disappointed that my expectations after the ending of the first book were completely dashed to be 90% terrible communication issues and petty insecurity of the lead character. I read the first one after a long reading slump during a very stressful time in my life and I probably enjoyed it more because of that; an unserious light fantasy with dragons and simple world building was just what I needed. The ending got me excited that the next book would be about espionage, violet forming an underground network and spreading anti propaganda about what is actually going on, fighting the system from the inside, a long distance functional (tragically far off) relationship using secret codes to communicate, and generally the tension of being embroiled in a war that nobody knows about except the lying higher ups and the villainised rebels. Like how cool would it be if we got two perspectives one of him fighting at the frontlines and one of her on the inside fighting in secret against the propaganda, and low key police state, at the same time. Sure the writing is rocky but I could forgive that if the story was worth it, even if I would prefer writing that fit the world a little better. Alas, despite my love of dragons, I think the rest of the books are not going to be on my shelf, no shame to those who love them.
Barely any effort and thought representation like Rhiannon is like when white authors know you want scrambled eggs but didn't bother to check if there are large chunks of eggshells in the scrambled eggs (or even give you salt and pepper for seasoning) and then other people demand you be happy for those unsalted unpeppered eggshell filled scrambled eggs, all the while you know there are better authors who put more care and thought into making scrambled eggs.
30:37 Honestly, the fact that there wasn’t official fraternization rules in this military college between Cadets and Squad Leaders was already a problem since I remember in the first book, Violet’s sister SPECIFICALLY told her not to date upperclassmen because it would seem like she would be getting favors… which implies that there wasn’t a first year who DID get favors from an upperclassman they had a relationship with?
WHY DO THEY ONLY EXIST NOW???
Also Xaden is a Squad Leader, a Venin, a Prince, and now he’s a Professor… a man of many roles?
He who wears the crown is burdened by many hats
Why create a good relationship development when you can just use occupation and titles as conflict!
As soon as I finish Parable of the Sower I'm watching this because I NEED to know how dumb it gets.
@@rae3781 that's going to be SUCH a whiplash 😂
@@TheseVioletDelites oh parable of the sower was 5 stars, but i don't even need to read onyx storm to know it's at most 1 star lmao
"You lack critical or regular thinking skills" an excellent way of putting it!
Thank you for bringing up how unhealthy their relationship is, particularly in this book. I share your opinion that I don’t think this kind of relationship should be glamorized and I haven’t really seen other people talking about it in book discourse so far!
haven’t finished the vid yet but the swearing thing and the sex stuff kinda makes sense when you learn that the author is mormon/ex-mormon (don’t remember which) 😭 probably why it reads so awkward in those areas
I liked the first book because it had immaculate pacing and reminded me of other things I'd loved (Fireborne, HtTYD, Divergent) or at least found compulsively readable
I _hated_ Iron Flame so much it made me physically ill while reading it (sometimes media does this to me, but it's super rare. maybe 1-2 times per 300-500 medias consumed)
anyway, my friends on Discord have been reading this book and they loved the first two and think that the third book might be their favourite in the series. I am off this crazy train for good and mostly just blinking-eyes-gif at all the summaries and quotes.
(to clarify before this lives on the internet forever: I loved HtTYD, I found Fireborne pretty good and Divergent compulsively readable)
i started Fourth Wing because the only thing i knew about the series was that it had dragons. my best friend made the same mistake so we read it together. the characters in the second book are so insufferable but i did enjoy the third one. the third one is more of a "a group go on adventure to undiscovered lands to find the forgotten dragon spiecies with challenges and shenanigans along the way" and the relationship drama is turned down a lot. theyre definitely some of the worst books I've read but i also found myself having a lot of fun with it. i think people get to serious about it. you can acknowledge that something isnt good but still like it
Literally I read the first one so quickly but couldn’t finish Iron Flame properly
right as i’m sitting down to work, absolute bless ty
I gotchu 😉
I feel like I missed an entire book, but I probably just zoned out halfway through all the recap videos of book 2.
Same, I only read the first one and watched reviews on the second. The second book seemed so convoluted, I don't remember a thing about it
I hope someone does an analysis of how Mormonism affects Fourth Wing because once you know it kinda screams Mormonism. Not in the same way as Twilight but it's obvious Yarros was very influenced by Mormonism
thank goodness. i unfortuantely read fourth wing and couldnt bear to read the rest of the series but i have to know bad how the dumpster fire continues to burn. and all the other recaps i found i could not stomach. so this is much appreciated lol it had me literally chuckling out loud
This was fast. My condolences and thank you for your service
🫡
OMG, how did you read, and upload this review in almost a week? I tip my hat to your productivity. And of course I love the review.
Grit and determination. Thank you for watching 🥰
The way I liked this video before you even got into the review because your intro was perfect ❤
Thank you man 🙏🏻 i dont trust every book reviewer but i can always trust you to choose the right hills to sigh tiredly on 😂
🤣 I gotchu
I keep getting reels on IG from Fourth Wing fans about how much they hated this book which has been WILD
That dedication is honestly insulting. This is THE mainstream book. It does not represent POC or trans people or any type of minority 🙄
These reviews help by not only making sure I don’t pick up these books, but it’s making me think Violet is just Yami pounding his fists in the ground screaming “IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME, NOT HIM! ITS NOT FAIR!”
THE SILENCE WITH THE GOJO CUT HAHAHAHAHAHAH I AM DYING
the way you looked at me at 9:03 had me like **gasp hand over mouth emoji** . bc where is the lie tho.
45:23 insider trading? this book has everything!
I write fantasy. I hope my books aren’t this bad…. Never finished editing them or the series I’m working on but I hope mine aren’t this bad
Just as I was debating getting some tasks done or taking a depression nap tysm
I gotchu 😉
What I can tell you from other fantasy books/series as a very casual reader:
1. Wind wielders can be more scary that lightning wielders. There are fantasy planets where all life on the surface has been extinguished due to a single spell of a sufficiently strong wind mage. Yarros even writes down explicitly why this makes sense: lightning is triggered by storms. Control storms and you can create lightning.
2. Strawberries. Apart from the fact that Xanax (or what's his name) is very tasty and therefore his venom rings are strawberry, there is at least one classic fantasy series which links strawberries, dragons and big bad evil guys (wings of fire, book 10)
@@u.v.s.5583 oh my god i forgot about the strawberry from book 10
I have no intention on reading this myself, but from what I heard, it seems that Miss Yarros was up in her reviews because she was “fixing” (or trying to fix) the things people complained about in the first book(s).
I’ve heard a similar thing. But didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Because my issues with the book(s) have stayed consistent.
So Yarros is doing the Alex Aster method like in the Lightlark series where you spend a decent portion of the squeal book just trying to either backfill or retconning information that should have put in the previous book. Or some case just remove the problem character like Hypersexual Black Best Bisexual Woman Friend Rhiannon instead of giving her more to do than be the Hypersexual Black Best Bisexual Woman Friend.
@@kandibug5303 Idk if she pioneered it, but jkr definitely did it before her lol
I forgot I already followed you for a second and wanted to follow you again for those first few minutes of the video
38:20 You mean to tell me nobody looked at Xaden and noticed that his eyes were amber now??? Just Violet looks at him???
LMAO I'm so glad I found this channel and video. I've always had the hardest time explaining my dislike for the series and why I'm not reading the current one and here it is. All of the things, and then some.
How are they not allowed to date if they're a mated pair like?
i was NOT ready for 10:00 lmao i already thought you had good taste but that confirms it
On one hand, yes western animation should try aiming more towards adults outside of comedies like Family Guy, but on the other hand I'm not sure Fourth Wing is the best way to go about that since it might just convince people that western animation cannot do these things. Personally I think the best thing you could turn into a cartoon would be the webcomic Order of the Stick. To me it feels like the western answer to One Piece (It helps that Haley and Nami are essentially the same character).
Xaden is a character of colour??? i didnt even know
I got sucked into the hype and read the first one. I was like WTF the whole time. I hate watched reviews of the second. I have negative interest in this one EXCEPT that I love your commentary. I would listen to you analyze a grocery list. 😂
First time watching your videos and subbed after the intro, I’m CACKLING 😂
i liked in prior books that it felt like she wasnt scared of killing people, but the mira cop out reminded me too much of acotar. when theres no real threat, the plot becomes boring and meaningless.
i. struggle. with. her. writing. style. lmao, some of it is fine and im in it, then she writes the "well the fuck aware"or "for the win" or those damn periods and im right back out of it. honestly i listened to the audiobook of the last two and it was much easier to get through than reading it lol.
this series is just an easy spicy fantasy that has enough sweet phrases between the characters to pass for romance. i dont think its great and i dont think its terrible, its just there and easy to digest 😂
I hear about the mess with the exclusive yesterday. So I'm jumping in to watch this lol. I'll edit with commentary.
0:40- I know this is mad early, but I wasn't prepared for you to blame your patrons lol. That was super funny lol.
2:57
I don't include cops in my work for a specific reason. That reason is grounded in the realities of how awful they. I also have a lot of queer characters because in reality queer people are oppressed and fiercely under represented. If I'm doing it, then someone who has worse views and moral stances is definitely doing it.
5:27
Thinking about it. I never mention any of my characters intelligence since they each have their own confidence, however I make it clear they aren't smart bc they get themselves in their own mess. One of them is a literal Astronomer, so he's smart, but no not really lol.
9:39
NOT ZENDAYA COLORED T_T Lol.
16:30
One character of mine has issues with swearing and that's bc they are pretty angry all the time, but even then it's not as bad as Yarros. I probably curse irl better than Yarros, and "fck" (youtube will yell at me) is probably my most said word on a daily basis. (I'm from NYC lol)
16:43
As a Certified Weirdo and only goth mother in my neighborhood I hate this kind of nonsese. She is not speaking from experience, and I hate it.
24:59
This story is a mess. Wtfl
34:34
Smut is so hard to write, and people don't do it right. I keep my scenes simple, and written in a way that if you know you know. Idk if it's going to be enjoyable to read, but these moments are often centered around the feelings of both characters coming to a head, often being preceded by a very intimate non-sexual moment.
I WOULD NEVER HAVE READ THIS BUT I LOVE THAT YOU DID IT FOR US! ❤
I could never read this book because I get enough word salad in essays written for the word count
I am SO GLAD to see someone, especially a man of color, talk about the racism in these books. I barely ever see this discussed but I feel like all of these romantasy books have some sexualized ambiguously brown man as the love interest, and even people who are dunking on it seem not to talk about it. The allies really don't be allying when it comes to that!
That "I don't have to clean the kitchen after this" line hit real personal D 😂
Also, EDS is a genetic disorder, so Yarros has had it her whole life. Now, when she was diagnosed is a different story... a lot of us suffer through symptoms for years without doctors believing us (I was diagnosed at 23 after experiencing a LOT of issues due to this)
Yeah I should’ve worded that bit it better. And I apologize. I knew it was a genetic disorder. I meant I didn’t know if it manifested later in life or if the symptoms were present straight out the gate. Like being born unable to hear or having degenerative hearing loss.
20:38 I am not 100% sure about it because I only read Fourth Wing but I think it was mentioned there that when someone dies all their stuff gets burned?? And that’s why it was problematic that she also kept the book from her brother???
Onyx Storm is like they are doing things but nothing is really happening… it was only an improvement for me because I really hated Iron Flame… I really don’t like Violet and this did not need to be a 5 book series especially when books 2 and 3 are just filler nonsense
Is it 5 books? I’ve never looked into it.
@dftetter unfortunately yes
@dfretter yeah I guess it was originally just supposed to be 3 and they expanded it to 5. It's just gonna tank like the Crave series 😆
Hi, D fretter, I'm a white nerd who was teased growing up who is also trans and neurodivergent. I've learned a lot from my black and Asian friends and from working in some very diverse workplaces with diverse client populations, so i completely agree that being bullied in school does not equal understanding race based oppression and i have actually seen the same phenomenon for many years of this sort of glib misunderstanding where they think they don't need to interrogate that more. However, i did want to inject a little more nuance on the topic of nerds and that's that nerds in school often are being targeted for poor social skills, neurodiversity, or social isolation, or some combination of the three and going in on their interests is actually secondary. Yes there are nerds who are very privileged but it's more common in my experience for nerds to be people who follow the best of a different drum and children don't tolerate that well. Also, nerd interests appeal to those who dissociate because of abuse within the home. Abuse in the home being another risk factor for bullying since that child isn't securely attached, doesn't know how to safely assert themselves, and lacks backing if they are targeted. It's easy to think all nerds are just spoiled single sons who glided intimate high paying technical jobs and spent thousands on Warhammer or MTG and just not see all the other people on the periphery who are and have been living in much more desperate situations, have poor mental health, little support, and struggle with income and employment. Many nerd social hobbies are pay to play.
So again even that situation doesn't mean you magically understand what it's like to not be white, all difficulties are not the same experience, and it's ignorance to pretend that they are. I just winced a bit when you characterized nerds as simply people stigmatized for their interests since broadly in that demographic so many of them never had a chance from kindergarten, long before the lines get drawn around jocks, so it's clearly more complex and profound in terms of the impact on that person's psychological development.
Of course I have 2 hours of meetings so I can't watch this right away. But I will, and I'm so excited for this... but I'm gonna read it too and suffer with you.
Misery loves company 🥰
@@dfretter wait. you posted this RIGHT BEFORE I was told I got a permanent position at work! I got GREAT NEWS and then SUFFERED
@ that’s my petty revenge.
i think your point about the author being disabled but not having a very clear grasp of white supremacy and racial discrimination is interesting esp. since she does not seem to have a particularly clear grasp of ableism either - the disability community is so stratified esp since disability is so common yet many disabled people do not consider themselves part of a Political Class as disabled people (and may not even want to acknowledge that they are disabled). even within the spectrum of people with EDS there are some people who are mildly affected and experience some chronic pain, others who experience a lot of chronic pain, others who have heart complications and vascular issues and are at a high risk of death in their early 20s. someone who is mildly affected by eds may punch down at others who are more severely affected/have other disabilities and perpetuate ableism - well i have x condition and can do y, why cant you? type stuff
I don’t think you should apologize for the zinger in the description. It was a good pun and I stand by that 🤷
I am definitely watching this review video before AND after I read Onyx Storm.
D helping us through 2025 🙏
It’s my mission
I’m new to this channel so idk if this has already been mentioned, but anyone else found it weird that the only (i honestly haven’t read beyond the first book I might be wrong lmao) black character is named Rhiannon… like Rihanna???? Girl you couldn’t come up with a more original name 😭😭
Luffy and Zoro share the same single brain cell and I appreciate the analogy.
Thank you for your service
That sigh at the top of the vid 😸
I wasn't even remotely into these stories. I've seen them on tik tok, and other places, but never had interest in reading them. Well, last week the audiobook for Fourth Wing popped up here on my main page for youtube. I was like- It's free let me give it a whirl and someone can read to me. I cringed at the narrator alone. Her sinus issues, etc made it abundantly clear she was sick and they didn't bother to re-record the first half of the book???? So, I pushed through attempting to keep my growing disgust at her noises in check. Guess what? I didn't like the book. But I was still curious. I mean I felt no emotion for any of the characters. I didn't care if they lived or died. I couldn't keep half of them in perspective of who was who because they were that forgettable. And I b*tched to my hubby about how much I hated all three books once I finished Onyx Storm. But I bitched a little about Fourth Wing before starting Iron Flame.
I explained that she started the book off at like from a level of 1-10 like an 11 for me in heightened action in the book just from first chapter. And there wasn't much of a lull to just come to terms or maybe understand the characters it was just something of high anxiety happening scene after scene after scene. It numbed me to caring about what happened with any character especially Violet. There was only one emotional response from me and it was for a different character though can't remember which one and at the very end of the book that made me chuckle a little. That's it. The ONLY EMOTIONAL RESPONSE. I explained to him that as a writer and reader myself I couldn't connect because no down time between high anxiety scenes. And when you have a story like that where you don't get a moments peace really it's just yeah...
Iron Flame was worse and made me just hate the series that much more. And these long books of no development really is just annoying and frustrating. Half the time I couldn't even keep the rules of the world straight because they seemed to change in the moment to fit whatever was happening in scene. I get it she's human we're all human and sometimes things shift while writing, but just... And I'm not a perfect writer by NO MEANS. Heck, I didn't even know Xaden has brown skin because it just must have gone in one ear and out the other. But these books are also predictable as all hell.
Come on every time they are about to achieve a goal the goal post is drastically moved way down the line. And there's two more books? Will I read them or listen, yes. I want my total despise of Violet to be complete because she's just going to get worse. And with her memories zapped my guess is Xaden left a little present in Violet that they both didn't plan on. And there will be some weird hybrid venin baby by end of the fourth book or into the fifth. But that is just a guess on the spot.
The only character I kind of like is Tarin her dragon. He's just a grumpy bastard that is never near her when she needs him and always a few minutes away. Like what!? LOL Ok my rant is done. This was a good review though.