I didn’t think I’d get hooked but I did.. reminds me of stories I love like divergent, hunger games, a little Enders game imo

I don’t usually go for fantasy novels, and while this isn’t the worst i’ve read, I never really felt invested. 
First of all, Yarros needs to learn new ways to say “my scalp prickled”, “my voice dripped with sarcasm”, “he growled”, “badass”. these phrases were repeated to an annoying extent. 
the book felt like an attempted mix between the hunger games and divergent,

especially with the revolution coming at the end.

. I found none of the characters well-fleshed out, and none of them lovable except maybe Liam. Despite this shallowness, the book is quite long. Parts were fun, and I might continue the series to see if it improves, but i’m not particularly excited. 

I only read this book because it was popular, but fine, it was really good and I couldn’t put it down!!

Violet Sorrengail is supposed to be this weak but brainy underdog, but don’t let the book fool you—she conveniently wins every life-or-death trial, making her struggle feel about as real as a reality TV show fight. Her fragile body? Not an issue, because plot armor beats bone density every time. Xaden is your standard brooding bad boy with a tragic past who somehow manages to be both infuriating and predictable. Jack, the main antagonist, is so cartoonishly evil that he might as well have a mustache to twirl. And then there’s Dain—walking proof that not all men should be childhood best friends. Secondary characters? They exist, mostly to die or make Violet look better.

Basgiath War College is basically Murder Hogwarts, but with dragons. Sounds cool, right? Well, it could have been if the world-building wasn’t so half-baked. The school’s entire philosophy is “survival of the fittest” but also, like… maybe don’t kill too many recruits because, hey, we need soldiers for this ongoing war? Consistency is optional here. The dragons? Underutilized. The war? An afterthought. The actual world outside of the school? Barely developed. If you like settings that look cool but fall apart under scrutiny, you’re in for a treat.

The prose is functional, which is the nicest way I can put it. But let’s talk about the real problem: modern-sounding dialogue in a fantasy world. I get that snark is the lifeblood of this book, but having Violet drop lines that sound straight out of a 2020s Twitter thread? Yeah, that kills immersion real quick. Also, if I had a coin for every time Violet internally monologues about how weak she is despite, you know, constantly outmaneuvering and outlasting everyone, I’d be richer than this book’s publisher.

This book is like an amusement park ride—thrilling in the moment, but the second you stop and think about it, you realize it makes no damn sense. The trials Violet faces? Arbitrary. The life-or-death stakes? Undermined by her constant success. The romantic tension? Predictable as hell. The War College structure? A logistical nightmare. I mean, why would a military academy just let their cadets kill each other willy-nilly when they need actual soldiers? Oh, and the big plot twists? If you’ve read any YA fantasy in the last decade, you saw them coming from a mile away.

Yes, it’s fast-paced. Yes, it’s action-packed. But is it actually engaging when you stop being blinded by the constant movement? That’s debatable. I kept turning pages, but not necessarily because I was invested—I just wanted to see if this mess would eventually balance itself out (spoiler: it doesn’t). The story never lets you breathe or feel the weight of what’s happening because it’s too busy shoving the next dramatic moment in your face.

If you’re expecting well-developed relationships based on mutual respect and emotional growth, you’re in the wrong book. Xaden and Violet’s romance follows the "we hate each other but also want to rip each other's clothes off" formula without an ounce of originality. Dain spends half the book being the overprotective, condescending childhood friend no one asked for, and the rest of the cast exists to either be obstacles or cheerleaders. As for logic? There is none. The rules of the world are more flexible than Xaden’s moral compass, and the entire “dragons choose their riders” system feels like it was written on the fly.

Look, I didn’t hate it. If you turn off your brain, it’s fun in the same way that a bad action movie is—you know it’s dumb, but you’re still entertained. If you like hot, broody love interests, badass dragon battles (that we don’t get nearly enough of), and training montages where the protagonist somehow doesn’t die despite every odd stacked against her, then yeah, you’ll enjoy this. But if you’re looking for depth, logic, or actual stakes? This ain’t it. 

Not my cup of tea. A little too trope-heavy for me to enjoy without feeling like it was checking off tropes (or scenes from other books) off of a list. The main character was not particularly interesting once discovered her longing for the LI. Much of the world-building and lore was lost beneath the modern-day dialogue, building of the romantic plot, exposition and info dumping. The book feels more as if it was originally written for a younger audience, YA perhaps, which I've grown out of but was placed into NA due to the sexual content. The characters are underdeveloped and immature. I would have preferred more focus on the world-building and dragon lore but much of the story was spent in the MC's head and that was often clouded by sexual tension or lust/desire for the LI (and by this I mean any actual plot happening in these scenes would be immediately interrupted by her internal dialogue of longing). Not really for me but lovers of ACOTAR, Divergent, and How to Train Your Dragon would likely enjoy as there were several overlapping themes/vibes etc. throughout the story. Elements of Red Queen were present, which I did enjoy, but without the same quality of writing. I think this book unfortunately suffers from awkward dialogue, strange pacing, and lack of confidence in it's own world-building. The author seems like the original focus was either meant to be less focused on the romance but was asked to add more "spice" to be competitive a romantasy market with books like ACOTAR and TOG, OR the author wanted to focus more on the romantasy elements and less so on the world building. I read this around when it first came out but even hearing that subsequent books have "stronger plot elements and world-building" isn't enough to entice me to read more. It's not for me, but it might be for you.

Positives:
- Dragons (needed more page time and more fleshing out)

- A few creative solutions to one-on-one fights that were above MC's physicality

- Some of the lore or guide excerpts added to the beginning of each chapter.

Negatives:
- "Violence" is an intolerable nickname especially when used in serious situations.

- Ambiguously "tan" characters made me give this an "it's complicated" on diverse characters because characters rarely were given much depth beyond some surface-level observations and even some of those were vague. If you have to find out from the author that the LI reflects a specific real-world race, it might be a little too ambiguous. RY is far from the only author to write ambiguously tan/dark male characters who often end up not actually being men of color. It feels like a cop-out for a writer and/or publisher to try and appeal to a wider audience without committing to any specific race. As a reader, I find that disingenuous. As a writer, I find it to be cowardly. If you are afraid readers won't enjoy your books if the love interest isn't a tan white man, then there might be a bigger problem.

- Dialogue in this book was jarringly modern, for me personally. The world felt contrary to the dialogue, what little of it we did see, and I didn't particularly enjoy any of the dialogue.

- Felt recycled from several YA books I read over the last decade (i.e. Divergent, ACOTAR, Red Queen, Eragon, Hunger Games). I can't quite place it, but the story almost didn't even feel comfortable in it's own world.

- Sexual encounters were uncomfortable to read, not because I dislike open-door scenes, but because it was awkwardly written. There was one specific phrase used about an arousal that made me cringe and wish I could unread it to this day. The intimacy, if you can call it that, was deeply unsexy and perhaps that's because the characters seem like they were originally intended to be YA, but I felt a little too "old" to be reading it at times.

- The academy/program makes no sense. They are building an army yet are totally fine if these kids people unalive each other in training or out of training. It's a strange concept.

- The MC's strengths are utilized sometimes and then forgotten completely other times. She isn't a particularly interesting character once she develops her crush on the LI, and lost my attention about halfway through the book. Once I reached the end, I didn't really care how her story was going to end (enough to read any more books) because her depth was so limited and her main focus was on her romance, which was poorly developed. Her background skills exist merely for the sake of info dumping about the world to force feed exposition to the readers.

- Which brings me to...the author doesn't seem to respect the reader's intelligence enough to allow them to pick up on the world around them. Everything is force-fed as mentioned from the opening scene. Fantasy is difficult with world-building and it can be difficult to avoid info-dumping, but it was handled so poorly that as a reader I was either given too much information at once which was immediately forgotten because it little relevance to anything going on, or any scenes where there was the perfect opportunity to provide the reader with information about the world (such as classes, etc.), the MC whose head we live in, was focused more on longing for the LI. This was distracting and clearly used to show the main point of the story was a vehicle for romance. The backdrop was a fantasy world which was lackluster and limited by the MC's viewpoint.

Somewhere in between:
- There is some "disability" rep by an "own voice" author, however there were several moments where the character's physical disability was almost forgotten, or brushed off as "you can overcome this if you just push through it and keep going" which I have read other readers' responses who share this same disability to note that it was frustrating to read represented in a way that made it seem like it was something to "just be overcome". Not to mention the syndrome seemed to completely disappear during rough sexual encounters which was uncomfortable and disappointing to read. 

Hey, so this book ruined my life in the best way. I will never be the same. Hope this helps xo