Just finished Fourth Wing / Book 1 of Empyrean Series

quote:

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It was kind of weird that in the middle of magic/dragons and such that dudes starts eating everybody out

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Thats an interesting synopses

I will add this here as well incase the discussion gets better traction in this thread:

I would like to share my thoughts on 4th Wing and Part 1 of Iron Flame and would love to know your opinions.

We can discuss part 2 when you finish.

Fourth Wing SPOILERS start now if you haven't read it:

I thought the book was great. The will they, won't they between Xaden and Violet was done well and drawn out perfectly. I could definitely do without the graphic sex scenes. A page or 2, sure but entire chapters of explicit descriptions was unnecessary and I found myself just skipping them after the second one because it does nothing to drive the story along. They did a good job of developing side characters and I loved her friend group and liked the arcs of Daine and even Jack Barlow. I was legitimately shocked at the ending and felt Yaros did a good job layering the story throughout. She gave subtle hints at things but not to the point where I could predict what was happening next. Even when the foreshadowing was heavy like it was with the "lone unbonded black dragon" she threw you off the scent by introducing Andarna and even having the green dragons confront Violet at Presentation.

Iron Flame Part I SPOILERS:

I thought Part 1 was a great continuation of the story and it introduced a conniving, power hungry weasel as the villain. Obviously losing the borderline porn scenes could have made this book much shorter. And as opposed to the will they won't they of the original book where the sex was a final release of built up tension, the scenes seemed forced in this book as there wasn't any legit reason for them other than the author wanting some X rated stuff to keep with appearances. I honestly thought this should have been a stand alone book by itself so that more of the story could be fleshed out. While Varish was evil, his character was kind of hollow as we never know his real motive and why he would be so loyal to Col Aetos. And if Violet's mom is in charge of the school, why would she create a position for someone to harass her daughter? I get not interfering with Violet's school experience but creating a position to be detrimental to her didn't make a ton of sense. I felt they also could have developed the back stories of some her friends a bit better in this part if the book. We really don't know anything about any friend other than Rhi beyond their school experience. And even with Rhi, we don't know her motivation to be a rider, we just know she has a family and a nephew. Like why did she want to be a rider when no one else in her family is one? They should have fleshed some of that out as well as others in her friend group to make us more attached to them.

At this point I am not sure what was in part 1 vs part 2 so I will stop so I don't actually spoil anything. I have feelings one way or the other with how it all plays out and don't want to influence yours as I want to know your unbiased opinion before sharing mine.