{"id":44955,"date":"2025-03-04T21:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T02:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44955"},"modified":"2025-03-04T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T02:54:09","slug":"review-of-onyx-storm-by-rebecca-yarros-read-by-rebecca-soler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44955","title":{"rendered":"Review of Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros, read by Rebecca Soler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Onyx Storm<\/em><\/p>\n

by Rebecca Yarros
\nread by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton, Justis Bolding, and Jasmin Walker<\/p>\n

Recorded Books, 2025. 23 hours, 53 minutes.
\nReview written February 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.<\/p>\n

I’m going to sound like a bit of a curmudgeon in this review, so let me begin by saying that I don’t review books I don’t like. And I certainly don’t spend 24 hours<\/em> listening to a book I don’t like. So I did enjoy this book, and I’m very engaged with this series and will be reading the next book. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first two, though.<\/p>\n

First off, this series doesn’t waste any time catching up the reader on what went before. It’s very much a continued story, not “companion novels.” It had been a year since I listened to the previous book, and I didn’t really remember the many characters, who was a dragon rider as opposed to who was a griffin flyer, for example. (Though, funny thing, the people I remembered least were the ones most in danger of dying – they felt like the red shirts of the story.)<\/p>\n

So I’m only going to speak in general terms about what happens. It’s the continued story of Violet Sorengale – a cadet at Bezgaeth War College who is bonded to two powerful dragons. Oh, I should say that I loved the portrayal of Andarna as an adolescent dragon. Her whiny tone was delightful! A continued strong point of this series is the characters and the bonds they’re forming with each other.<\/p>\n

First, there’s lots and lots of sex. I did laugh when Violet and Xaden broke furniture again. Though it’s kind of their trademark. But I also laughed about two-thirds into the book when they were obviously going to have sex and they closed and locked a door (using lesser magic) – and then the author actually ended the scene! I felt like that was a progression in Violet’s experience. She no longer had to gasp at every touch.<\/p>\n

A good chunk of this book was a group of them exploring some distant islands, looking for allies and for more dragons of Andarna’s kind. That was an interesting development. But then each island served a different god and had different unusual customs and hoops that visitors had to go through – and that felt silly and unlikely after a while.<\/p>\n

Speaking of contrived things, I recently finished another book using the trope of Everyone-Has-A-Magical-Power – and there are always ways that particular trope doesn’t work for me – you really do have to not think about it too hard. Because I’m sorry, but shadows do not have substance! The whole shadow-wielding idea – that you can make shadows hold someone up while having sex or choke someone in a battle – yeah, I have trouble believing that would work. And some of the other “signets” are problematic for me as well. But mostly, in the middle of the story, that’s not a big issue, and I’m caught up in the tale.<\/p>\n

Now, the last big climactic battle took three hours<\/em> of the audiobook. And that’s after a whole lot of fighting in the book already. So this is an audiobook where the narrator is describing lots of fighting and lots of sex – and it must have been exhausting for her! But by the time I was listening to the final battle, the narrator’s voice expressing excitement kind of flew past me. Exciting thing after exciting thing – and it stopped being exciting for me. <\/p>\n

Now, I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things, so to really remember what’s going on, before the next book comes out, I should probably try rereading the entire thing in print. Trouble is, I doubt I’d want to give that much time to it – so I’ll probably be content with enjoying the story but maybe being a little confused – as I was with this one.<\/p>\n

Speaking of confusion – the ending is kind of the opposite of a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger ending leaves you wondering what will come next. This ending left me wondering what just happened.<\/p>\n

Without giving anything away, the big final battle took the last three hours of the book – and the final part of it was when we got to hear from three more narrators, for a nice change of pace and more perspectives on this enormous fight. At the end of the battle, Violet passed out. The story starts again twelve hours later in a different location, and Violet is told several very surprising things – but we don’t know why or how they happened. And then the book ends.<\/p>\n

So by the time the next book comes out, I’m not sure I’ll remember what I was confused about. I’m also not at all sure where it’s going next – but I am<\/em> sure that I’m going to want to go along for the ride.<\/p>\n

rebeccayarros.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Fiction\/onyx_storm.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros read by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton, Justis Bolding, and Jasmin Walker Recorded Books, 2025. 23 hours, 53 minutes. Review written February 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook. I’m going to sound like a bit of a curmudgeon in this review, so let me begin by saying that I don’t review […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-fantasy","category-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44989,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44955\/revisions\/44989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}