Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
About the book
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.
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My Review
I don’t have a ton to say about this one that others haven’t said, and it’s the third of five planned books in the series, so I’ll keep this pretty short.
Just like Iron Flame, this book is fun, but fine — Fourth Wing is the strongest in the series so far. I had a good time with Onyx Storm, and if the fourth book was out now, I’d pick it up right away. But the execution is just not there.
I read a lot of fantasy, and I’m not afraid to put in my side of the work on worldbuilding and political detail. But there is just way too much going on here — to the point where I (and everyone I know) just sort of gave up keeping track of the who/what/where of the story’s broader political situation and just hoped the important stuff would bubble up again (sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t). The result is that it feels like too much is happening while simultaneously, nothing is actually happening to move the plot forward. (Again.) It’s painfully obvious that this was not originally supposed to be 5 books.
To say nothing of the fact that she resolved the enemies-to-lovers plotline in book one and now has to find creative ways to keep Violet and Xaden from Doing It for the first half of every single book.
For now, we wait for the fourth book. And read some excellently executed fantasy in the meantime.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Sexual content (explicit)
War, violence, death, grief
Death of a parent
