Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros Review

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.
 

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.
 

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.
 

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.
 

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

Entry #2 in Rebecca Yarros’s the Empyrean series similar to my review of Fourth Wing, I’ll be jumping right into my general impressions and skip the usual editorial-style intro and recap since most people are quite familiar with the series one way or another. Dividing into two parts that are roughly equal in page counts, Iron Flame is like a tale of two different reading experiences vastly different from each other. The entire novel covers about half of Violet Sorrengail’s 2nd year at the Basgiath War College, with part 1 following a similar formula to Fourth Wing’s rider academy training arc and part 2 diverging and focusing on the larger political factions and war strategizing across the continent, most similar to Fourth Wing’s late War Games arc and the subsequent events. Interestingly, Iron Flame’s overall direction with its plot, characters and hybrid romantasy genre largely addressed and improved on nearly every point of criticism I mentioned in my past review of Fourth Wing. And while I found Iron Flame’s Part 2 half to range from great to stellar, its opening Part 1 half felt like an endless slog to get through. Although the plot and world-building were substantially more ambitious and cohesive in this novel vs Fourth Wing, the overall reading experience for me was just as varied, albeit being far more consistent within each separate part/half.

While I generally quite enjoyed Fourth Wing as previously reviewed, my biggest points of criticism had to do with Yarros’s clunky managing of the story’s fantasy and romance elements, often ping-ponging between the two. Additionally, the romance storyline felt like it took full priority away from the generally entertaining fantasy story at the 60% mark and never managed to reclaim its pacing and compelling narrative despite the well-plotted War Games arc at the 90% mark. I also found the world-building to be weak, shallow, and poorly planned out with new fantasy mechanics, folklore, and political maneuvering being pulled out of thin air to make frequent plot twists work. On paper, Iron Flame’s plot and world-building was substantially improved across the board, in my opinion with enough world-building and an advanced magic system to solidify the series as a regular fantasy story, romantasy elements included or omitted. With additional information provided to the Dragon lore and growth development revolving around Adarna, more exploration of the existence and connection between venin/wyvern, considerably more information on gryphon fliers, the fantasy content is a major step up over Fourth Wing’s flashy but often surface level rules of magic. More importantly, Iron Flame also spent a considerable amount of time detailing the history, conflicts and inter-country/entity relations as well as shifting dynamics of the “rebellion” and flier drifts. Unlike Fourth Wing that felt like it was making it as it went along, Iron Flame was far more successful with introducing necessary clues and information early on and its numerous plot twists had far better foreshadowing so the surprises were, well surprising, but not baffling or confusing (the huge twists towards the end of part 2 in particular).

Another area I nitpicked Fourth Wing about was with its very heavy-handed approach to the lawful vs chaotic and safe vs dangerously spicy Dain and Xaden comparison. While Dain was completely removed as a romantic interest mid-way through Fourth Wing, the way Yarros handled Dain’s character and friendship, betrayal of Violet and their abrasive tension was less than impressive. I also commented that although Rhiannon had so many on-page appearances as Violet’s best friend, she felt mostly cookie-cutter and didn’t really contribute anything of value to Fourth Wing’s story. The female cast of side characters as a whole often felt overlooked and shafted compared to the male side characters like Liam, Bodhi, even fillers like Sawyer or Ridoc compared to Imogen who had a far more notable role yet very few actual appearances. Again, Iron Flame directly improved in all these areas substantially. While Dain’s character mostly followed the same tired direction as Fourth Wing for majority of the first part, a dramatic scene that closes out the first half felt very well-executed and the character’s role improved substantially in part 2, breaking away from the repetitive Xaden vs Dain conflict that went on and on for no reason other than as a poorly used love triangle trope. Like Dain and Rhiannon, the supporting cast of characters suffered from the same bland and underdeveloped issue but improved substantially towards the end of part 1 and all the way through part 2. And making me eat my words, Imogen finally got the screen time she deserved last book throughout Iron Flame and the female cast of characters were beefed up considerably with the addition of Cat, Maren and Sloan. Both new first-year riders Sloan and Aaric were given notable introductions as well as important arcs specific to their characters which again, is an improvement over Fourth Wing’s cycle of rushing through new character introductions, just to kill them off for dramatic effect without properly earning the emotional impact Yarros was shooting for. For example, Violet constantly grieves and regrets the deaths of Liam and Soleil and while the guilt about Liam’s death is justifiable due to his prominence in Fourth Wing, Soleil was barely in there apart from name and was killed not long after she was introduced.

While Iron Flame hit all my major issues with Fourth Wing and improved on its world-building details and flow of information, you would imagine it should result in a more consistent and satisfying read. Unfortunately, despite all the improvements and having a far more developed and complex plot, all of that means little if the execution of those concepts doesn’t grab the reader’s interest. For everything Iron Flame gets right, nearly all the good is undone by Yarros’s decision to split the novel into two even halves over an unnecessarily huge grand total of 895 pages (the kindle edition that I read specifically). Additionally, as my interest quickly waned reading the first half due to the lackluster progression, I found myself paying closer attention to Yarros’s prose and character dialogue which just isn’t the greatest. While far from being the worst thing I’ve read, the general writing style continues to have a very juvenile tone as well as often silly dialogue. If I got a dollar every time a character says, “I’m so f*cking sorry!”, I could probably quit my day job. I don’t really expect literary genius for this kind of series but some variation in dialogue would do wonders. Yarros also has a tendency of using this particular line of “Everything about him is just so… him”, tweaking the pronouns or descriptors slightly based on the character. While I acknowledge that is how some people internally think or talk, for story in written form, it feels lazy and a cheap copout. What and why is everything so him? We’ll never know as the reader isn’t Violet and hasn’t known this person for years and years like Yarros expects us to know or overlook.

When you break down my notes and points of improvement mentioned above, nearly all of them pertain to the conclusion of part 1 and the entirety of part 2, almost none of the improvements apart from Imogen’s increased presence occurs in part 1 which is a notable issue. From an objective standpoint, I understand what Yarros was likely trying to do with Iron Flame conceptually. Part 1 resolves the cliffhanger Fourth Wing ended on and returns Violet and the reader to the familiar setup and rider training arcs that were the highlight in the first book. This part serves two crucial functions of one, easing primarily romance or softer romantasy readers into the series’ harder fantasy epic adventure material later on, and two, falling back on to the formula that worked previously while also providing context and important narrative material to make Violet’s future internal conflict of loyalty work. From a subjective standpoint and reader, part 1 drags constantly and fails to recapture what made Fourth Wing’s academy arcs exciting.

Unlike the Rider quadrant’s first-year curriculum that had many notable and foreshadowed benchmarks such as the parapet crossing, the sparring duels, the gauntlet, the presentation, thrashing, and the manifesting of each rider’s signet, the second-year curriculum felt underwhelming. The notable benchmarks of survival on foot and interrogation defense are important skills that make sense for riders to have (not to mention provide good material for conflict and betrayal), but both were substantially less interesting than the first-year challenges. Making matters worse is that both challenges have nothing to do with the riders’ dragons, the obvious main appeal for the series, and is exacerbated by the complete absence of Adarna for all of part 1. The entertaining banter between Tairn and Adarna is one of the series’ best assets and her absence doesn’t help the second-year training arc at all. Once the challenges actually occur, both left me very underwhelmed, the field survival arc largely being skipped over off the page beyond an initial exercise and the interrogation lacking the intensity or brutality I would’ve expected. Perhaps my standards for brutality are skewed having read far more violent fantasy/sci-fi series (Fourth Wing readers would perish reading Pierce Brown’s excellently grisly Red Rising saga), but for how much Iron Flame was hyping up the danger and threat of these challenges, the novel simply didn’t deliver. Additionally, Iron Flame attempted to recapture the tension and sense of danger Fourth Wing had but failed due to the threat being too ambiguous. Following the events at Resson and the War Games, the threat of being eliminated from within sounds interesting but the unnamed random assailants don’t have of the personalized and effective suspense that Jack and Xaden provided previously (Aetos’s replacement as the “villain” is laughably shallow and simplistic that it’s hard to take him seriously, contrary to Violet’s hate and fear). I think what also doesn’t help the situation is that compared to Fourth Wing, Iron Flame’s cadet training overall didn’t feel like it had a clear direction or plan. Part 1 had a general feeling of vagueness, almost like Yarros had big plans for part 2 and the ending of part 1 but didn’t know what to fill the lead-up to it with.

Underwhelming dragon and rider content aside, part 1 also suffered due to the repetitive and tiring drama between Violet and Xaden. Minor spoilers aside since it’s assumed people reading a review for Iron Flame would have already read Fourth Wing, but their entire relationship dynamic can be summarized as “you lied to me because it was for my own good as well as the entire continent, so I can’t trust or love you despite what I actually want.” Again, on paper this makes perfect sense, building off Fourth Wing’s plot twist-heavy ending and following the usual trajectory of most straight-laced romance drama novels. Normally I do not care for the miscommunication trope as its usually used to drum up conflict when the author can’t think of anything better or more fitting for the story. The miscommunication trope I thought worked quite well in Iron Flame as it was paired to the series’ growing world-building as well as the unorthodox situation caused by Tairn and Sgaeyl’s bonding. The physical distance and lack of options to communicate while Violet is at Basgiath also provides narrative reasons for why the miscommunication takes time to resolve. Like the year two rider curriculum, the issue is that this goes on and on and on forever and as a reader, Violet starts to become insufferable and difficult to root for. Yarros does too good of a job justifying Xaden’s calculated choices and thought process which serves as a foil to Violet’s more emotionally driven choices, but it makes Violet seem ridiculous repeatedly and is at odds with her “mind of scribe”, smart, and resourceful personality that worked so well in Fourth Wing. This may or may not get me cancelled so let’s not be taking this comment out of context, but a note I had written while reading this was “I liked Violet a lot more when she was ignorant and didn’t have the power/confidence to be so difficult about everything and everyone.” Conceptually, Violet and Xaden’s conflict could’ve definitely worked in moderation but not when it’s stretched out to nearly 500 pages. Part 1 as a whole could have easily been edited down to 200 pages and none of these shortcomings would’ve been anywhere near as noticeable as how they are presented as-is.

Fortunately, once part 1 ends and part 2 picks up outside of Basgiath, pretty much every issue I had with Iron Flame goes away and is replaced with solid fantasy content. While still not trusting each other and having the same tiring conflict, Violet and Xaden’s push and pull is far more tolerable when it’s surrounded by really great plotting and a considerable amount of lore and much-needed history. The direction Yarros went in respects to Syrena and the other drift fliers was pleasantly unexpected and the entire arc revolving around wards, Aretia’s forge and the new base of operation was great! Even the adapted training material in part 2 was far more interesting and developed compared to part 1 (though that’s narratively partly by design to showcase Basgiath’s shortcomings) and I consistently found myself eager for more. Unfortunately, due to the even split of the novel’s two parts, certain arcs of part 2 would’ve probably benefited from being longer or expanded upon (my personal favorite being the side trip and deal to secure Aretia’s luminary, that section could’ve easily been doubled). While Dain had a great revelation and shift in character, Mira’s anticlimactic re-introduction was a complete letdown and could’ve been a great opportunity for more family-related drama/content. The last ten percent of the book in part 2 is also a flurry of plot twists that were not only unexpected but also effectively plotted, leaving the story on another critical cliffhanger that begs the reader to continue with Onyx Storm. Despite my boredom with the first half of Iron Flame, I do intend to continue reading the series.

Despite featuring a considerably better plot and quality improvements across the board, my reading experience was somehow even more uneven and polarizing than Fourth Wing (and that was already very uneven thanks to its clunky romance transitions). While I found part 2 to be solid (4.5, sometimes even a 5 star in places), often surpassing my expectations for what the series can do, part 1’s underwhelming slog of events and romance repetition left a lot to be desired (around a 2.0 rating). And while I understand what the novel was trying to do with its part 1 content, setting the groundwork for part 2 to work off of, it had no business being that long. I don’t know if Yarros was trying to make this a massively sprawling fantasy epic entry similar to other fan-favorites that approach 1k pages like Harry Potter, Red Rising, The Dark Tower, Mistborn, Lord of the Rings, etc., but Iron Flame simply didn’t have enough compelling content to justify the 895 pages (Fourth Wing clocked in at almost 600 pages which I already felt was too lengthy for its material). Either that, or substantial editing and paring down the length should’ve been exercised for quality over quantity. While I didn’t necessarily find part 1 to be offensive enough to drop reading Iron Flame over, it was certainly not encouraging me to continue and I fully understand why so many booktubers and other reviewers DNF it before the half-way mark. While the novel ultimately rewards the reader’s patience, it didn’t have to be this way, so hopefully Onyx Storm will finally deliver a more cohesive story and reading experience that this series keeps falling just short of. This book’s ending seems to suggest a great direction for the story to go and if it follows the style and trajectory of Iron Flame’s 2nd half, Yarros has a recipe for success!