Everywhere I looked, I saw Fourth Wing. It's a fantasy about a military school that trains young people to become dragon riders. It's very dangerous. WaEverywhere I looked, I saw Fourth Wing. It's a fantasy about a military school that trains young people to become dragon riders. It's very dangerous. Watch out! Because the other cadets are extremely cutthroat (as in, your classmates will cut your throat), the dragons will incinerate you if they think you're weak, and you have a 50/50 chance of falling off a cliff or somesuch during training. Kind of like a mash-up of How to Train Your Dragon and Red Rising. THAT SOUNDS FUCKING COOL AS HELL. And it is.
[image]
But. And here's the secret: this is a cringy romance. Ahhhhhh. See, I didn't know that when I started reading. And I feel that it's pertinent information. So after listening to it for a bit, I thought oh well, this must be young adult because the heroine (Violet) is a bit annoying. She's not strong, her body is fragile, and yet she's wah wah wah in her attitude towards people helping her. Plus, she's in life and death situations and she's still seemingly ruled by hormones. That's fine. I was a youngster myself back in the day. I had the urges. And I love cringy romance. I'm reading a bodice ripper right now. But what I don't love is stepping into what I think will be a badass fantasy story and then hearing things like he's all sharp lines and barely leashed power or how he's always saying something "harshly" that sends a shiver down her spine. And make no mistake, there are lots of dark & growly things coming from Xaden Riorson (that name! as soon as I heard it I knew what I was in for) over the course of the story. But probably if I hadn't read this same story a million times, I'd be just as enamored as a lot of the other reviewers.
[image]
Sadly, I've read too many books for this one to hold any surprises for me. Even the shocking twist at the end was something I expected to happen. That's not even something I fault the author for, I just didn't have my expectations lined up in the correct order. And I guess that's what I'm trying to convey. THIS IS A NEW ADULT ROMANCE. Set against a fantasy-lite backdrop. The whole book revolves around Violet and Xaden rolling around in angst while working their way toward each other's panties. It's not Young Adult because they drop the f-bomb and have the dirty sexy times. But New Adult is typically coated in as much relationship cheese as YA, and this one is no exception. So. Strap in for big declarations, reading every encounter with each other wrong, cravings for abs and bottom lips, ridiculous trust issues, and sexual attraction that must. be. fought. at. any. cost. This kind of book really isn't my jam, but for the kind of book that it is, it does its job well.
[image]
I actually did really enjoy the underlying plot and world-building. Yarros has some excellent ideas and I would love to see what she could come up with in a setting where romance doesn't take center stage.
Audiobook review: I listened to Rebecca Soler's reading of this and...no. I think she's supposed to have that generic young girl voice but it sounds like she's holding her nose when she talks or something. I tried listening to the book at all different speeds to see if maybe that would help, but I finally gave up and went back to my normal 1.5 speed. I haven't seen any other complaints, so this may just be a me thing.
Recommended for fans of NA/YA fantasy romance....more
This was my 1st Jackie Collins. And it was everything I thought it would be and more. It was horrible. Horrible to the point that it seemed like I was This was my 1st Jackie Collins. And it was everything I thought it would be and more. It was horrible. Horrible to the point that it seemed like I was reading a parody. Except parodies are usually funny and this one just made me kinda sick.
[image]
The characters in this thing. Everyone was this Carrington Dynasty level of faux glamorous that I thought went out in the 80s. The dialogue was...I have no words for what I endured. Well, one word springs to mind. Torture. You don't need thumbscrews or bamboo under the fingernails. You could just play this audiobook and break someone's mind. There's a Madonna/Cheresque character who unironically refers to herself in the 3rd person. YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY.
[image]
You know what? No. Just...no. I don't want to talk about this anymore with anyone but my therapist. However. This isn't my kind of book. And it wasn't something that I ever would have willingly picked out on my own, so take my opinions with a grain of salt if this genre is your jam.
Just kidding. If I had the option to give this less than one star, I would!
Buddy read with Alexander of the Peterhans. I will never forgive you for this....more
What a shitshow. And the more I think about it the more I dislike this one.
[image]
I loved the premise, and I'm also a huge fan of these elderly detectiWhat a shitshow. And the more I think about it the more I dislike this one.
[image]
I loved the premise, and I'm also a huge fan of these elderly detective stories. And this seemingly ticked off all the right boxes when I read the blurb. 77 year old Judith is living her best life in an inherited mansion, has a job she loves, and drinks like a fish. In fact, the opening sequence where she takes her evening skinny dip (also how she hears the murder taking place) was awesome. I loved that she was a loner who finds a group of women who are completely different from each other, and how they all learn how important it is to have girlfriends. And I loved that it was hinted at that she had some sort of delicious secret in her past that has something to do with a locked room and a dead husband.
[image]
However, the murder mystery was utter shit. Judith is convinced she knows who the murderer was from the get-go because she thought they seemed shady, and then spends the rest of the book trying to prove they did it. (view spoiler)[Yup. They did it. What? Shouldn't there be a twist? Somewhere? And no, the fact that there were 3 of them was not a twist. That was just dumb. (hide spoiler)] I should probably mention that Judith designs crosswords. Why? Because it will be shoved down your throat throughout the book over and over as though it somehow means she's able to solve murders. It's ridiculous.
[image]
And as much as I love books that promote healthy relationships between women, I equally despise books that think in order to do that you have to portray every man as a douchebag. Judith's husband was an abusive cheater. Beck's husband ignores her as a person and he and her children just expect her to do everything for them. (view spoiler)[At the end, when she is helping the police and her husband grabs her in the middle of it (even though they are in a hurry b/c Judith might be getting murdered at any moment) and declares that she's AMAZING, I thew up in my mouth at how cheesy that whole scene was. (hide spoiler)] Suzy's husband left her and she had to raise her children as a single mother. Judith's murdered neighbor turns out to be a thief and a cheat. Liz's husband is the only guy who seems nice (view spoiler)[ but he turns out to be one of the three killers. Obviously, Suzy misjudged Liz by thinking she was a bitch who killed her dog. It was her terrible husband who killed the dog and poor Liz was framed. (hide spoiler)] Suzy's friend the cab driver was a pretty nice guy, but he gets killed in the first few chapters. The policewoman's husband is a loser who spends his time trying to make it as DJ, hasn't made any money at it in a decade or so, and expects her to take care of the children. Her father is elderly and he and her brothers expect her to be the one to take care of him, including doing all of the repairs on his house. The lawyer they think is mixed up in everything is a sexist scuzzball that harasses Becks when she goes to his office. It's fucking overkill.
[image]
The clues to the mystery make no sense. (view spoiler)[Why would Liz have written Rowing Dinner in her calendar? If that was the ONLY entry in her entire calendar, then she quite obviously didn't use her calendar at all. The only reason it was in there was PLOT. Supposedly she wrote her husband's rowing reunion dinner in her calendar because she was a good wife - once again men suck and women are so thoughtful, just in case you missed it - and that way she wouldn't book anything else for him for that night. What? IT IS LITERALLY THE ONLY THING IN THE CALENDAR. For that clue to make sense, there would have had to have been a calendar jam-packed full of things she didn't want to be mixed up with his rowing dinner! (hide spoiler)] There are so many things that didn't make sense in this book. (view spoiler)[At the end, Judith plans this (incredibly flawed) trap for one of the murderers because she knows he's going to come to her house to kill her. When he does, she tries to get him to monologue by confronting him with her knowledge of how the 3 of them committed the crimes. Each of them basically killed one person they had no reason to kill that the other wanted dead, while the other 2 get rock-solid alibis. Liz's husband is the one that comes to kill Judith. And even though he is standing in her living room pointing a gun at her he keeps acting confused and denying that he and the other 2 guys were part of a murder plot. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Dude, you are aiming a gun at a little old lady. Why are you getting all mad and trying to defend yourself from her accusations? (hide spoiler)] So. fucking. stupid.
[image]
When the (female) dog saves someone's life at the end? NO. That whole sequence of events was impossible. (view spoiler)[ Suzy can't swim. But she jumps into a raging river during a terrible storm and tries to get to Judith. Naturally, she doesn't die like a normal human. Why? Because her Doberman Pinscher drags her to shore like a dolphin. Oh, and the dog also somehow understands her and goes to save Juith when she gets to the other side. (hide spoiler)] *head explodes*
[image]
Oh, and remember that delicious secret about Judith? She wears a key around her neck that goes to a locked room in her mansion! (view spoiler)[Surprise! The room is full of newspapers. She has collected every newspaper and pamphlet and periodical and apparently anything else made of paper since her husband died a million years ago. Wow. The big reveal is that she's a hoarder. (hide spoiler)] But there's more! Supposedly her abusive husband fell off a boat by himself during a storm. But it's hinted at for the entire book that he died under more mysterious circumstances and Judith killed him. (view spoiler)[She did. Yes. At the end, she basically tells the girls that she shoved his ass off of that boat. Wait. What? So the thing you were hinting at WAS actually the thing that she did? Like...no twist to it at all? (hide spoiler)]
I was listening to the audiobook, so I didn't have the satisfaction of throwing the book across the room. This could have been such a cool book but it wasn't. Oh, and why does she wear that stupid cape everywhere? It's this little cloak that she loves, and she tosses it on and bikes around everywhere feeling like a superhero with this thing flapping behind her. I need more of a story behind this thing because, to be honest, it sounds like she looks ridiculous.
And why can't she drive a car? You can't say she's ballsy and cool but also that she never learned how to drive! It's fuckin weird. And I'm not reading any more of this damn series, that's for sure....more
Nooooo. The writing isn't bad but the plot was (to me) terrible. For a story that revolves around killing, there wasn't much in the way of menace happenNooooo. The writing isn't bad but the plot was (to me) terrible. For a story that revolves around killing, there wasn't much in the way of menace happening. You're mostly just stuck in a loop of babbling nonsense. And that's because you have to live inside of Jade's head for the entire book as she gushes and giggles and talks nonstop about slasher films. It was like listening to an 8 year old tell you about their favorite YouTuber ad nauseam.
[image]
And that's it. That's the entire book. By the time the killing started, I was more than ready. Hurry the fuck up with the stabbing, please!
[image]
Jade sees the signs that a SLASHER is coming to town. Instead of being worried, she's excited for the body count to start piling up. For reasons, she sees it as her job to try to help the beautiful new student learn everything she needs to know to level up and take her place as The Final Girl. And of course Jade has an abusive backstory. But by the time we get to the Big Reveal at the end, it feels incredibly anti-climactic. The plot had already meandered all over the abuse and then away in an attempt to make the end seem like a gotcha! It was not a gotcha!, it was a given.
[image]
The ending itself was OUT OF NOWHERE. Just...what? (view spoiler)[It's a ghost girl that's been killing everyone? What the fuck?
[image] (hide spoiler)] Then there's an epilogue that's even more OUT OF NOWHERE. (view spoiler)[She slurks off into the woods to die because nobody loves her. But then up pops a massive forest fire. Jade saves the town by doing some kind of acrobatics and making her way to the...dam control room? I don't know what it's called and I don't care. She then chops/hits out a window, pushing buttons that raise the dam, thus sending floodwater toward the fire. Ta-da! And then it ends dramatically with a mother bear standing up for her baby bear against a mean male bear and Jade looking off into the sunlight. <--omfg stop
I really should have known this book wasn't for me when I saw this part of the blurb.
Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges… a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.
That? No. My eyes rolled right out of my head at about the same time as my gag reflex kicked in.
[image]
I'm not saying this is a bad book or that the people who love it are idiots. But I am saying that if your initial reaction to those sentences was the same as mine, I think you'll probably have the same experience with this story as I did. Different strokes and all that. And since I'm seeing as many rave reviews as bad reviews, I'm also thinking this is one of those books that splits readers right down the middle into love it or hate it categories. I just happened to fall into the hate it camp, but that doesn't mean you necessarily will....more
DNF a few excruciating hours into the audio. I want to finish it and find out what happens to all of these characters but the dialogue is AWFUL. And tDNF a few excruciating hours into the audio. I want to finish it and find out what happens to all of these characters but the dialogue is AWFUL. And the narrator just makes it a thousand times more awful with her faux sexy-teen girl voice.
[image]
I read a lot (A LOT!) of trashy romance novels, and I've never run across anything that made me cringe quite the way this one does. It's almost to the point of parody.
[image]
You might think it can't get worse than the first two books - I certainly did - but then it does. Because the previous books are cheesy but doable if you know what you're getting into. And I enjoyed them for what they were, but this was...no. Terrible dialogue, terrible-er narration. Maybe if this were the last book? But it's not. And as dramatic as this sounds, I simply cannot do this anymore....more
Loading...
