Cailin Riley Books

Imagine my surprise late last month when my local library sent me a ping that their copy of Fourth Wing was ready for me to pick up weeks earlier than I expected.

As you probably know, the insanely popular fantasy novel has been difficult for many to get ahold of, myself included. Many booksellers, including Amazon, have the novel on backorder and so my only option at the time was to put a hold on it at the public library.

Only to find out that I would be #15 in line. I honestly didn’t expect to get the book in my hands until like, November. But I guess a number of people canceled their holds and thank goodness for that.

So what did I think of the book that I so cautiously contemplated? (I’m super wary of TikTok recs ever since I got suckered into a book club reading of Things We Never Got Over and I’ll never get that $17 back.)

It was good. Really.

I enjoyed the world-building and the plot kept me interested and reading late into the night. The characters were easy to cheer for and the dragons were really cool.

The only thing that didn’t wow me and would make me give it 4 stars instead of 5, was the romance.

This surprised me because of all the hype–I really expected to be blown away by all the sexual tension and such. But it just kind of fell flat for me. This could be because, at very nearly 30, I feel like I’ve read just about every romance trope there is and nothing tickles this hardened heart anymore.

Or it could be that the pacing of the novel threw me off. The book quickly advances in time over their first year of school, which makes it seem like their relationship advances way more quickly than it truly does.

All in all, I do think it is a fantasy worth reading. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite book of the year, but that’s a tough benchmark to reach these days.

Have you read Fourth Wing yet? What did you think?