(Review) Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros: Still not living up to Fourth Wing

Hello r/Fantasy! I know this series is not particularly popular here, but as someone who really enjoyed Fourth Wing despite it being outside what I typically read (Abercrombie, Sanderson, Dinniman, Hobb, Fonda Lee, Ken Liu, Ruocchio, Brennan, Kingfisher, etc.) I need to get some negative thoughts out about this new release. Again, I really enjoyed Fourth Wing, so if you didn't, either this review is not for you or you might enjoy watching me rant about this book LOL

Fourth Wing was a book that really worked for me. Don't get me wrong, I acknowledge the flaws: the worldbuilding made little sense, the writing was mediocre at its best and cringey at its worst, and most of all Violet's horny thoughts were the literal worst thing I've ever read. HOWEVER, all the same, I found the character banter charming, the protagonist's relationships to her family members really compelling, the magic pretty cool (even if it was kind of shallow), the school setting and Hunger Games death matches very very fun. It wasn't high literature, but it was popcorn.

Iron Flame came along, and I actually enjoyed the first half of the book. We got a new, very easy to hate villain, some interesting long distance relationship dynamics, and some fun action and intrigue. But then the second half became a different, much less interesting book, and those same problems continue to plague the series in its third instalment, Onyx Storm.

In Onyx Storm, I've started to realize that Yarros is unwilling to step outside her comfort zone as a writer and actually work on the epic fantasy side of the plot. The plot here involves the characters having to go on a quest to a) gather allies, b) heal a curse, and c) find a lost 7th breed of dragons. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly compelling quest. Where Tolkien built out his quest with a beautiful world, and Ruocchio built out his quest in Howling Dark by constructing a complex intrigue-filled single location, and Brennan filled out the journeys in each of the five Memoirs of Lady Trent books with carefully detailed and nuanced cultures to explore culture clash…Yarros largely uses the quest here to give more excuses for borderline meaningless MCU-style quippy banter between the crew and for an action scene at each location.

Don't get me wrong, Yarros is a genuinely funny writer and a lot of her jokes do land for me. Also, there's genuine moments of brilliance here, with well written antagonists, interesting side character arcs, and genuinely touching relationship moments. She's good at building mysteries in the world you get curious about and teasing you with secrets that other lands might hold and surprising you with new reveals in various character relationships. There's a lot of good stuff here.

But rather than explore these potential conflicts and limit her humor so when it strikes it lands harder, she seems fully committed to simply returning to Violet expressing for the umpteenth time how much she loves Xaden / is horny for Xaden or Xaden expressing for the umpteenth time the unspeakable atrocities he would commit so he can fuck Violet, or Ridoc making random wisecracks 2-3 times per page. We get it already. At a certain point, it starts to feel less like a serious attempt at writing fantasy/romantasy and more like a glorified Wattpad fiction.

This formula worked a lot better in Fourth Wing. For one, the romance was still in its infancy and hadn't developed into a relationship yet, so when there was banter or flirting, there was tension there, as it wasn't totally clear how things would play out (I mean we all know, of course, but the characters don't know)—plus, the romance leads directly to the fantasy plot. For another, that first book is a lot about the crew learning to trust and rely on one another, plus we don't know which characters will live or die so there's a lot of tension every time we're starting to enjoy a banter scene because getting attached to a character means potentially feeling heartbreak later.

My friend and I who surprisingly enjoyed Fourth Wing but didn't like Iron Flame strongly felt that Yarros needed to grow as a writer and evolve her style in Onyx Storm beyond her comfort zone as a romance writer if she was going to pull off this plot. We had hoped that the extra time she took on this book meant that she would be able to do it. Sadly, she did not. (At least for me, my friend hasn't finished the book yet.)

All this said: the second half is marginally better than the first, and there are at least a few interesting developments. So I can't say she failed completely. But by Malek, it could have been so much better. This book is 2 stars for me.

Bingo squares: Dreams, Romantasy, Multi POV (there are several chapters from other characters' POVs at the end), Character with a Disability (hard mode)