I jumped on the Fourth Wing and Romantasy bandwagon in 2023, when I was researching cool books to read. Back then bookstores were plastered with these novels, so I honestly wanted to find out what the hype was about?! Fantasy is one of my most favorite genres and I always enjoy a good fantasy book. Romance? Well, I can’t say I’ve ever read any proper romance novels, aside maybe from some fanfiction 🤔 But why not?

Well, my first Romantasy novel was the ubiquitous Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. I jumped on the hype train with this book, mainly because the premise sounded interesting – a dragon riding college? Sounds super cool, and dragons are awesome! But this was the first ever “romance” book I’ve read, and I’m not sure what to make of “romance” regarding this book. In my opinion, there wasn’t really much romance in this book, but rather quite a lot of horniness. Which ironically is also what I liked least about this book (aside from its very militaristic nature, I hate military fiction). I think it could have been an infinitely better book without the main character constantly salivating over some guy, who no less is supposedly the son of someone who killed her brother? WTF??? I get that it serves to illustrate that not everything is black and white, but I found it cringe at times, and I absolutely cannot fathom why so many people go crazy over this “enemies to lovers” trope. I find it pretty revolting.

What I did like about the book is the world building (again, minus the militaristic nature). The dragons are pretty cool, as is the magic system of bonding to magical creatures. It’s a very decent entry-level fantasy book, which is well written and mostly well-paced (but IMHO could also have been condensed in some aspects). Does it live up to the hype? I don’t think so. Will I still read book 2? Probably.

The second book, Iron Flame took all the bad aspects of the first book and made them a lot worse. I think Rebecca Yarros lost it here, beacuse this book that she produced here is a mess. This book is a lot of things, and most of all it is extremely overhyped. Yes, the premise and the world-building are still pretty cool. The dragons are frickin’ awesome and are, tbh, the only thing that make this book really worth reading. But to get to that part, you will have to wade through 500 pages of very tedious high school-esque drama, aka the neverending Violet-Xaden vicious circle of cringeworthy discussions loaded with sexual tension that end in nothingness (aka, sometimes sex). Honestly, by the third time I reached a chapter of them kinda-but-not-really talking and just getting horny, I started skimming these parts of the book, because I just couldn’t bear it anymore. Also, that ending is a whole new kind of WTF and has me wonder if the next book will just turn everything on its head again.

It could have been an excellent book, if only it had 300 instead of 623 pages, and if it would have put its best characters at the center – Tairn, Andarna, Sgaeyl and all the other dragons.

The third book, Onyx Storm came out recently, and after reading a few reviews and opinions about it, it seems to be an even worse mess than Iron Flame. I decided that I’m not going to waste my time on another awful book like this, and will just not read it. I will also sell my copies of the first two books, because I don’t think this mess deserves a space on my shelf.

In fact, I think I’m done with Romantasy for the foreseeable future. It’s just not for me, as I also realized when I tried to read a completely different novel of this genre – A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen. That book honestly started out pretty strong and had great Norse Mythology-inspired world-building and atmosphere. But towards the middle it became super difficult for me to finish, as I found the story very much unengaging. Even worse than in Fourth Wing, I actually found the “romance” (it’s just sex, it’s not very romantic) in this book super cringe. There are so many things going on this book, how do these people even have time to get horny?

So to sum up my probably unpopular opinion: Romantasy is not that great, and judging from the books I read, I think there’s better fanfiction out there than what these books offer.