[Book Review] Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

⚠️This Review is not Spolier free ⚠️

Summary

“The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.” —Xaden Riorson

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.

Facts

Published: Nov 2023
Length: 623
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Hardback

Review

You know, I had hopes for this book, but it turned out to be my biggest disappointment of 2023. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, but it sucked so much that I can’t help but feel annoyed. The writing is a mess, like they didn’t bother to polish it at all. And the pacing? Completely off. Plus, the amount of telling instead of showing is beyond frustrating. Forth Wing had such an effortless flow, and this book falls way short.

The story itself is split into two parts so I’ll break down my thoughts into those parts.

Part one

This part of the story is all about Violet and the marked ones who battled in Athebyne integrating back into Basgiath. One of the first things that irked me was Violet, so obviously she is traumatised from the battle but this is not done well, and instead of feeling sorry for she just annoyed me. Then we have a new character, Varrish, who is the new vice commandant, who is basically this books version of Professor Umbridge, the only think missing is the pink clothes and cats (insert eyeroll here). I know this guy was supposed to be scary and intimidating but he was kind of meh, all in all just another angry old guy grappling for power.

The second years have to under interrogation training, which is just another convenient way or Varrish to torture Violet for the truth about she knows.

Violet and Xaden’s relationship was annoying, the audacity of Violet to demand every little secret from Xaden whilst hiding a shit ton of stuff from him at the same time was staggering. Xaden was no angel either, his communication skills were dreadful. They could have sorted out this argument with one honest conversation instead of acting like 12-year-olds, it was exhausting.

Violet has to hide everything from her friends and is basically lying her ass off about everything to keep everything a secret, in the end she does break and tell them everything, which to be honest was relief. All her whining to herself about having to lie was long and drawn out. Once her squad knows the truth they work together to find a way to get the wards working in Aretia, with the help of a scribe they realise that there is a book hidden in the archives that may have answer, its at the end of stealing this book that things really go to shit, Varrish catches Violet and then tortures her for several days before she is rescued by Dain and Xaden.

Before I move on, I need to mention Chapter 25 and its from here that I really started to get majorly irritated with the way this story was unfolding. Ladies and gentlemen give a big welcome back to Jack Barlow (FML!) my eyes rolled so hard when I got to that part, I just thought it was unimaginative and boring and just plain anticlimactic.

Part two

Christ this is turning into an essay, so part two is all about the cadets choosing a side, Violet and her squad go back to Aretia. Again, a lot of unnecessary drama is still going on between Violet and Xaden plus she has his ex-Cat to contend with, who lets be honest was probably on written in to the story for the sake of creating more drama. Seriously didn’t need to happen and it was pathetic to have two supposedly intelligent women fighting over a man.

The dragon riders and gryphon riders have to try and work together, which considering they at war, you’d think they would put aside their petty differences but no this didn’t happen at all. Eventually Mira joins the party and finds out that Brenan isn’t dead.

Xaden, we learn that his second signet is that he is also an inntinnsic…So let me get this straight, he has the powers of both of Rhysand and Azriel from ACOTAR..? just seems a little cray and again not really anything different to what has already been done before.

I’m going to move straight on to the last few chapters,  where another “big” battle takes place, which kind of felt mostly the same as the last battle at the end of Fourth Wing, for all the talk of the lead Venin being some big bad, it was just rubbish, nothing new it was all same same and then the then the whole Xaden turning into a venin… lets just say I’m glad the book ended, because I have just had a enough! Wtf and not in a good way, I’m not excited about the next book and don’t care I just don’t care.

Final thoughts

Pretty much this whole booked sucked for me. Andarna and Ri and probably the only highlights and are the only reason I’m not giving this book 1 star. Even Tairn got annoying, the number of times he mentions choosing Violent because of how super special she is…ugh!

The ending of this book made me so angry, that I have doubts that I’ll read the next book. There was so much unnecessary stuff going and not enough information given about the stuff that matters.

I cancelled my special edition pre-orders as well, that’s how done I am with this series.

My Rating: 2/5 🌟🌟

About the Author‘s

Rebecca Yarros is a hopeless romantic and coffee addict. She is the New York Times bestselling author of over twenty novels, including Fourth Wing, The Last Letter and The Things We Leave Unfinished. She’s also the recipient of the Colorado Romance Writer’s Award of Excellence for Eyes Turned Skyward. Rebecca loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for over twenty years. A mother of six, she is currently surviving the teenage years with all four of her hockey-playing sons