Onyx Storm Review

The Albatross
Jun 29
3 min read

“The last time a shadow and lightning wielder fought side by side, they managed to drive the venin back into the Barrens for a few hundred years. We’ll figure out how to do it again.”

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

Rating:

Stars: ⭐⭐

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Tropes & themes: Identity & Inheritance, prophecy, government corruption, forbidden love/relationship,

reference my rating system here

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Book 3 of The Empyrean Series

Plot: "the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Read if you like: Crowns of Nyaxi, ACOTAR, or From Blood and Ash.

The cover of Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

The Vibe:

Violet struggles to maintain her relationship, her life, her temper, and her friends all while still trying to fucking graduate the sadistic war college she attends. Oh and there is a quest! A quest with sand, sand and dragons and chocolate cake.

What I liked:

Xaden. Literally Xaden was the saving grace of this story winning ultimate title of a man Written By a Woman.
Learning more about the dragons and their history, as well as a bit more about the Riorson history.

What didn't work for me:

Every thing else
ZERO character development and the plot was all over the place
Felt like a cheap scary movie where you can predict all the jump scares
The problem with making your story complex is that you have to get your readers to CARE about what happens to the characters enough to follow the complexities

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Thoughts:

At the time of writing this its been 7 months since I read Onyx Storm and I've had a lot of time to think on what exactly I didn't like about it. I originally rated this a one but after some consideration I am tentatively bumping it up to a two with the anticipation that a reread will change my mind a bit.

That aside below are my thoughts fresh from when I first read it. I plan on doing a reread soon(ish) and will update afterwards.

From my Instagram Stories Feb 1, 2025.

"I'm frustrated because at first it was my favorite of the three and then I quickly lost interest. It's giving "concepts of a plan." It felt like three poorly written books smushed into one with varying plot lines that weren't cohesive and felt like they had forced importance.

The sheer number of "close calls" quickly rose from annoying to pissing me off. The losses felt shallow because the characters were never deeply connected with the story or the narrator [or reader].

The dialogue was insane. Sometimes it was natural and normal for the characters (aka following with the past books) and then she'd throw in words or phrases that immediately took me out such as "core memory" wtf??

The map not having the isles was super annoying given that that was a huge part of the story.

As far as the sheer number of new characters and information about existing characters coupled with brand new world building lore that should have been established a LONG time ago...

It feels like we went from zero to 100 with this book. We started with a fun insta-lust, rivals to lovers, academia with dragons romnatasy....to a word vomit bridge story which could have served its purpose to a sudden attempt to build a world around and existing story and fill her own plot holes.

I ended the book feeling both pissed off at wasting my time and relived it was over."

Would I recommend it?

I will reiterate what I said for Iron flame:

I'd say the books are best enjoyed only if you like a good romance with a side of dragons, NOT if you're looking for a good dragon fantasy book with a side of romance.

But even still the romance is all over the place in this one.