Fourth Wing Empyrean Book 1 Reviews Summary

Plot and World Building

Pros:

• "It’s exciting, written beautifully and keeps your attention."
• "The action, adventures, and world building are phenomenal if you enjoy fantasy and dragons."
• "I was completely hooked and sucked into the world she created."
• "Great for fantasy fans and those who love to root for the underdog."
• "Absolutely astonishing book. Amazing characters, plot, reading speed, emotional tug and everything in between."
• "It has action and suspense, you just have to see what happens next."
• "The world-building was nothing short of extraordinary."
• "Taking all of the best elements of franchises like Harry Potter, Top Gun, & How to Train Your Dragon with just a bit of spice and twists you definitely don’t see coming."

Cons:

• "There is not enough world building for me and felt like the author would skip over lots of details."
• "I struggled with the premises of the world being short on dragon riders yet the school purposely tries to kill the candidates."
• "Decent read. Lots of borrowed ideas."
• "Kind of a combination of Harry Potter and Hunger Games."
• "The "romantic" scenes seemed to be graphic for shock value and weren't really needed."
• "The fantasy elements are well done and intriguing and will hopefully grow in volume two."
• "Filled with vulgar profanity, casual sex, and unnecessary violence this book has no redeeming qualities."
• "This story was like the Hunger Games on steroids as so many are killed or die in some violent fashion…"

Character Development

Pros:

• "Violet is so fun but strong willed, having dealt with her illness and fragility for so long she shows an internal and mental strength."
• "I love that the main character has EDS (it’s not named specifically in the book, but the author has it as I do so it was easy to put two and two together while the main character was describing things)."
• "This writer does a wonderful job keeping readers enticed. I was constantly astounded by the parallels to our own government."
• "The character development in this book is fantastic, and world building is thorough and the plot itself is engaging."
• "Characters feel real, go through growth, and there's even a bit of romance."
• "A good plot tangled with romantic disillusions and over active sex capades but I’ll read the next one cause I like these characters."
• "Characters (intelligent female lead, sexy and intelligent shadow wielder, an interesting cast of friends and foe, DRAGONS, etc.) and interactions amongst the characters (including some interesting family dynamics) were fascinating."
• "The characters were very one dimensional: Yarro wrote the hero as this the super stud guy with dark hair and gorgeous face and body which she seems to think is the female fantasy ideal."

Cons:

• "The protagonist is too much of a reluctant hero needing too much saving, her obstacles nonsensical, her solutions sloppy relying too much on luck."
• "However, they tend to be less and less a problem for her. As someone who IS disabled, I can tell you, if it just took working out and sheer willpower to get through my disabilities, I’d have done that already."
• "Her mother unfeelingly sends her to maybe die (yeah no), the main character makes sexual comment after sexual comment immediately after seeing her male best friend from youth (who would do that?!)."
• "Also, despite all the training she went through, she still made rookie mistakes with her new powers. What was the point of all that training?"
• "This book was incredible!!! I placed my preorder for book two before even finishing book 1. Absolutely a top read of the year but I have to admit I needed to deduct a full star in my rating for TWO reason. One, in many other reviews you’ll see that the writing is more YA than NA and I have to agree."