Book Review #88 of 2023--
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Rating: 5 stars.
Read from July 8th to 10th.
Am I really giving a Fantasy Romance a 5 star rating right now?? Well, hopefully you’ve seen me live blogging my reactions to this one over the past few days so you know how this book was making me feel. Do I realize this is probably not the next great American novel? Of course. Was I a giddy school girl the entire time I was reading this one? Yes. This was so fast paced (and done well) and I just wanted to keep reading. Yesterday, I read 290 pages in one day (and I would have read more if I had the time) because I had to keep reading. It’s such a compelling story. Let me back up and give you a quick synopsis: We follow Violet who is entering the war college at the age of 20, but instead of going to the scribes like she always thought she would, this disabled young woman is forced to enter the quadrant for the dragon riders. The most physically and mentally demanding quadrant at the school. But when your mother is the general of the war college you do what she demands. While in her first year, Violet must overcome the physical challenges her disability and the school put in front of her. She uses her daily pain as a beacon to light her way and uses every advantage she has to survive.
I don’t know where to start. I loved the world building and felt like it was done in a way that made sense. I could see not only the setting that this was taking place in, but also the magic and the way it worked. I could picture all the different magic types and how their magic worked with the connection between dragon and rider. I could also picture all of the dragons and the way they moved in flight and in battle. I absolutely LOVE Tairn and Andarna. I cannot tell you how quickly these two dragons wormed their way into my heart. A magical companion will always, always become a favorite character. Another character I basically adopted as one of my children immediately is Xaden. Look, morally grey is my favorite color and I have to adopt all of the morally grey characters. It’s practically a law at this point. He is such the dark and brooding villain hero, but at the same time, when you hold him up in comparison to Dain (Violet’s best friend at the start of the novel), he is just the better person when it comes to how he treats Violet. Well, as long as we ignore the first part where he’s threatening to kill her. But you can’t have an excellent enemies to lovers without the enemies first. And that is what this novel has as the Romance part of Fantasy Romance. There were some solid romantic moments in this novel for me. It starts with Knife Flirting--the sharpest and most elegant of flirting styles in Fantasy. There’s also Hand-to-Hand Combat Flirting which I didn’t know was a thing but now want in every. single. Fantasy I read that has even a moment of a romance. Two of the other big, non-sexual, moments for me were when he had daggers made for her and when he had a saddle made for her dragon (and then just approached the most deadly dragon in the quadrant to ask if it wouldn’t mind acting like a fucking horse). But speaking of sex scenes, there are a few which would normally bother me as someone who is asexual and has a lot of trouble with how specific sex scenes get with what the characters like and how uncomfortable that makes me. But these were some good, and still spicy, sex scenes that I actually enjoyed reading. And if you can make me like a sex scene then that alone almost deserves 5 stars.
And that was a long paragraph. Okay, I also could note how the book had a few moments of not 100% great writing, but I had such a good time with this one. I really enjoyed it and I hate that I don’t have a copy. And I also hate that I can’t read this for the first time again. Overall, this is great for someone who likes Fantasy, likes Romance, likes the combo of the two. If you’re looking for something that just hits all the right beats in a magical world with dragons, a deadly war college, and political machinations, pick this one up and thank me later.
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WIP Snippet of the First x Prisoner Reader Vision I've Had Recently
It was dark, as it had been for a long time now.
How long has it been, since he was thrown into this dark cell with accusations of treachery and left to rot?
Days?
Weeks?
Months?
(He didn’t entertain the possibility of years. It slithers and bites cold and cruel like the metal around his wrists, it hisses mockingly in his ears like the demon’s, like snakes twining over his throat.
If he did, he’d think of Orville, of a demon desperately wanting to be granted rest, of deity’s with pale eyes and summer sunlight hair of golden Hylian wheat fields and blue skies. Of a world outside the prison cell.
He can’t afford to falter now, would not give the lord the satisfaction of thinking he’d successfully tamed a lion.)
It was quiet in the dark, if he did not move, nothing but his own breathing and the dizzying, choking dread over what he still saw every time he closed his eyes, over the threat of furious tempest and the burning greed stoking the flames of malice. His perceived betrayal and the injustice of being defanged when his only wish was to protect his people was more agonizing than any wound inflicted on him on the day of his imprisonment, festered like the untreated cuts and bruises, burning through his mind constantly like the tight strain of the chains, digging and pulling into at what was once strong flesh.
The silent isolation could drive any man insane, only stubbornness and determination kept him strong.
…
Suddenly, something changed, enough to make him stir, head hung low but ears twitching with interest. A familiar sound that made him bare his teeth with the most minute of flinches.
Shouting.
Angry yells and outraged howls, the type belonging more to a wild fox’s throat than that of a human’s.
Yelling was never a promising portent.
The metallic screech of an old rusted door being opened reverberated through the dungeon halls, thankfully not his own, a voice’s strangled cry cuts through the silence, more pain than rage, punctuated by the indifferent snapping of cold, twining chains and the slam of the prison cell’s entrance giving it a sense of finality.
‘... Why would someone else…?’
What kind of deeds did his apparent cell neighbor commit to get locked in the most deserted part of this place? He knew there was a cell by the side of his own, from what little he could recall before being imprisoned himself, but it made no measure of sense to chain someone else nearby.
(He knew what the lord was doing, keep him quiet after he'd spoken up about the threat, keep him isolated, drive him mad, slowly but surely chipping away at his will to live-
Even if he was released, who would believe the words of a madman?)
Link thought about his own circumstances, of how he had been branded of ill mind and opportunistic intentions, and ultimately decided it did not matter.
After all, his motives didn't matter either.
Soon enough there was banging on the metallic doors, then cursing, then yowling, then hoarse cries, and then nothing as the silence returned once more to stifle the atmosphere with its oppressive, suffocating weight. Clamping down like a lynel’s fangs upon his mind again.
Link’s ears twitched as he briefly flinched into consciousness, shuddering from both the deep aching in his bones and the cold of the cell, something whispering beneath the silence of the cell. It was subtle, a quiet little clink, clink, clink against the walls like a bird sharpening their beak on stone, his eyes snapped open, eyes darting about the darkness, squinting and straining his ears, the chains rattled with the suddenness of the movement and he gritted his teeth as each muscle screamed in protest, almost gagging at the metallic sweet smell mixing with the sourness of old sweat and the stale air of the cell. He really didn't want to dislocate one of his shoulders again, once was enough.
Link closes his eyes, and sends a quiet prayer for his fellow wayward soul.
...
At first, he thought he imagined it. He couldn't hear the firm footfalls of the guards, the main indication of their patrol routes, nor the confident stride and rankling jewelry of the lord, and he was sure his cellblock companion had gone silent after a quite a few possible weeks of putting up one impressive fight, he doubted they would have left anything much for them to work with.
(If his lips curved a little at the blood coating the lord’s fine sleeves after one of his visits, well, that was between him, the darkness and the goddesses, if they were listening at all.)
And still, the sound persisted, clink, clink, clink.
Then-
Clack.
He lifted his head with a wince, it throbbed but Link couldn't care less about it, he had to find the source of the sound. He squinted at the wall, finally hearing something new, the clanking of heavy chains and heavy, strained breathing, a voice growling in aggravation and strain, raspy in a way he was sure his own would match. A scraping against stone.
“Well… Not much of a breeze from there, great.”
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry as lightning lanced through his spine, a tension seizing his frame, the words came out before he could fully process them, “...Apologies to disappoint.”
“Oh goddesses-” There was a faint sound like something being dropped and the clanking of the chains alongside a faint, muffled thud.
“No goddesses to be found, not here. Just me.” He spoke, some amusement creeping into his voice.
A pause, the faint shifting of metal on stone, and then, “... Did you just- no, nevermind that, this is-” A faint, incredulous chuckle, teetering on the cliff of hysterics, still, they had a nice laugh and suddenly, Link briefly wondered what the shape of a smile would look like on their face, “I know this is probably an awful thing to say, stranger, but it’s so, so nice to know there’s someone else in this awful place other than that pretentious jerk.”
“The lord?” He inquired, more of a statement than anything else.
“That’s the one.” They confirmed, no small amount of bitterness coated their voice with the same sharpness found in the thorns of briars, “Barely a full year in the kingdom, and he’s got his people hauling me to the slammer.” They scoffed, their worn down voice carrying quietly through his cell, “And here I thought Hylia’s people subscribed to her ideology that all life is to be preserved and just judgment above all, guess the joke’s on me.”
Link hangs his head in resignation, something like loathing scraping at his throat, trickles of guilt swallowed down like blood, “... As someone once in his servitude, I offer my apologies on behalf of my people.”
“Oh.” The voice exclaimed, shifting in place, before speaking hesitantly, “Hey now, you don’t have to apologize. It’s got nothing to do with you, the idiocy of one man shouldn’t fall on your shoulders”
A part of Link would like to differ, maybe, just maybe, if he was still free then, he could have done something, anything to help. The prisoner’s howls still ring in his ears.
Remembering his own predicament makes him hold his tongue. If he couldn't even convince the lord that what he saw was the truth, he doubted he would actually succeed
“So…” They start, his ears flick at the light, metallic click, from the corner of his eye, he sees a piece of the wall fall away from a very subtle crack, the shattered stone dropping against the ground of the cell, mixing with the dark stains of old blood, “You seem like a decent enough guy, and you don't sound too hot there so I won't ask what you're in for, care to give me something to call you other than stranger? I'll give you my name in return. Doesn't look like we're going anywhere any time soon, may as well get used to one another.”
He blinked slowly, taking a deep, trembling breath.
When was the last time someone had treated him with any shred of sympathy? When was the last time he had someone to talk to?
(The lord didn't count, it was less a conversation and more so being talked at, urged like some sort of reluctant pet, degraded like a feral dog-
“Take it back.” The lord had spoken, his face impassive and eyes cold, as one of the guards held his head in a grip hard enough to rip the hair from his skull, he hisses, both from the concussion, his back open like a blooming flower and from the blood dripping into his eye and down his cheek like a faux tear, “You may have failed me, may have consorted with demons and dared to renounce our golden goddess' mercy. But so long as you agree to say that all you've told me is a lie, I'll let you go. You will live a normal life, all of your blasphemies will be forgiven.”
He gritted his teeth, it would be so, so easy. It was always that easy.
Except he remembered the thing he sealed in that mask, that even it seemed afraid of what was to come. How it shrieked and yowled and screamed and roared and pleaded to either be slain or sent back to where it belonged just so it would avoid getting involved. Of having nightmares of the sky set aflame for as long as he could remember, of a man with pale hair and crimson garments cackling as he tore his comrades limb from limb, of a woman with golden hair and impossibly seating sapphire screaming with the sound of shrieking birds behind her voice as crystalline wings were torn from her back by a man with hair the color of the fires of war, eyes alight with fury and hate-
He spits at the lord’s feet, snarling like the lion he was often compared to.
“Never.”)
What did he have to lose as he was now, defanged and declawed?
“Link.”
(You pause from the other side of the wall, freezing in place. The short, rusty dagger you had nicked from one of the guards scratching violently against stone as your broken hand shakes, an already unsteady grip sustained only through spite and desperation made lax with shock.
Link, says the man on the other side of the wall. The man whose voice is like gravel, like ashes after a forest fire, but still kind, a little awkward but who immediately apologized for something for harm he didn't even inflict upon you.
You had hoped the Hylia and Hyrule thing were coincidence at best , but now-
Mentally screaming into your own mind, you give him your name, the knobs of your spine prickling with a cold other than the metal collar around your neck.)
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So the thing about the interplay between DR0 and DR2 is this - the question of if you went back far enough, could you prevent someone from becoming who they become?
And that's kind of what we see in play out in theory in DR2. If you remove those years from the Remnants, if you remove their relationship to Junko, then they can be - can become - entirely different people.
Which would then beg the question of, well, if you can do this with the Remnants, could it have been done with Junko? And the answer, given in DR0, is absolutely yes. Junko without her memories - Ryoko - is nothing like Junko.
(Which really counters her argument that she was born that way because, clearly, she was not. If she was, then the loss of her memories wouldn't change anything. But it does.)
The question then becomes, well, how far do we have to go? Or, more succinctly, how many memories do we have to remove to make Junko not Junko?
DR0 removes everything but Matsuda. It gives her short term memory loss, and it makes her rely entirely on her memory notebooks. (And, really, I'd argue that it should have removed Matsuda, too, but didn't, which might be a flaw. Kind of like how when Kyoko had all of her memories removed, she could still figure out she was a detective. (And I guess the idea of memories returning gets addressed first in DR1 - because Kyoko slowly remembers her relationship with her father and her grandfather. Junko didn't perfect Matsuda's method; she just shortened the time frame, which made the effects last longer.)) And, of course, when she regains her memories, she immediately reverts back to being herself, as planned. (And maybe this is a form of testing, not of resolve but of...of something else.)
I would expect that Junko would need more than her two years removed, that it would need to go farther back.
But how far? Where is that moment of no return, where Junko becomes, well, Junko?
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