Violet Sorrengail is now a 2nd year and waiting for her second signet from Andarna to manifest itself. She is still unable to control her lightening strikes. She now has a durable relationship with Xaden, a 24-year old lieutenant. He will protect her at any cost, including keeping secrets from her which she finds intolerable. In addition, their dragons, Tarin and Sgaeyl are a pair and cannot be separated for long, throwing Violet and Xaden together almost every weekend. Enter Major Varrish, a mean, vindictive man who relishes torture and does bring Violet almost to burnout when she will not order Andarna to the flying field. Andarna is undergoing her sleep and growth period in the Vale. Dain Aetos takes over as the Fourth Wing's leader and tells his father about something he "saw" in Violet's mind that caused the battle in Resson in the first book. Violet has discovered that the leaders have kept the existence of the wyvern and venin a secret from the people. Eventually, she is tortured when she is found with an original journal of the original six riders, but she is rescued by Xaden and Dain. She and half the company leave for Xaden's home, Riorson House located above Aretia, the capital of Tyrrendor and set up a flying school there. Quickly, they include the gryphons and their riders. Unfortunately, the wyvern and venin are coming for Basgiath, Navarre. How will Violet, Xaden, and their friends and colleagues save Basgiath? This is a riveting story, but I could do with very much less explicit sexual scenes. ( )

The plot absolutely drew me in and didn’t let me put the book down.
That said, this book is huge. 30 hours on audio and over 600 pages. It could have been edited down a bit, especially all the arguments between Violet and Xaden. They were the same thing over and over again.

4 Stars

Content: much the same as the first with way too much language, some *scenes* (easy to skip) and lots of violence ( )

Half this boon could have been cut out. I almost DNF’d it. Violet is one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever read and Xanden only personality trait is being sexy. Authors like Pierce Brown can make you emotionally attached to ancillary characters that are only in 10% of the book. This books was 600 pages and I discovered I hate the main characters and was bored the majority of the time. This was definitely stretched to fit a certain amount of pages. ( )

2024 read. Still good writing, and the dedication "To my fellow zebras.Not all strength is physical." won my heart ( because I'm one of those fellow zebras). ( )

I was sorely disappointed by this book. I loved the first book and was hopeful for the second one but it didn't do it for me.

Firstly, I found Violet and Xaden's relationship to be so infuriating. They just weren't a good fit anymore. Which is sad because I believe it has less to do with the characters themselves and more to do with how they were written. Maybe I'm just bitter that we didn't get the happy romance that we all wanted, it would have been way more satisfying if they were a healthy relationship. After such a big build-up for their relationship in the first book, I was so disappointed that they just flopped in the second one. I guess it's realistic for a lot of relationships but still, I read romantasy so I can look up to them, not so I can guiltily still want them to work even though they don't. That kind of just feeds into the already very prominent and messed up societal pressures and influence on young people entering relationships. That's the thing, if the author were to make it clear that their relationship was unhealthy and not a good role model, that would be one thing. But it's the fact that she not only doesn't do that, but instead, she glorifies it. That is what makes me so uncomfortable, disappointed, and concerned. Like what are you trying to teach your audience dude?

Other than that, I found the plot to be a strange pace. The interesting and huge stuff happened way too early into the book. It didn't feel too early while I was reading it in the moment, but after I read the huge crazy scenes, the rest of the book felt disjointed. If that makes sense. There were too many climaxes in this book. It’s like the book wanted to be split into two books except that if it was, the two books wouldn’t have enough real content in them.

Also I HATED the ending. Awful. Abysmal. Didn’t make sense for the character. Terrible plot twist. Not good. Booooo.

I saw someone on Good Reads say that these books are like the fantasy book series equivalent of fast fashion and I TOTALLy agree. Mainly for the second book. It was churned out really fast and not very well done. The writing style was dry and hurt my head a little bit. And the characters that were so beloved in the first book were just so poorly done and thrown to the side in this book. Like Rhi??? Swayer??? Ridoc??? Where are they and why did you dispose of them so??? ( )