Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros Review

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros is the second book in the new adult fantasy Empyrean series. This installment follows Violet during her second year at Basgiath where she will endure grueling training to become a better dragon rider. However, there is also a larger threat outside of the Academy which threatens to destroy her entire world.

I read the first book in this series, Fourth Wing, after it went viral on BookTok last year. While I thought there were some great ideas in the book, some aspects were poorly executed. My biggest issues were with the construction of the book, as the story felt like two novels shoved into one. Combined with minimal world building and a huge cast of characters, nothing felt fully developed. Unfortunately, I found some of the same issues within Iron Flame. That being said, I did enjoy Iron Flame more than I enjoyed Fourth Wing.

One of the major issues that I had with Fourth Wing was the world building. I didn’t like how much of the world’s description came through Violet saying facts whenever she was nervous. In Iron Flame, there is a whole new part of the world which is explored. Since Violet is only familiar with the history of Navarre, her understanding of the new world had to come through her experiences and interactions with other characters. As a result, Iron Flame did a much better job building upon the previous novel and giving readers new information in a more interesting way.

Another one of my big issues with Fourth Wing was that the cast was too large which made many of the characters flat and unmemorable. This is one area which continues to be an issue in Iron Flame. Between the numerous new characters, the name of their dragons, and their signets, it is very difficult to keep all of the information straight. As a result, many characters introduced are given one principal characteristic that stays static throughout the novel. As for the two main characters, readers see a much larger progression in Violet than Xaden. I was very disappointed that Xaden wasn’t very prevalent throughout Iron Flame, and until the end, his character arc didn’t see much progression than being Violet’s boyfriend.

One of my other critiques about Fourth Wing was that the book was too long and could have been split into two shorter novels. I believe that Iron Flame could have also benefitted from some more editing or splitting part one and part two into separate books. The first half and second half have a complete beginning, middle, and end. They mostly take place in two different locations and work towards different goals. If they were split into separate novels, more substance could have been added to those separate parts to really flesh out the plots and the characters.

Despite some issues with Iron Flame, I can see myself picking up the next book in the series. Like I mentioned previously, I do think The Empyrean series has some interesting ideas and I would like to see how the series continues. I give Iron Flame three out of five stars.