Burn. It. Down.

I recently finished reading Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. This is book #2 in the Empyrean series. This is my book club's December book. I had to read it early, so that I wasn't spoiled by booktok/bookstagram! *POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT* Rating: 4.25/5 stars

"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."

*SPOILERS AHEAD- pause and return once you've finished Iron Flame!

It's been a few days since I finished Iron Flame and I am still unwell. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get this book out of my head, all because of those last 25 pages . . . ⁠How dare Rebecca do this to us, knowing we have to wait for god knows how long for book 3.

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Did I enjoy it? Yes. ⁠

Was it better than Fourth Wing? No. ⁠

Was it more emotionally impactful than Fourth Wing for me? Yes, I think so.

But will I continue the series? Abso-f*cking-lutely! ⁠

This book is really hard for me to rate because while I enjoyed the story and the ending, there were a lot of technical (plot/character) issues that definitely hindered my overall enjoyment.

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The story is action-packed from start to finish, so you'll never want to put this book down. Iron Flame is divided into two parts. Part one takes place at Basgiath War College and part two focuses on the Revolution. There's 623 pages total, and I genuinely felt like I read two books because so much happens.

Like I said, this story is non-stop and that includes uncovering new information about the history and politics of this world. We now have a solid idea of what's really happening on the continent, however, there are still so many unanswered questions about the past (before the unification), the venin, and the Empyrean. I love this phase of a long series because there's still so much we don't know or understand, and I can't wait to see everything unfold and come together in the next few books. ⁠

These characters are some of my favorites and need to be protected at all costs. Violet is still a badass. Xaden is still daddy. Tairn is fucking hilarious. And Andarna is the sassiest bitch in the realm. I do wish she wasn't away for half the story though.

Violet internally struggled a lot more in this book by bottling up her emotions, distancing herself from her friends, and taking on too much responsibility. Violet is just as strong and determined as she was in Fourth Wing, but in Iron Flame, we see the toll everything takes on her. I'm glad that by part two she starts to lean on her friends more, but I'm worried how she's going to manage after the events at the end of book 2. There's only so much a person can take, and I fear Violet may break at some point in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing how her character develops in the rest of the series.

Xaden. Look, he is not perfect. In fact, I'm a little pissed at him for constantly putting the responsibility of sharing truths on Violet throughout this story when he could have easily been open and forthcoming. That man is just so damn confident, intelligent, and loyal to Violet. And when he writes letters to Violet . . . I melted. He isn't even a romantic guy but did one of the most romantic things in the world.

There are also a lot of side characters (both old and new) that I enjoyed getting to know better: Rhi, Ridoc, Imogen, Bodhi, Mira, Brennan, Sawyer, Jesinia, Sloane, and Maren. There's also a bunch of characters I loathe and want to see die a slow and painful death.

Those few chapters with the imaginary Liam were everything. Liam's death absolutely broke me and still haunts me to this day. So seeing him again, in the way that we did, gave me some closure. But this entire situation has me wondering, what is Violet's second signent? Is it talking to the dead or will it have something to do with venin and a cure?! We know a lot of history has been lost or written out of existence.

For all of Fourth Wing and most of Iron Flame, I hated Mama Sorrengail. And honestly, even after everything, I still don't like her very much. However, while I know she wasn't a great person or mom, I understand her choices. Again, I don't agree with them, but she really thought she was protecting her children. I wept (internally) when she died, not because I was sad she was dead, but for Brennan, Mira, and Violet. They now know that even if their mom was misguided, her intention was driven by the love of her children and now that she's gone, they'll mourn what was and what could have been. They each had such different responses and I felt them all.

The ending . . . I mean, I've already talked enough about it but dang, I had a feeling like something like that was going to happen, but I'm still upset that did. I predicted General Sorrengail would die but I thought maybe Violet would get taken by the Sage or something.

What I didn't like:

This is a small gripe, but why are they using the Julian Calendar in this fantasy world? I mean, Rebecca created a completely new world but couldn't come up with different names for the months of the year? Every time it mentioned December or July, it totally took me out of the story.

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The pacing was frantic and for what? So much happens, yet, at the same time, I didn't feel like a lot happened to push the overarching plot forward. Every few chapters felt like a TV episode with some small task that needed to be accomplished or there was a hurdle to overcome; then it would get quickly resolved and they'd move on to the next thing. There were a lot of small subplots that were unimportant and felt like filler scenes. So the constant bombardment of action, angst, or mystery was a bit overwhelming and it was hard to decipher at the time what scenes were really important for the overall story.

The story was too dense. There were too many new names, history, and general knowledge to really keep track of what was important. And there were quite a few things that weren't fully explained or were overlooked. Pair that with the frantic pacing, and there wasn't enough time to fully digest all this new information before we were forced to move on to the next part of the story.

I HATED the other woman drama. It’s a tacky, cheap, and overdone romance conflict and totally unnecessary. There was also a big inconsistency surrounding it. First off, Bodhi mentions Cat early on by saying how Xaden has never cared so much about anyone, not even Cat, which alluded that at some point Xaden was involved with and potentially cared deeply for another woman. But later, Xaden says Cat could die for all he cares and that he has never loved her. So why was Violet led to believe he had feelings for another woman at some point? Solely to create drama between Xaden and Violet. And why didn’t Violet ask Xaden about Cat the minute she found out about her? If she did this, she wouldn’t have been blindsided by it all CHAPTERS LATER. Also, Xaden should have been transparent about Cat when it first came up so Violet didn't spend chapters feeling insecure.

I was underwhelmed by the romance. Honestly, their relationship was stagnant because they didn't have enough time together in this book. With Xaden being away for most of the first part and then ending up doing their own things for the Revolution during the second part, there was little time for them to really grow deeper as a couple.

I also expected more groveling by Xaden at the beginning, but instead, he makes Violet responsible for his honesty by saying she has to be the one to ask questions and then he'll answer. But for the entire book, Violet doesn't ask him anything! So, she doesn't get any answers! Meanwhile, Xaden just sits around, not communicating with Violet, when he could easily take the initiative to share his truths. Their lack of communication was so frustrating and was definitely done to create drama for the story. It was dumb and lazy writing. They could have easily set aside time to really hash out the issues of their relationship and dive deep into the secrets Xaden is keeping, but they don't.

For the size of this book and the fact Xaden and Violet are an already established relationship, I expected at least five sex scenes, but we got three. Okay, I'll admit, the throne scene was hot but only because of the setting. I wasn't excited by the dirty talk and, yeah, the smut was just lackluster in my opinion. It wasn't bad, just forgettable.

It didn't feel like any character had enough time to go through any real development. I think this occurred because the story is in Violet's POV and she pulled away from everyone, so since she wasn't as ingrained in their lives, she didn't notice changes/growth. I don't know, but I wish we could have had more time with Xaden, Rhi, and Sloane.

There were a few things that didn't really get explained. Why wouldn't Brennan encourage Violet to do research on wards? Violet was trained as a Scribe and would be an excellent person to assign to this task. I get he didn't think they would have enough time to figure it out and he thought they should focus on making more weapons, but no one assigned Violet a mission, so why have her do nothing instead of possibly finding a solution to win the war? His logic wasn't foolproof. Also, the end where Brennan fixes the wardstone. . . we spent the entire book trying to understand wards and then figure out how to mend them, and somehow Brennan does this but we don't see how? It better be explained in the next book and not glossed over. Also, why did Xaden become venin? In the dream he has, the Sage said it would save Violet from dying while she was draining herself for the wardstone, but I don't see how thats true. If you have any ideas please let me know. And random but can someone please make a timeline of when Xaden would have been able to have a relationship with Cat? Because according to my math, he would have been, like, 14 years old! There are even more situations that needed an explanation but I don't have the energy to go through them all.

Overall, Iron Flame was a decent sequel. I enjoyed it. I was entertained. But it was messy and left me wanting more and less at the same time. It should have been shorter, the plot should have been cleaned up a bit, and we should have spent more time with our favorite characters instead of being introduced to a shit ton of new characters. It really is entertaining though, so if you enjoyed Fourth Wing, you'll probably enjoy this one, or at the very least, be able to push through it. I promise the ending is well worth the wait.

A quote that I enjoyed was:

Love doesn't even have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery.

Check out Iron Flame, and take on the adventure of the revolution, and all that follows. Don't forget to check out book #3 as soon as we get more news about it from Rebecca Yarros. Happy Reading :)