No one asked me for an honest review of Onyx Storm, but I feel compelled to share my thoughts anyway after finishing the last pages in the early hours of the morning after closing at work last night. In the immortal words of Randy Jackson during American Idol’s heyday, “It’s a no from me, dawg.”
Books are a lot like movies to me. There are two main reasons I enjoy them:
- The story is well-plotted and confidently written, making it easy to connect with the characters and the writing on a line level is both engaging and enjoyable–it’s technically sound and interesting
- Even when there are minor (or sometimes major) issues with the plot, character development, world building, etc. there are still enough entertaining qualities for me to have a fun time
After the conclusion of the second book in Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean series, Iron Flame, I was nearly ready to throw the towel in on whatever books were going to follow. Curiosity got the better of me by the time the release date of Onyx Storm was revealed and I immediately requested a hold from the library. I told myself I would give her one more chance after loving Fourth Wing and being let down by its follow-up, and now here I am seriously questioning how Yarros could have anything more to say to rebuild my interest in this story and these characters. And also questioning her ability as a writer.
It’s difficult to find a place to start with this review, so I’ll lodge one of my biggest complaints first: Rebecca Yarros needs a better editor. With a total page count over 500, Onyx Storm takes its sweet time to get to the meat of the story, which I’m still having trouble pinpointing the heart of the plot even after I finished reading the book. We’re dropped into the first 200 pages or so where a barrage of names, both familiar and not, are thrown at us as the main cast of characters settle back into a routine at Basgiath. The only result is confusion; even the index of characters in the front of the book only helped refresh my mind a little. There are several stretches of the story where things feel drawn out for an unnecessary length of time, introducing what feel like important components or characters only to lead to something inconsequential and lackluster. I was bored throughout most of my reading experience, drawn back in only by the brief excitement of battles, unexpected revelations, and lore I thought would be more thoroughly explored yet wasn’t. This series could have been done well within the contents of three books if the writing were more focused on the bigger picture, leaning on some of these interesting smaller details to support it.
We are now three books into a series with characters feeling flat and impossible to differintiate from each other most of the time. Fourth Wing does the best job of building up a loveable cast of characters only for them to feel like an after thought in this third installment. I also take issue with being so far into a series where as readers we don’t have a better understanding of the motivations of the bad guys: the Venin. Are they just evil for the sake of being evil? Do they have an end goal beyond destroying everything and everyone in their path? Some backstory in this book would have been refreshing without giving away every little detail. I know part of the point is the riders know so little about Venin which makes them difficult to defeat, but we have to learn something about them eventually right? They lack substance, which makes them boring as the villains.
What I was expecting from this book was more knowledge if there are meant to be two more books to follow eventually. The last book ends on a cliffhanger that makes you think there will be more excitement in Onyx Storm as Violet searches for a way to cure Xaden, which I think was at least attempted, though not executed well. There were ample opportunities in this book to develop characters and their relationships as well as expanding our knowledge of the world beyond Basgiath. Instead we end up with two romantic leads I now find entirely insufferable having the same conversation over and over again. Just like Iron Flame. I get they are all mostly in their early twenties, but if I have to read another conversation that sounds like two lovestruck 14-year-olds I am going to gouge my eyes out. The sheer number of times Violet mentions the color of Xaden’s eyes or either of them drones on about how irresistibly hot the other one is made me want to hurl this book into a wall. They have become flat and one-dimensional, wasting page time that could have been dedicated to something else.
It wasn’t all bad, but it was mostly bad. I will briefly relent my onslaught here to say (without spoiling anything important) my favorite part of this book was the exploration of the world beyond Basgiath. I found myself genuinely interested in learning more about the other cultures in the world and the land they occupy. During this stint of the book there were some, let’s call them interesting developments, I felt deserved to be expanded upon further instead of quickly glossed over. We get a hint at what caused Violet’s silver hair and I spent the rest of the book wanting to know as much as possible about the murky details of her parent’s pasts. It would have been worth it to spend some more time immersed in those spaces instead of feeling the time was wasted in the end.
I genuinely don’t know how Rebecca Yarros is going to produce two more books with whatever content she’s developing because there is no clear path as to where this story is supposed to be headed. Violet and Xaden’s relationship has ceased being interesting, every character that isn’t them has faded into the background, there is too little world building, and too many loose ends. There are too many ideas and I don’t think she knows how to weave them into a solid story that makes sense. I was originally hooked with the idea of the inner workings and politics of a ruthless dragon war college, but this series is going nowhere fast. We’re left on yet another cliff hanger, although this time it feels gimmicky and painfully cliché.
I think Rebecca Yarros has lost sight of what made readers fall in love with Fourth Wing in the first place. The lore introduced in the beginning isn’t expanded upon in a meaningful way throughout Onyx Storm, and details that help us understand and imagine the world as readers are the cornerstone of fantasy. The writing ended up being messy and unfocused, even at the line level this book is subpar and simple. I know I’m in the minority when it comes to a series so many people seem to go feral for, but let’s go back to my original point. There are two reasons people enjoy books, and I can see how this might be entertaining enough for some people even if it is lacking in the technical skill department. It irritates me though how a large number of readers seem to be incapable of accepting criticism when it comes to something they adore a great amount or become unable to recognize its weak points
(hence so many five star reviews). You can enjoy this book for the overall story and still be able to point out its shortcomings, which do exist.
Final Verdict: 2/5 stars
I was a little generous with my rating because of the unrealized potential I see here, but this one was a slug.
The Rummy Writer 