Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This series is my version of trash reality TV.


Look, I’m beyond invested at this point, but UUUUGH... 😩 My problem with these books is that the good things (the overall premise, the characters, the romance) are way too thin a veneer to cover up all the bad (crude writing, juvenile dialogue, insane pacing, and nonsensical logistics). It’s such a great concept with a depressingly poor execution. My feelings keep getting more complicated with each installment, and this has become a love-hate relationship for me. Consider everything below the spoiler tag as an attempt to sort out my convoluted thoughts regarding all three currently published books rather than a dedicated review of Onyx Storm.

1. Inexplicable logistics continues to be my biggest beef with the Empyrean series.
   
   I know some readers can look past practical matters when it comes to fantasy and romance, but I hyperfixate and get taken out of a story when things don’t make sense or follow priorly established rules of the fantasy universe. In a military setting, logistics are essential, but here they’re constantly and consistently sacrificed or ignored for the sake of mindless thrills and plot advancement. These are the novel equivalents of crappy action films.
   
   

   “But death is no longer an acceptable outcome when you face your classmates. The days of settling your scores on the mat are over. We need each and every one of you to survive to graduation.”

   
   ↑ Okay, but I still can’t comprehend why widespread cadet death was ever an acceptable outcome in the first place. How has a military academy with such high death rates ever been a functional option? I get that becoming a dragon rider is an extremely dangerous and selective process. It’s my understanding that dragon riders are basically the Navy SEALs of this universe. Death while in the line of duty is to be expected. However, I’m unable to fathom the stupidity of letting multitudes of conscripts and voluntarily-enlisted service members die during basic training for the most elite military branch rather than moving them to a more appropriate branch to fully utilize troops for active duty. Back in Fourth Wing, I questioned Yarros’s intelligence for making such a ridiculous oversight, especially considering she’s a military spouse. However, in Iron Flame, the gryphon fliers share their vastly different training experience and directly question the insanity of dragon riders’ nonchalance regarding cadet death. Failed gryphon fliers either make another attempt or serve elsewhere, whereas failed dragon riders are simply dead and useless. Clearly, Yarros is well aware of the absurdness, yet expects me to suspend my disbelief enough to accept the existence of a fictional kingdom—currently locked in a prolonged military conflict—that is ludicrous enough to casually kill off recruits during training. 


2. This is some of the most immature writing I’ve ever read in an adult series. 
   
   I want to preface this point by emphasizing that I find many reviews complaining about writing to be silly (and often riddled with grammatical errors), and I don’t like to get on a high horse regarding prose, especially when it comes to romance. To each their own, but as a reader, I try to ignore writing issues unless they glaringly impact the plot. Once you’ve had the experience of pouring through hundreds of pages on multiple fanfiction sites trying to find one decently written story, you learn to shrug off a lot of things. (Of course, standards should admittedly be higher for professionally edited, published books.) I believe consumable, brain-off fiction is just as important as intellectually stimulating stories. All this is to say that this is some of the most lousy, fanfiction-tier material I’ve ever consumed (and classifying it as such is an insult to some great fanfics I’ve read). It is incredibly childish and churlish. The only intelligent dialogue comes from the dragons, and so much of the human dialogue is unnatural and irritatingly quippy.
   
   I’m also annoyed by how absurdly crass this writing is. I don’t consider myself to be a prudish reader. I’m fine with vulgarities in dialogue; it’s common vernacular and makes characters seem more realistic. However, I find the overuse of vulgar language in descriptive text to be lazy and bad writing. It takes me out of the story and makes me feel like I’m reading something written by a preteen who overuses profanity to sound edgy. I’m not saying I want the writing to be more pretentious; I only wish it felt more like it was written by an adult with a bigger vocabulary.


3. Occasional genius is sprinkled throughout the rough writing. 
   
   Example of a standout line in Onyx Storm that made me chuckle:
   

   “I careen into the storm with as much grace as a flailing drunkard held hostage by physics...”

   
   The fact that there is intermittently good writing almost makes me more irritated about all the mediocrity. I feel that it was intentionally dumbed down to cater to audience stupidity, and that is one of my biggest pet peeves in books and films. I’m almost positive Yarros could have produced a better story than this, but either she or her editors decided it would be more marketable if everything was oversimplified and reverted to the reading level of a foul-mouthed second grader. In all fairness, I suppose they were correct about the marketability, considering how popular this series has become. It’s just a shame because I’m certain that Yarros is a much better writer than this. You can see it in the chapter introductions and periodically scattered throughout the shallowness that makes up the bulk of the books.


4. I don’t know or care who half these people are, and I’m not given time to care even if I wanted to!
   
   With mass slaughter being so prevelant in these books, one would think there wouldn’t be that many characters left to keep up with. WRONG! Every ten minutes, someone I’ve completely forgotten about shows up, and the plot manically progresses as if I remember every single rando’s entire life story. In reality, I can’t even recall if half of these people are supposed to be good guys or villains. There are also several moments between characters that are meant to be emotionally riveting, but unfortunately, I couldn’t care less because everything happens at such a breakneck pace. I rarely have time to get invested in a single character other than Violet or Xaden because everyone else is treated like a bouncy ball—there when they’re conveniently needed, gone as soon as they’re not. Characters are dying, other characters are crying, and I'm just over here thinking, “Too bad, Whoever-You-Were. I won’t have any recollection of your demise or existence five minutes from now. I’m certain I’ll be expected to remember it in a random paragraph in the middle of the next book, but that’s a lost cause.”


5. As the series progresses, it’s becoming increasingly clear that only Fourth Wing holds up as a standalone novel.
   
   This is related to the previous point. I think the mark of a good series is whether or not a reader can randomly pick one of the individual installments off a shelf and still have a decent understanding of what’s happening, regardless of whether or not they’ve read previous books. That’s impossible with the series. There’s next to no recap of previous events, and there are way too many characters and random lore dumps to keep track of. I’ve read all three books in order, and I can barely remember who people are or what they’re talking about half the time. We’re only three books in, and it’s almost as difficult to keep things straight as it is with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


6. I think cliffhangers like this are unacceptable in books.
   
   Since when did we become okay with bestselling novels using the same cheap formula as sensational serials and primetime television dramas? Narrative fiction is meant to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Even if it’s a series of books, each book is meant to tell an individual story with a conclusion. For example, each of the Harry Potter books had a definitive beginning and ending despite leaving the readers anticipating what comes next. In my opinion, cliffhangers like the ones at the end of Iron Flame and Onyx Storm are repugnant marketing ploys, and if I wasn’t one of the pathetic plebs whose lack of willpower is being exploited, I would have given up on this series after the nonsense non-ending of Iron Flame. Alas, they’ve successfully manipulated me just as they intended.

TL;DR: These books are illogical junk food; I’m just here for the dragon riding and the memes.

༻❁༺

𝓟.𝓢. This review was crossposted from Goodreads because it contains actual thoughts rather than a typically facetious single-sentence remark. View all my book ratings and pointless takes on Goodreads or The StoryGraph.