I don't think I have ever read something that frustrated me as much Fourth Wing did! Very minor spoilers ahead. Apologies for any typos (I'm not in the mood to proofread myself).

Let's start with Violet! Oh Violet! I thought I'd like her with how she was presented at first: a fragile, sweet, books loving girl with a strict mother, who'd somehow would fight against all odds in an inspiring way, making new friends along the journey, saving the world...

But naaaaaaaaah! She ended being the most ungrateful, arrogant brat. She went from wanting to be a scribe, from trying to survive in the Riders Quadrant because she had no other choice to... actually wanting to be a Rider. Don't get me wrong, it's not the part about her changing her mind that's bothering, rather it's the absence of justification or any slow coherent build up that would make me believe that she wants to be a Rider! The only thing that made her want to be a rider, APPARENTLY, is because people around her, almost everyone finds her weak. And she gets mad at it? Not in the way "I'm weak I should get stronger" kind of mad but "Why are they calling me weak? I'm not weak, I can make decisions, I have freedom too" kind of way which, yes, doesn't make any sense!

She's so entitled throughout the entire book! She thinks everyone owes her secrets when she's herself keeping things from almost everyone. She has no respect to people around her. God forbid anyone tells her a constructive criticism, A WELL NEEDED criticism, mind you! Granted, some of her friends or foes were really disrespectful towards her, annoying or dangerous even, but she had that attitude even with close friends, even with those that were extremely sweet to her!
I also didn't understand the whole deal of her being weak or something. She looked pretty fine to me. Whether if her weakness was due to some previous illness or not, she had no business getting so triggered whenever someone stated that she was weak, especially in an environment where getting strong is required because you have to fight. People had to force her to practice, it was so funny.
And worst of all, she never goes through anything remotely difficult, most of times, those around her fix things for her, or she miraculously gets the best thing out of the lot. But none of the challenges made her rethink her decisions, want her to push herself or motivated her to be a rider.
And conveniently, no one noticed her little dirty tricks to get through challenges when APPARENTLY, the entire school hates her and has their attention on her.

Let's move on to the cast now, cuz I have a whole lot to say about that. But first of all! Dear author, please, talking exclusively about the $ex life of your characters is not enough to make them likeable. You could have used all that page time to show more of their different sides, to make them feel more than just one-dimensional clutter of words on paper. But instead I had to go through embarrassing d**k jokes from people I couldn't care less if they died in the bottommost pit. Like did we really need to know, who slept exactly with whom? All that and the vain effort to try to be "inclusive" when your characters are bland as unsalted bread.
Rhiannon is supposed to be Violet's best friend? But what do we know about her? Some things about her appearance that I forgot past the first chapter, that she's strong, that she's from some far province and she spends her nights sleeping around. Like that's some great descriptions to remember a character!

Let's not even talk about the rest of Violet's squadmates, that one trait they were introduced with is the only thing they'll ever display throughout the story. And oh my god, how it was frustrating to see them all agree with her. She could be insulting them to her face and they'd still smile at her and tell her she's right.

Also what's with Violet's obsession with freedom, consent or whatever. Whenever someone had a different opinion of hers, she'd pull out her freedom argument, like girl calm down! No one is taking that away from you! It was so embarrassing to read, given how there were other characters out there who were truly deprived of real freedom. I feel like the author took some consent arguments on twitter or tiktok and gave them all to Violet.

Let's not even mention romance. This whole lust at first sight, $ex before falling in love are tropes I hate in romance.

And the plot? I don't remember what the first half of the book was about. Violet trying to be a rider, yeah, her ogling Xaden at every opportunity she gets, yeah, what else happened? I don't even remember and that is because most situations were utterly irrelevant to the finale. All the plot twists happen at towards the end, the villain is revealed towards the end, the final fight happens at the end, and honestly if the first 3/4 didn't exist, I think I'd have enjoyed this book more. The so called plot twists weren't even shocking (except for one but I won't spoil cuz that was genuinely the only nice thing that put a smile on my face).

As for the universe itself, I don't know man, it's supposed to be fantasy, but the only fantasy elements you'll ever find in this book are dragons and magic and they aren't even the main focus...

Is there even one redeeming quality of this book? Xaden probably. I like him. Not because he was the only well written character because he wasn't. He was just that character that had great potential, and although he didn't live up to it, he still managed to be likeable, in the short page time that was allotted to him.

So yeah, TL;DR, I want a compensation for all the hair I pulled out of frustration.