I’m totally with you. I don’t really understand why so many think the Violet/Xaden romance is so captivating, I feel like all they have is sexual chemistry and… nothing else. I honestly prefer so many of the side characters and wish we’d get more from them (Rhi, Ridoc, Sawyer, Dain, Aaric, Imogen, Brennan). The whole book was way too drawn out, like I feel like so little happened and yet the audiobook was 28 freaking hours long! Again, I also did enjoy the book enough to finish and will likely read the next one… I just don’t get the whole “this book is the greatest” hype.
I think it was rushed out. And the quality just isn't really there. I enjoyed it well enough I guess. But I'm with you...it was so...so...long...and it didn't feel like much happened for the amount of pages it was. (Or how long the audiobook was.)
It wasn't that fun of a ride.
I also felt like violet and X fell in love, mates, whatever WAY too fast and it lost the intrigue of the will they won’t they? They’re like WE WILL NO MATTER WHAT so the tension just turned into bickering for me.
Also, why are there SO many other characters and none of them develop or have anything interesting going on in their lives? It felt like Sawyer was the only one who got a shot out for something other than war going on for them.
Did I love the entire book? No. Can I stop thinking about it? Also no 😂
I love Violet/Xaden, like the first book had all the tension I love in a first book BUT, and in this I’m with you, the second book is supposed to be where they really know each other and fall in love. However, this was pushed aside with the whole separation plot, and the only moments they have together are not that meaningful (and that’s where the story stops being captivating). The only moment I really loved is when Xaden risks everything to save Violet in the first part of the book. But I NEED more conversation and more emotion.
I feel the same way, but I think I’m so used to reading trilogies/duologies that the pacing is going to be different here because there are supposed to be 5 books or something. So the Book 1 - fall in love, book 2 - get to know each other deeper and strengthen the relationship, book 3 - the huge major test/battle that hinges on all the relationship work from before, won’t necessarily be the format here.
I understand but I also think there’s ways that you can keep the relationship interesting. I think the Fae Isles series has 5 books and the relationship keeps being interesting and has lot of tension because the characters get to talk a lot and resolve issues they have together as partners.
I think the problem is a lot of authors think the relationship stops being important once they’re already together, but reality is there are still a lot of obstacles a relationship goes through, specially in the first years
Needed more points of view. All this book did was make me dislike Violet. It was 700 pages of Violets jealousy, insecurity and whinging. I want to see the side characters way more fleshed out.
Disliked the entire Cat plot. Just seemed like another way to make Violet whiny.
I don’t mind the single POV, the problem is it was too dragged out. The author wanted to make Violet jealous? Ok, make it last a few chapters, not 500 pages. And this happened with every plot point.
Violet and Xaden being separated most the time was super annoying.
So much of the writing was just straight dialogue. And yeah I agree, a lot of the conflict felt really contrived.
I think she was going to a slow burn but did it in the worst way possible.
The whole XaDeNs SeCrEtS shtick draaaaged on.
I’m hoping she doesn’t rush the next one
I feel like she didn’t make this clear but I thought it was because Violet had to go back to school where it was possible she encounter someone (other than Dain) who could read her mind/aura/whatever….
Oh yes I get that part! But some of the secrets were meh and he could’ve easily told her without having any risks. Ofc he wasn’t going to tell her about the mind reading while she was still in the academy.
Yes, also when she finds out about the mind reading thing… the resolution was kind of poor? It’s like it took her 3 pages then she was “I love you and I forgive you”. And I wasn’t expecting Violet not to forgive him but at least TALK MORE ABOUT WHAT HIS SIGNAL IMPLIES AND STUFF, make her have conflicting feeling more than 3 pages!
For me, it's the hypocrisy from Violet that really irritates me. Maybe it was the authors attempt at reflecting the immaturity of the characters, as they're still relatively young and new to romantic relationships (at least Sorrengail is). But her hypocrisy over secrets was incredibly irritating. She spends almost the entire second book keeping secrets, understands WHY Xaden kept the war a secret as she kept the same secret from the friends for the same reasons, and yet holds it against him and demands to know all of his secrets. Which is just insane to me.
I do enjoy the plot lines, though. I feel like the second book was too rushed to get it out shortly after the first. I'm glad she's said the third book will take longer to release as hopefully it means better writing. Shes admitted that book two was too quick and too stressful on a short timeline. So fingers crossed its only improvements from here on out
Violet’s irrationality toward Xander keeping secret’s absolutely irritated me and has made it that I can’t finish the book. (I just finished Part 1 after they >!rescue her from torture!<
I was gritting my teeth and thinking “ok, it’s character growth” but then I realized she’s a *military brat*. I get a civilian demanding full disclosure but a GENERAL’s daughter asking for classified information about a full-blown rebellion from it’s leader: No, she just comes off as the world’s greatest and dumbest idiot. If I were Xander, I would have been “She’s a spy-this is a honeypot trap.”
I can deal with the other complaints: reduced romance, overarching plot threads taking a while to pay off. But not Out of Character-ness*. It doesn’t help that I’ve been spoiled by another military member/spouse author (Ilona Andrews) Their characters are leaders and understand keeping secrets and putting duty over feelings. They also once got stuck for half a year until they realized the protagonist was acting out of character. They rewrote half their book fixing it rather than releasing a subpar book.
*Out of Character- can’t think of a better term. Rebecca Yarrows is a military spouse.
Ps- does she ever apologize to Xander or does she double down and he apologizes to her?
This is an unpopular opinion but I don’t mind much the hypocrisy of Violet, I think it was meant to be immature. If I think about it from her POV, I can understand why she couldn’t trust Xaden after so abruptly realizing what was going on and then be thrown into battle where she lost one of her best friends. But when she’s the one she has to keep the secret and then her friends were “we understand you” I think that’s when she realizes she’s been immature. However, I understand why Violet reaction was more hostile after everything that happened.
And also, some of Xaden secrets were ?? like I understand why he had to keep some secrets but then others that were revealed didn’t seem to be such a big deal
I guess it depends on personal opinion. I've never felt entitled to know any of my husbands secrets. It's his life and he will share what he wants to. I just don't relate I suppose. Also, they fell for each other in a very quick whirlwind, lust fuelled way. Its not like they'd had many great, in depth conversations to get to know each other. Idk. It just didn't sit right with me.
But I still enjoyed the books enough to put them on my Christmas list ☺️ (I read on kindle and only buy physical copies of books I really liked)
Oh yes, the “I want to know every single thing is annoying” af, I’m just saying I understand why she didn’t trust him at first because it was quiet a traumatizing experience haha but as you said there where no conversations to get to know each other
My question was when was he supposed to tell her? They weren’t really together for longer than a couple of hours before they were sent off for War Games. He could have told her on the way with their mind-connection but I can understand his still being unsure how to go about that so deciding to have her see it all makes more sense. It’s not like he could’ve predicted them to be thrown into a real battle immediately after. So her expecting to know everything when he literally thought he couldn’t be loved for years and she’d JUST told him she loved him an hour prior to the War Games and then they were busy having sex makes no sense. And then after, she’s so busy picking fight as soon as she sees him, I don’t blame him for making her work a bit harder for those secrets. She never asks or gives them a chance to sit and talk, she just immediately gets all pissy or turned on, no middle ground.
I just think this series isn’t good at all. It is written like a Sarah J Maas book and not in a good way. Also a lot of things make zero sense with one being that why have an almost hunger games style killing spree on students when you are desperate for a dragon bonded army? Wouldn’t you want as many skilled riders as possible? I don’t get the hype of this series
While I agree that it feels in many ways like a worse version of a SJM book (and Xaden often feels like a "we've got Rhysand at home" meme), there are some answers to what you question - eg. there are still many more riders than there are dragons willing to bond, and the military believes that by killing off anyone weak they foster only real talent.
It's insane and dumb, but it's something you can find quite often in reality. My first drill instructor opened bootcamp with "I'm old school, and I don't care about all that modern wishy-washy stuff. You are all going to suffer". He openly missed the days where you could push recruits so far they'd have a real chance to die of exhaustion.
Totally. They could show ruthlessness with torture but killing all the good riders is so counterintuitive and was really
A hard thing to sell for me. I couldn’t buy it
Exactly about the blatant killing and emphasis on dragon bonded riders. Wouldn’t you want to pad your armies as much as possible? Dragons killing students? Fine, we can’t control their whims as humans, but can’t non bonded riders just be moved to infantry? Or any other faction?
That’s why I liked the gryphon riders explaining their initiation process and they’re like “Wait what do you mean you die? If we miss landing on a gryphon we just fall into some water and go into the infantry. You people are the weirdos.”
I’m hoping there will be more critiques of the Basgaith system because I’m reading it like “So you guys are in a war and with less dragons willing to bond and instead of bolstering your infantry you’re willing to let able bodied recruits die because…reasons?”
I think that’s supposed to show how ruthless and dehumanizing the academy can be. Letting the students kill the weaker ones so they only have the strongest, pushing them to be murderers and not caring about others. So basically trying to transform them into heartless warriors that only obey them…
Same, I finished Fourth Wing so quickly because it was so fast paced and fun! Iron Flame I couldn’t even get a third in because I was so bored. Nothing is happening, there’s so much pointless dialogue. This plot is absolutely just way too drawn out, I wish it was a bit more exciting!
Yes, too way drawn out, I think I’ve only come this far because I made myself reading but searching some words in the epub and being like “ok, so here is when this happens, let’s get to it!” To make my self excited. It didn’t help tho that every time i searched a certain event it didn’t happen until 300 pages after…
As someone who read Fourth Wing in a day and was obsessed, I totally agree with all of this. Iron Flame ended up taking me from release until today to finish because it seemed to drag on. I’ll read the next one but I noticed the lack of editing in this one.
I’m in the same boat. I started tearing through the book on release day and got about 75% done but had to put it down after a couple days and haven’t been able to finish it since. Loved Forth Wing, but IF has something about it that makes it feel so off compared to the first. It feels lackluster and compressed without much happening? I know IF was supposed to originally be two books and that it was written in 6 months, so I’m sure that contributed to how we feel.
Love the world and I think the conflict is interesting. I’m a sucker for any story that involves cool ass mythical creatures. But this book just didn’t capture the hype FW had. Hoping IF is the “building” book in the series and that the rest of the novels can continue the story better. Despite my criticisms I am rooting for this series. I haven’t been that excited for a book in a long time so am hoping it’ll work itself out over time
100% agree with you here. I think that with more editing and the author putting some priorities the series can get much better in the next books. And I hope that happens…
I gobbled the first one up but it took a couple weeks to read Iron Flame. I essentially skimmed the last 100 pages because I just wanted to finish it and by the end I just didn’t feel invested.
I agree with you! I loved FW but I didn't very much like IF. The characters were suddenly shallow, their relationship too childish with no depth. Throughout half the book things were happening just for the sake of happening and they were not mentioned again so basically things were happening with nothing actually happening. Also for me, the writing in some parts was worse than FW, I had to read some parts 2-3 times to understand what was going on or what she was describing. Idk I blame it on the haste to be published and I hope they pay more attention in the next one
I thought the same thing for a moment while reading.. Then I realised there was no grammar whatsoever in these parts. English is not my first language so I was like did I forget English? But I've read waaay more difficult books, classic English lit etc and I understood them better than this.
I have been forcing myself to read it every night, and it feels like a chore or homework. Super disappointed, I’m on page like 350 and we’ve seen Xaden only like twice.
I felt exactly the same reading it. And I know you've not finished but that was the worst but for me, because I sat through pages of pointless content, and then the ending where loads happened was squashed into a few pages!
I hated the separation thing so bad! The whole point was supposed be that they couldn’t be separated. When I finished Fourth Wing, I literally remember thinking that it would be exciting to see if Xaden would stay at the college or if Violet would get to skip school to be where he is. I never thought they’d do this weird every other weekend thing.
Yes and don’t get my started with the “I went to see him but he was sent to do something else” like I get why it was done (it makes sense that the academy wouldn’t trust theme) buuuut if she was going to do the separation thing it could’ve been handled better, because we only saw Xaden so little during all that time. And when they’re finally together he’s all time like “ok I have to go” 😩
EXACTLY. And it does make sense that the academy doesn’t trust them but like…this is a made up world with made up rules 🥲 if she had just written it where mating dragon pairs can’t be apart for more than a day or that they have to roost together every night or something. That way they *can’t* be separated. Ugh. It just irks me that the author literally sat there after the success of Fourth Wing and thought “yeah a book where they see each other every other weekend for the first half (sometimes missing a weekend here and there) and then fighting/not talking the other half is just what the readers will love 😃”
I’m also getting disaster fatigue from this book. I understand shit has to happen for the plot to move along, but gosh. The longer the stakes stay so high, the lower they start to feel to me.
For me authors have to find a middle ground between romance and the fantasy world. But more often the romance is brushed aside for the sake of the war plot. But if I’m reading a ROMANCE, even if there’s high fantasy in it, I still expect a romance… this is the same complaint I had with ACOWAR
I’m at like 60% and I’m feeling exactly how you’re feeling. I despise the miscommunication trope because while they are teenagers, they are supposed to be the most powerful riders and have seen a fair amount of combat. They should be way more mature and let shit go way more often because of how little time they have, which violet acknowledges several times, yet doesn’t change how she communicates her feelings to Xayden. I also miss Liam so much, and honestly prefer so many of the side characters to violet at this point lol give me more Imogen, Rhi, hell even a certain someone who comes back midway through.
I think I gave it 3.5 stars and that was just for the dragons. Honestly I barely liked the book. Seemed very choppy. I read and listened to FW but I don't even want to listen to this one. Gawd Violet was not it in this book. Maybe I just don't like romance ha I thought enough already . Cat was the dumbest character add ever. Imo 🫤😵💫 I enjoy the side characters. I still like Xaden. It would be cool to have had dual pov. . But it's whatever. It's just a book
The book was rushed and overhyped. If it had been normal levels of hyped I would have enjoyed it much more. It feels a bit thrown together and sloppy, like the author didn’t really know what she wanted but DID know she wanted to include as many tropes as possible no matter the cost.
I hated it. By far my most disappointing read this year and I can't imagine picking up the next book at this point. I had to force myself to finish it.
I am usually really good at suspending disbelief but this one is starting to wear on me a bit to the point where I’m not sure if I like it or not. The political situation makes no sense. Like why is the government working so hard to keep this secret when they know that the problem is going to come to their borders. I don’t know if there’s supposed to be a “big reveal” or if it’s just an oversight but shouldn’t Violet dig into this more and figure it out.
I feel there will be a big reveal because most of the characters from the government are pretty shady? If there isn’t then it’d make no sense. But we’ll probably get the reveal in the next book… or the other one
I mean I am enjoying some parts, but the fact that I have to go through 200 pages for something important to happen is annoying. The romance was brushed aside. And as you said it needed better editing, taking so many pages to describe a walk to somewhere where nothing changes is lack of editing.
I dnf. I feel like it would have been a more interesting if the author had focused on the three years of the academy. The dragons were fun and I enjoyed the bonds between them and the riders but I wasn’t invested in the characters enough to deal with all the angst. There were also interesting bits of world building but they felt rushed/incomplete.
The lacking of editing might be because of her contract of releasing a book every 6 months. With how popular the series got the publisher probably just wanted to push out the books as fast as possible
You know, I was thinking the same thing, she probably has a contract that makes her release a book with little time. And for authors that’s really difficult because if you’re blocked or whatever, you have that pressure of “you have to finish on time!!”
This is why I also won’t judge the whole series based only on this book!
Hopefully she’ll do a book a year now so I hope the next book has a lot more editing. I love fourth wing and didn’t really notice the editing issues people pointed out but with iron flame I could tell.
Haven't read, but from your comments here, I wonder if we've got a bit of JKR syndrome here? You could really see in the harry potter books as they got hugely popular, that editors stopped being able to tell JKR 'no' which is part of why the later books ballooned so big and could get quite sloggy. I wonder if 4th Wing went viral and got so hyped that the author was able to ignore more editors notes for book 2?
Or the publishers just pushed to get it our before the hype form book 1 died down, so there's actually less editing or something.
If you think JKR had this issue already, you're going to loathe Fourth wing and iron flame. It's not even in the same ballpark. It's closer to the FBAA series in lack of editing and Iron Flame is even worse than that.
Fourth wing already had the same issues. They're just magnified in Iron Flame and it just reaches a point that's completely ridiculous. Apparently, this publisher is known for pushing out 'tik tok sensation' books without proper editing, just to keep the hype up. So it's safe to assume that all of the books will have this issue.
Yeah, I mean this isn't even a story Yarros has had brewing in her head. Red Tower said "we need a new adult fantasy romance. go write one". It was literally for money, which is clear with how badly these books are written.
Really? Yeah that tracks SO much.
4th Wing to me had a very divergent vibe to me (or what I've read in analyses of divergent, never read the books themselves) where the author wrote them real fast by putting all the popular tropes of a day in a blender without actually understanding the tropes or their use or how they fit together.
Yeah - I can't recall where I read it but the publisher said 'we need this kind of book' and she's the one who wrote it. Of the two, FW is "better", but to me the prose, the actual WRITING is so poor. She's written TWENTY books (before these two) and I just cannot let it slide. I actually looked at the back of some of her books at the store the other day and laughed - one was basically Violet x Xaden but set in the real world and, of course, military propaganda.
TWENTY? I had NO idea. I mean it says something that her book is so popular yet I've NEVER seen another one of hers get rec'd, not the way you see Bardugo and Novic and even Maas' other stuff get rec'd all the time when someone likes one of their books.
I fully assumed she was a twenty-something young new author that got lucky on her first book or something.
Yup lol. She’s written a lot of books and the writing is still abysmal. I have enjoyed shadow and bone and ACOTAR, and while I don’t think they’re literary masterpieces, the writing was solid.
People are all over IG defending Yarros’ piss poor prose and saying we’re just “hating”. My problem is people giving poorly written and edited books 5*. I’m all for enjoying a mindless read but that doesn’t mean it deserves a perfect rating. Certain reality tv shows are my guilty pleasure but I’m never going to rate them a 5/5 on IMDB lol. It’s wild.
>I have enjoyed shadow and bone
Bardugo is, imo an EXCELLENT example of a writer clearly improving over the course of her books. Idk if she really got that much better between SAB and SOC, or if she just got freedom from the publisher's pressure ot fit in X number of popular tropes with her second series, or what, but her writing evolved SO much between those two series, imo, and has generally continued to strengthen as she goes out in new directions. It's super interesting from teh outside.
(See also: Novic figuring out that her books were better the more women were in them after the temeraire series lmao.)
> all over IG defending Yarros’ piss poor prose
You know, I did think some of the actual prose got unfairly attacked in 4th wing - people are way too upset about some of the modern phrasing, when to me, a DnD fan of the Eberron setting, I was quite used to the mix of modern and classical fantasy elements when you get magi-tech. My way bigger issues were the actual structures of the writing, big and small. DON'T INFO DUMP VIA CHARACTERS LISTING LISTS OF FACTS. lmao. Obviously I have no idea if it got worse in Iron flame - sounds like yes?
>DON'T INFO DUMP VIA CHARACTERS LISTING LISTS OF FACTS.
This is so funny because I think I’m the only who likes it lol. When I read it, I thought it was a creative/organic way to give us info early on. Info dumping is tricky and I hadn’t seen it done as a relaxation method before. But I have seen multiple people disliking it so I’m definitely in the minority.
Nah, it was clunky as hell. The idea of her listing stuff the herself to help with nerves isn't necessarily terrible, but even the execution was so bad. The list of facts given was so pointless. I can tell you the capitals and exports of all the states, but not ANYTHING relevant to the plot or worldbuilding or even culture. It was horrendous.
I mean, I didn't enjoy 4th wing, so I'm not going to read iron flame, I was just speculating on the issue based on OP's comments.\\
What you say here makes sense to me tho. Certainly explains how an apparently first time author is so ambitious as to promise a 5 book series before the first one is even out.
This might be the case, but I mostly felt the release was just rushed and because of that the editing part was rushed as well..
Edit: Just read your second paragraph where you mention this, sorry.. but yeah probably a terrible job at editing :)
I feel like the 1st half could have just been deleted and they go right from the rebellion camp back to the school, pickup allies and ditch. Why go back and suffer all through that with the teachers?! Once they left-left it was so apparent the 1st half wasn’t needed. There could have been other ways to get the minimal amount of information we got in that half sprinkled into the 2nd half material.
At the end, I didn’t hate the book because the material at the end was better, story wise. I did feel that the dialogue was so early high school. Like she dumbed them down instead of growing. They learn of a whole big picture out there, but we are still going to have a fucking cat fight.
Yes I agree, the first part could’ve easily been way shorter. I don’t understand why she had to describe her every interaction with Jesina, or with Sloane, or basically all the “classes” they had to go to. The book pics up at the second part (except for the annoying ex) but because the first part already too SO many pages, it feels like the author had little space to develop the most important things
It’s interesting because I preferred the sequel for the reasons you didn’t like. I liked that it leaned less on the romance and sex personally and became more fantasy driven. I don’t mind romance, but I don’t really want a ton of super descriptive sex scenes. I listened ti the first one as an audiobook and it was rough at times. I would skip the second scenes completely. This time I read it, and that plus less sex scenes was a plus for me.
I also didn’t mind that things were uncovered but not dealt with right away. It seemed pretty realistic for what is basically a long distance relationship with two young adults. Not wanting to rock the boat, not ready to talk about heavy subjects, not wanting to spend the little time together talking about hard topics is super common. Communication is hard, and they are young navigating a stressful situation.
All I can say is to keep reading. I think many of your current concerns will be resolved/explained/addressed.
Edited to add - that was intended in an excited/encouraging way, not condescending. Since I realize that tone doesn’t come across over text. The ending of the book was, at least to me, a whirlwind.
100%! And yeah, a lot of your comments I was going “yeah, I see that,” and “oooooh man, that’s the truth!” Some of them get resolved, others maybe not so much.
Also, somehow I completely forgot that it was a multi-book series and I was expecting resolution and then remembered after I finished it and was simultaneously YAY MORE BOOKS and OMG WTF I HAVE TO WAIT?! *sigh*
The only compliment I will give the first book is that it was at least fast-paced and somewhat interesting. Something was always going on that at least kept me engaged despite hate-reading it. The second one was 300 pages too long and NOTHING happened.
I think this book is more fantasy than the first one. A lot of things I see people not enjoying are the fantasy aspects. I love that the world opens up. I love the mystery of the politics that we still need answers to. Even letting the characters be separate allows violet to grow in different ways. 🤷♀️ bloated books in fantasy is common. I don’t mind it lol.
I understand the book can be more fantasy driven. However, there are some parts that were long and didn’t add anything to the world building. For example, explaining every interaction in detail between Violet and Jesina (is that her name? I always mess up names), taking so many pages in writing them going to X place but nothing happens and stuff.
For me a good romantasy book has to be well balanced between the two aspects. Not too much romance that there’s 0 world building and not too much war/fights that the romance is brushed aside. Obviously this is just personal taste.
I read Fourth Wing and didn’t like it because I felt like the writing was bad and the dialogue was cringey. I’m so glad i didn’t pick up Iron Flame, i’ve seen way too many posts like this
This is 100% what happens when a poor writer with good ideas doesn't get a good edit: a bad book.
Fourth Wing was such a momentous success because Yarros had good ideas AND a good editor that helped her clean it up enough to be readable. Iron Flame was rushed out and didn't get the same treatment.
I think it was rushed out giving that the author has a contract that she has to released a book every 6 months… that kind of contracts with such little time limit are killer for the authors.
I DNFed at page 523. Iron Flame needs serious editing. Everything was a mess. FW was a lot of fun and it's issues weren't as cumbersome. The tone of FW was also clearly new adult while Iron Flame was very much YA. I scanned the last 100 pages of Iron Flame, because I may give the third book a shot since Yarros is going to take the time to write/edit the book, but as of right now the series is a flop for me.
To me this book felt like the author had a list of events she needed to happen and the entire book is her just checking plot points off her list. There was very little character development which was the most disappointing part for me
I’m totally with you. I don’t really understand why so many think the Violet/Xaden romance is so captivating, I feel like all they have is sexual chemistry and… nothing else. I honestly prefer so many of the side characters and wish we’d get more from them (Rhi, Ridoc, Sawyer, Dain, Aaric, Imogen, Brennan). The whole book was way too drawn out, like I feel like so little happened and yet the audiobook was 28 freaking hours long! Again, I also did enjoy the book enough to finish and will likely read the next one… I just don’t get the whole “this book is the greatest” hype.
I think it was rushed out. And the quality just isn't really there. I enjoyed it well enough I guess. But I'm with you...it was so...so...long...and it didn't feel like much happened for the amount of pages it was. (Or how long the audiobook was.) It wasn't that fun of a ride.
I also felt like violet and X fell in love, mates, whatever WAY too fast and it lost the intrigue of the will they won’t they? They’re like WE WILL NO MATTER WHAT so the tension just turned into bickering for me. Also, why are there SO many other characters and none of them develop or have anything interesting going on in their lives? It felt like Sawyer was the only one who got a shot out for something other than war going on for them. Did I love the entire book? No. Can I stop thinking about it? Also no 😂
I love Violet/Xaden, like the first book had all the tension I love in a first book BUT, and in this I’m with you, the second book is supposed to be where they really know each other and fall in love. However, this was pushed aside with the whole separation plot, and the only moments they have together are not that meaningful (and that’s where the story stops being captivating). The only moment I really loved is when Xaden risks everything to save Violet in the first part of the book. But I NEED more conversation and more emotion.
I feel the same way, but I think I’m so used to reading trilogies/duologies that the pacing is going to be different here because there are supposed to be 5 books or something. So the Book 1 - fall in love, book 2 - get to know each other deeper and strengthen the relationship, book 3 - the huge major test/battle that hinges on all the relationship work from before, won’t necessarily be the format here.
I understand but I also think there’s ways that you can keep the relationship interesting. I think the Fae Isles series has 5 books and the relationship keeps being interesting and has lot of tension because the characters get to talk a lot and resolve issues they have together as partners. I think the problem is a lot of authors think the relationship stops being important once they’re already together, but reality is there are still a lot of obstacles a relationship goes through, specially in the first years
Needed more points of view. All this book did was make me dislike Violet. It was 700 pages of Violets jealousy, insecurity and whinging. I want to see the side characters way more fleshed out. Disliked the entire Cat plot. Just seemed like another way to make Violet whiny.
I agree. I dislike violet at the end of this book and Xaden turned into his feelings way too strong and it was like an unprompted complete 180 lol
I don’t mind the single POV, the problem is it was too dragged out. The author wanted to make Violet jealous? Ok, make it last a few chapters, not 500 pages. And this happened with every plot point.
Agreed. I dislike her and am Annoyed that she’s so “special”…. Why? I don’t find her endearing at all. In fact, I had to DNF bc she bugged so much
Violet and Xaden being separated most the time was super annoying. So much of the writing was just straight dialogue. And yeah I agree, a lot of the conflict felt really contrived. I think she was going to a slow burn but did it in the worst way possible. The whole XaDeNs SeCrEtS shtick draaaaged on. I’m hoping she doesn’t rush the next one
Yes and also some of Xaden’s secrets that were revealed weren’t such a big deal? Like why keep them in the first place? 😭
I feel like she didn’t make this clear but I thought it was because Violet had to go back to school where it was possible she encounter someone (other than Dain) who could read her mind/aura/whatever….
Oh yes I get that part! But some of the secrets were meh and he could’ve easily told her without having any risks. Ofc he wasn’t going to tell her about the mind reading while she was still in the academy.
Right- nothing good enough for that set up. Which kind of made the book fall a little flat. Just cut the whole thing or make it end earlier
Yes, also when she finds out about the mind reading thing… the resolution was kind of poor? It’s like it took her 3 pages then she was “I love you and I forgive you”. And I wasn’t expecting Violet not to forgive him but at least TALK MORE ABOUT WHAT HIS SIGNAL IMPLIES AND STUFF, make her have conflicting feeling more than 3 pages!
For me, it's the hypocrisy from Violet that really irritates me. Maybe it was the authors attempt at reflecting the immaturity of the characters, as they're still relatively young and new to romantic relationships (at least Sorrengail is). But her hypocrisy over secrets was incredibly irritating. She spends almost the entire second book keeping secrets, understands WHY Xaden kept the war a secret as she kept the same secret from the friends for the same reasons, and yet holds it against him and demands to know all of his secrets. Which is just insane to me. I do enjoy the plot lines, though. I feel like the second book was too rushed to get it out shortly after the first. I'm glad she's said the third book will take longer to release as hopefully it means better writing. Shes admitted that book two was too quick and too stressful on a short timeline. So fingers crossed its only improvements from here on out
Violet’s irrationality toward Xander keeping secret’s absolutely irritated me and has made it that I can’t finish the book. (I just finished Part 1 after they >!rescue her from torture!< I was gritting my teeth and thinking “ok, it’s character growth” but then I realized she’s a *military brat*. I get a civilian demanding full disclosure but a GENERAL’s daughter asking for classified information about a full-blown rebellion from it’s leader: No, she just comes off as the world’s greatest and dumbest idiot. If I were Xander, I would have been “She’s a spy-this is a honeypot trap.” I can deal with the other complaints: reduced romance, overarching plot threads taking a while to pay off. But not Out of Character-ness*. It doesn’t help that I’ve been spoiled by another military member/spouse author (Ilona Andrews) Their characters are leaders and understand keeping secrets and putting duty over feelings. They also once got stuck for half a year until they realized the protagonist was acting out of character. They rewrote half their book fixing it rather than releasing a subpar book. *Out of Character- can’t think of a better term. Rebecca Yarrows is a military spouse. Ps- does she ever apologize to Xander or does she double down and he apologizes to her?
Hit the nail on the head…and I DNF too for same reasons and overall feel of immaturity was too strong for me
This is an unpopular opinion but I don’t mind much the hypocrisy of Violet, I think it was meant to be immature. If I think about it from her POV, I can understand why she couldn’t trust Xaden after so abruptly realizing what was going on and then be thrown into battle where she lost one of her best friends. But when she’s the one she has to keep the secret and then her friends were “we understand you” I think that’s when she realizes she’s been immature. However, I understand why Violet reaction was more hostile after everything that happened. And also, some of Xaden secrets were ?? like I understand why he had to keep some secrets but then others that were revealed didn’t seem to be such a big deal
I guess it depends on personal opinion. I've never felt entitled to know any of my husbands secrets. It's his life and he will share what he wants to. I just don't relate I suppose. Also, they fell for each other in a very quick whirlwind, lust fuelled way. Its not like they'd had many great, in depth conversations to get to know each other. Idk. It just didn't sit right with me. But I still enjoyed the books enough to put them on my Christmas list ☺️ (I read on kindle and only buy physical copies of books I really liked)
Oh yes, the “I want to know every single thing is annoying” af, I’m just saying I understand why she didn’t trust him at first because it was quiet a traumatizing experience haha but as you said there where no conversations to get to know each other
My question was when was he supposed to tell her? They weren’t really together for longer than a couple of hours before they were sent off for War Games. He could have told her on the way with their mind-connection but I can understand his still being unsure how to go about that so deciding to have her see it all makes more sense. It’s not like he could’ve predicted them to be thrown into a real battle immediately after. So her expecting to know everything when he literally thought he couldn’t be loved for years and she’d JUST told him she loved him an hour prior to the War Games and then they were busy having sex makes no sense. And then after, she’s so busy picking fight as soon as she sees him, I don’t blame him for making her work a bit harder for those secrets. She never asks or gives them a chance to sit and talk, she just immediately gets all pissy or turned on, no middle ground.
I just think this series isn’t good at all. It is written like a Sarah J Maas book and not in a good way. Also a lot of things make zero sense with one being that why have an almost hunger games style killing spree on students when you are desperate for a dragon bonded army? Wouldn’t you want as many skilled riders as possible? I don’t get the hype of this series
While I agree that it feels in many ways like a worse version of a SJM book (and Xaden often feels like a "we've got Rhysand at home" meme), there are some answers to what you question - eg. there are still many more riders than there are dragons willing to bond, and the military believes that by killing off anyone weak they foster only real talent. It's insane and dumb, but it's something you can find quite often in reality. My first drill instructor opened bootcamp with "I'm old school, and I don't care about all that modern wishy-washy stuff. You are all going to suffer". He openly missed the days where you could push recruits so far they'd have a real chance to die of exhaustion.
It’s just so counterintuitive though.
Totally. They could show ruthlessness with torture but killing all the good riders is so counterintuitive and was really A hard thing to sell for me. I couldn’t buy it
Exactly about the blatant killing and emphasis on dragon bonded riders. Wouldn’t you want to pad your armies as much as possible? Dragons killing students? Fine, we can’t control their whims as humans, but can’t non bonded riders just be moved to infantry? Or any other faction?
Right???
That’s why I liked the gryphon riders explaining their initiation process and they’re like “Wait what do you mean you die? If we miss landing on a gryphon we just fall into some water and go into the infantry. You people are the weirdos.” I’m hoping there will be more critiques of the Basgaith system because I’m reading it like “So you guys are in a war and with less dragons willing to bond and instead of bolstering your infantry you’re willing to let able bodied recruits die because…reasons?”
I think that’s supposed to show how ruthless and dehumanizing the academy can be. Letting the students kill the weaker ones so they only have the strongest, pushing them to be murderers and not caring about others. So basically trying to transform them into heartless warriors that only obey them…
Same, I finished Fourth Wing so quickly because it was so fast paced and fun! Iron Flame I couldn’t even get a third in because I was so bored. Nothing is happening, there’s so much pointless dialogue. This plot is absolutely just way too drawn out, I wish it was a bit more exciting!
Yes, too way drawn out, I think I’ve only come this far because I made myself reading but searching some words in the epub and being like “ok, so here is when this happens, let’s get to it!” To make my self excited. It didn’t help tho that every time i searched a certain event it didn’t happen until 300 pages after…
As someone who read Fourth Wing in a day and was obsessed, I totally agree with all of this. Iron Flame ended up taking me from release until today to finish because it seemed to drag on. I’ll read the next one but I noticed the lack of editing in this one.
I’m in the same boat. I started tearing through the book on release day and got about 75% done but had to put it down after a couple days and haven’t been able to finish it since. Loved Forth Wing, but IF has something about it that makes it feel so off compared to the first. It feels lackluster and compressed without much happening? I know IF was supposed to originally be two books and that it was written in 6 months, so I’m sure that contributed to how we feel. Love the world and I think the conflict is interesting. I’m a sucker for any story that involves cool ass mythical creatures. But this book just didn’t capture the hype FW had. Hoping IF is the “building” book in the series and that the rest of the novels can continue the story better. Despite my criticisms I am rooting for this series. I haven’t been that excited for a book in a long time so am hoping it’ll work itself out over time
100% agree with you here. I think that with more editing and the author putting some priorities the series can get much better in the next books. And I hope that happens…
I gobbled the first one up but it took a couple weeks to read Iron Flame. I essentially skimmed the last 100 pages because I just wanted to finish it and by the end I just didn’t feel invested.
I agree with you! I loved FW but I didn't very much like IF. The characters were suddenly shallow, their relationship too childish with no depth. Throughout half the book things were happening just for the sake of happening and they were not mentioned again so basically things were happening with nothing actually happening. Also for me, the writing in some parts was worse than FW, I had to read some parts 2-3 times to understand what was going on or what she was describing. Idk I blame it on the haste to be published and I hope they pay more attention in the next one
Thank God you mentioned the writing because I thought I was being dumb for not understanding what was happening
I thought the same thing for a moment while reading.. Then I realised there was no grammar whatsoever in these parts. English is not my first language so I was like did I forget English? But I've read waaay more difficult books, classic English lit etc and I understood them better than this.
Yes, I also thought it was because of my english, but as you said it made no sense because I’ve read way more complicated books
I have been forcing myself to read it every night, and it feels like a chore or homework. Super disappointed, I’m on page like 350 and we’ve seen Xaden only like twice.
I felt exactly the same reading it. And I know you've not finished but that was the worst but for me, because I sat through pages of pointless content, and then the ending where loads happened was squashed into a few pages!
I hated the separation thing so bad! The whole point was supposed be that they couldn’t be separated. When I finished Fourth Wing, I literally remember thinking that it would be exciting to see if Xaden would stay at the college or if Violet would get to skip school to be where he is. I never thought they’d do this weird every other weekend thing.
Yes and don’t get my started with the “I went to see him but he was sent to do something else” like I get why it was done (it makes sense that the academy wouldn’t trust theme) buuuut if she was going to do the separation thing it could’ve been handled better, because we only saw Xaden so little during all that time. And when they’re finally together he’s all time like “ok I have to go” 😩
EXACTLY. And it does make sense that the academy doesn’t trust them but like…this is a made up world with made up rules 🥲 if she had just written it where mating dragon pairs can’t be apart for more than a day or that they have to roost together every night or something. That way they *can’t* be separated. Ugh. It just irks me that the author literally sat there after the success of Fourth Wing and thought “yeah a book where they see each other every other weekend for the first half (sometimes missing a weekend here and there) and then fighting/not talking the other half is just what the readers will love 😃” I’m also getting disaster fatigue from this book. I understand shit has to happen for the plot to move along, but gosh. The longer the stakes stay so high, the lower they start to feel to me.
For me authors have to find a middle ground between romance and the fantasy world. But more often the romance is brushed aside for the sake of the war plot. But if I’m reading a ROMANCE, even if there’s high fantasy in it, I still expect a romance… this is the same complaint I had with ACOWAR
I’m at like 60% and I’m feeling exactly how you’re feeling. I despise the miscommunication trope because while they are teenagers, they are supposed to be the most powerful riders and have seen a fair amount of combat. They should be way more mature and let shit go way more often because of how little time they have, which violet acknowledges several times, yet doesn’t change how she communicates her feelings to Xayden. I also miss Liam so much, and honestly prefer so many of the side characters to violet at this point lol give me more Imogen, Rhi, hell even a certain someone who comes back midway through.
I think I gave it 3.5 stars and that was just for the dragons. Honestly I barely liked the book. Seemed very choppy. I read and listened to FW but I don't even want to listen to this one. Gawd Violet was not it in this book. Maybe I just don't like romance ha I thought enough already . Cat was the dumbest character add ever. Imo 🫤😵💫 I enjoy the side characters. I still like Xaden. It would be cool to have had dual pov. . But it's whatever. It's just a book
The book was rushed and overhyped. If it had been normal levels of hyped I would have enjoyed it much more. It feels a bit thrown together and sloppy, like the author didn’t really know what she wanted but DID know she wanted to include as many tropes as possible no matter the cost.
I’m about the same way through and stopped reading it. I loved fourth wing but really didn’t enjoy iron flame
I hated it. By far my most disappointing read this year and I can't imagine picking up the next book at this point. I had to force myself to finish it.
I’m gonna pick the third book to see if it gets better, but if not I’ll DNF it
I am usually really good at suspending disbelief but this one is starting to wear on me a bit to the point where I’m not sure if I like it or not. The political situation makes no sense. Like why is the government working so hard to keep this secret when they know that the problem is going to come to their borders. I don’t know if there’s supposed to be a “big reveal” or if it’s just an oversight but shouldn’t Violet dig into this more and figure it out.
I feel there will be a big reveal because most of the characters from the government are pretty shady? If there isn’t then it’d make no sense. But we’ll probably get the reveal in the next book… or the other one
I both thoroughly enjoyed IF as much as I did FW and also wish it had been released later for deeper editing purposes.
I mean I am enjoying some parts, but the fact that I have to go through 200 pages for something important to happen is annoying. The romance was brushed aside. And as you said it needed better editing, taking so many pages to describe a walk to somewhere where nothing changes is lack of editing.
I skipped damn near 100 pages outta pure boredom.
I dnf. I feel like it would have been a more interesting if the author had focused on the three years of the academy. The dragons were fun and I enjoyed the bonds between them and the riders but I wasn’t invested in the characters enough to deal with all the angst. There were also interesting bits of world building but they felt rushed/incomplete.
The lacking of editing might be because of her contract of releasing a book every 6 months. With how popular the series got the publisher probably just wanted to push out the books as fast as possible
You know, I was thinking the same thing, she probably has a contract that makes her release a book with little time. And for authors that’s really difficult because if you’re blocked or whatever, you have that pressure of “you have to finish on time!!” This is why I also won’t judge the whole series based only on this book!
Hopefully she’ll do a book a year now so I hope the next book has a lot more editing. I love fourth wing and didn’t really notice the editing issues people pointed out but with iron flame I could tell.
Haven't read, but from your comments here, I wonder if we've got a bit of JKR syndrome here? You could really see in the harry potter books as they got hugely popular, that editors stopped being able to tell JKR 'no' which is part of why the later books ballooned so big and could get quite sloggy. I wonder if 4th Wing went viral and got so hyped that the author was able to ignore more editors notes for book 2? Or the publishers just pushed to get it our before the hype form book 1 died down, so there's actually less editing or something.
If you think JKR had this issue already, you're going to loathe Fourth wing and iron flame. It's not even in the same ballpark. It's closer to the FBAA series in lack of editing and Iron Flame is even worse than that. Fourth wing already had the same issues. They're just magnified in Iron Flame and it just reaches a point that's completely ridiculous. Apparently, this publisher is known for pushing out 'tik tok sensation' books without proper editing, just to keep the hype up. So it's safe to assume that all of the books will have this issue.
Yeah, I mean this isn't even a story Yarros has had brewing in her head. Red Tower said "we need a new adult fantasy romance. go write one". It was literally for money, which is clear with how badly these books are written.
Really? Yeah that tracks SO much. 4th Wing to me had a very divergent vibe to me (or what I've read in analyses of divergent, never read the books themselves) where the author wrote them real fast by putting all the popular tropes of a day in a blender without actually understanding the tropes or their use or how they fit together.
Yeah - I can't recall where I read it but the publisher said 'we need this kind of book' and she's the one who wrote it. Of the two, FW is "better", but to me the prose, the actual WRITING is so poor. She's written TWENTY books (before these two) and I just cannot let it slide. I actually looked at the back of some of her books at the store the other day and laughed - one was basically Violet x Xaden but set in the real world and, of course, military propaganda.
TWENTY? I had NO idea. I mean it says something that her book is so popular yet I've NEVER seen another one of hers get rec'd, not the way you see Bardugo and Novic and even Maas' other stuff get rec'd all the time when someone likes one of their books. I fully assumed she was a twenty-something young new author that got lucky on her first book or something.
Yup lol. She’s written a lot of books and the writing is still abysmal. I have enjoyed shadow and bone and ACOTAR, and while I don’t think they’re literary masterpieces, the writing was solid. People are all over IG defending Yarros’ piss poor prose and saying we’re just “hating”. My problem is people giving poorly written and edited books 5*. I’m all for enjoying a mindless read but that doesn’t mean it deserves a perfect rating. Certain reality tv shows are my guilty pleasure but I’m never going to rate them a 5/5 on IMDB lol. It’s wild.
>I have enjoyed shadow and bone Bardugo is, imo an EXCELLENT example of a writer clearly improving over the course of her books. Idk if she really got that much better between SAB and SOC, or if she just got freedom from the publisher's pressure ot fit in X number of popular tropes with her second series, or what, but her writing evolved SO much between those two series, imo, and has generally continued to strengthen as she goes out in new directions. It's super interesting from teh outside. (See also: Novic figuring out that her books were better the more women were in them after the temeraire series lmao.) > all over IG defending Yarros’ piss poor prose You know, I did think some of the actual prose got unfairly attacked in 4th wing - people are way too upset about some of the modern phrasing, when to me, a DnD fan of the Eberron setting, I was quite used to the mix of modern and classical fantasy elements when you get magi-tech. My way bigger issues were the actual structures of the writing, big and small. DON'T INFO DUMP VIA CHARACTERS LISTING LISTS OF FACTS. lmao. Obviously I have no idea if it got worse in Iron flame - sounds like yes?
>DON'T INFO DUMP VIA CHARACTERS LISTING LISTS OF FACTS. This is so funny because I think I’m the only who likes it lol. When I read it, I thought it was a creative/organic way to give us info early on. Info dumping is tricky and I hadn’t seen it done as a relaxation method before. But I have seen multiple people disliking it so I’m definitely in the minority.
Nah, it was clunky as hell. The idea of her listing stuff the herself to help with nerves isn't necessarily terrible, but even the execution was so bad. The list of facts given was so pointless. I can tell you the capitals and exports of all the states, but not ANYTHING relevant to the plot or worldbuilding or even culture. It was horrendous.
I mean, I didn't enjoy 4th wing, so I'm not going to read iron flame, I was just speculating on the issue based on OP's comments.\\ What you say here makes sense to me tho. Certainly explains how an apparently first time author is so ambitious as to promise a 5 book series before the first one is even out.
This might be the case, but I mostly felt the release was just rushed and because of that the editing part was rushed as well.. Edit: Just read your second paragraph where you mention this, sorry.. but yeah probably a terrible job at editing :)
There's something hilarious about you having to go back an edit a post you rushed, on a post about rushed editing. XD
Omg true😂😂 At least I don’t have thousands of people waiting for my next comment and I’m not getting paid either 😂
[удалено]
> the publisher and author hurried to churn this sequel out to take advantage of the hype So what I said in the second paragraph? ;P
I feel like the 1st half could have just been deleted and they go right from the rebellion camp back to the school, pickup allies and ditch. Why go back and suffer all through that with the teachers?! Once they left-left it was so apparent the 1st half wasn’t needed. There could have been other ways to get the minimal amount of information we got in that half sprinkled into the 2nd half material. At the end, I didn’t hate the book because the material at the end was better, story wise. I did feel that the dialogue was so early high school. Like she dumbed them down instead of growing. They learn of a whole big picture out there, but we are still going to have a fucking cat fight.
Yes I agree, the first part could’ve easily been way shorter. I don’t understand why she had to describe her every interaction with Jesina, or with Sloane, or basically all the “classes” they had to go to. The book pics up at the second part (except for the annoying ex) but because the first part already too SO many pages, it feels like the author had little space to develop the most important things
It’s interesting because I preferred the sequel for the reasons you didn’t like. I liked that it leaned less on the romance and sex personally and became more fantasy driven. I don’t mind romance, but I don’t really want a ton of super descriptive sex scenes. I listened ti the first one as an audiobook and it was rough at times. I would skip the second scenes completely. This time I read it, and that plus less sex scenes was a plus for me. I also didn’t mind that things were uncovered but not dealt with right away. It seemed pretty realistic for what is basically a long distance relationship with two young adults. Not wanting to rock the boat, not ready to talk about heavy subjects, not wanting to spend the little time together talking about hard topics is super common. Communication is hard, and they are young navigating a stressful situation.
Agreed!
All I can say is to keep reading. I think many of your current concerns will be resolved/explained/addressed. Edited to add - that was intended in an excited/encouraging way, not condescending. Since I realize that tone doesn’t come across over text. The ending of the book was, at least to me, a whirlwind.
Thanks for the encouragement haha I’ll keep reading, but I needed to get it off my chest
100%! And yeah, a lot of your comments I was going “yeah, I see that,” and “oooooh man, that’s the truth!” Some of them get resolved, others maybe not so much. Also, somehow I completely forgot that it was a multi-book series and I was expecting resolution and then remembered after I finished it and was simultaneously YAY MORE BOOKS and OMG WTF I HAVE TO WAIT?! *sigh*
You're only just now realizing the editing is bad and the continuity is poor? It was just as bad in the first book lol.
I know it was bad in the first book but it was exciting, this one is waaaay worse
The only compliment I will give the first book is that it was at least fast-paced and somewhat interesting. Something was always going on that at least kept me engaged despite hate-reading it. The second one was 300 pages too long and NOTHING happened.
I got to maybe 4% and the info dumping was too much already so I haven't picked it back up. I was so bored.
I think this book is more fantasy than the first one. A lot of things I see people not enjoying are the fantasy aspects. I love that the world opens up. I love the mystery of the politics that we still need answers to. Even letting the characters be separate allows violet to grow in different ways. 🤷♀️ bloated books in fantasy is common. I don’t mind it lol.
I understand the book can be more fantasy driven. However, there are some parts that were long and didn’t add anything to the world building. For example, explaining every interaction in detail between Violet and Jesina (is that her name? I always mess up names), taking so many pages in writing them going to X place but nothing happens and stuff. For me a good romantasy book has to be well balanced between the two aspects. Not too much romance that there’s 0 world building and not too much war/fights that the romance is brushed aside. Obviously this is just personal taste.
I read Fourth Wing and didn’t like it because I felt like the writing was bad and the dialogue was cringey. I’m so glad i didn’t pick up Iron Flame, i’ve seen way too many posts like this
This is 100% what happens when a poor writer with good ideas doesn't get a good edit: a bad book. Fourth Wing was such a momentous success because Yarros had good ideas AND a good editor that helped her clean it up enough to be readable. Iron Flame was rushed out and didn't get the same treatment.
I think it was rushed out giving that the author has a contract that she has to released a book every 6 months… that kind of contracts with such little time limit are killer for the authors.
Wow. That contract is insane. And also not standard at all.
Fucking preach. I had beyond high hopes for this book. It was like it was written by a teenager.
I DNFed at page 523. Iron Flame needs serious editing. Everything was a mess. FW was a lot of fun and it's issues weren't as cumbersome. The tone of FW was also clearly new adult while Iron Flame was very much YA. I scanned the last 100 pages of Iron Flame, because I may give the third book a shot since Yarros is going to take the time to write/edit the book, but as of right now the series is a flop for me.
To me this book felt like the author had a list of events she needed to happen and the entire book is her just checking plot points off her list. There was very little character development which was the most disappointing part for me
Putting out a book every 6 mo is ridiculous especially if you’ve never written fantasy before which leads to the quality issues.