Fourth Wing. There could’ve been something interesting there about the way the military industrial complex chews up idealistic young people and spits them out, but the author seems afraid to really go there, and so the stakes never feel high and the reveals never feel shocking.
It also, to my mind, represents the worst of the “booktok-ification” of “representation”. Like, is there a queer character? Check. Is there a Black character? Check. Is there a disabled character? Check. etc. etc. And yet we get maybe one offhanded line that kiiiiiinda tells us these things, and then 99.999999999% of the focus remains on the white, straight, etc. main couple. I strongly believe that books and publishing as a whole need more diversity and inclusivity — however, I think this book exemplifies the wrong way to go about it, and the way that “rep” has just become a checklist in some authors’ and readers’ minds. This one just felt like paying lip service so that fans could add it to every flavor of “diverse books” rec list.
Also the writing was very clunky and the dialogue felt very girlboss-aren’t-I-edgy stilted. The dragons were cool, though, I guess.
I reread Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut every couple of years