Warning: This article contains spoilers about Onyx Storm.

After reading the first two books in The Empyrean Series and mostly enjoying them, I was looking forward to The Empyrean Series books wasn't exactly changing the world, it was enough to keep me invested and looking forward to the third book, where, hopefully, the core couple would finally grow.

Violet and Xaden have always had a few problematic elements in their relationship, but to their credit, by the ending of Iron Flame, they mostly worked through them, and there were moments where they held each other able. It wasn't perfect - they still fell into problematic tropes - but it was refreshing to see a big-name romantasy writer at least trying to move past those outdated patterns. The worldbuilding was a little messy, sure, but the military aspect was a lot of fun, as were the battles and the squad interactions. And then came Onyx Storm, which undid all the goodwill the first two books had built with me.

10 Violet & Xaden Are Toxic Together

Their Entire Dynamic Is Just Exhausting

I was frustrated to see that all the work Violet and Xaden had done to grow in the first two books was undone in Onyx Storm. Xaden is unlikable in this book, his alpha male possessive streak crossing the line into toxic - and implying it's okay because he's venin now is not only gross, but it's also a dangerous message to send. Violet, meanwhile, is peak I Can Fix Him Girl, and it's really disappointing after the growth she had in the first two books. Before, at least her actions were for the greater good of Navarre, but in Onyx Storm, her entire purpose is about Xaden. It's so bad she lies - again - to her friends and puts them all in danger.

As someone who wants a strong, healthy relationship to root for, Onyx Storm was infuriating. At this point, it doesn't even seem like they have a single thing in common besides their physical attraction to each other, and that's not a relationship - that's college-age lust. Sex scenes aren't character development, something that Rebecca Yarros seemed to have forgotten in Onyx Storm.

9 The Prince Halden Romance Reveal Was Pointless

Does He Serve A Purpose? I'm Still Waiting.

One of the biggest issues I had with Onyx Storm was that it was a filler book. There were too many pointless storylines that went nowhere or simply acted as setup for a future story - maybe. One of those was the reveal that Violet and Prince Halden had dated. I read this and thought, "Okay. And...?" but I decided to see where it went, thinking surely it would be relevant to the rest of the plot. Maybe his coming back into the picture would be a real threat to Xaden. Maybe he'd use his power to become a true ally to Violet and her squad. Something. Anything.

Instead, the point of revealing that he used to be Violet's boyfriend appeared to simply be another way to manufacture drama between Violet and Xaden and give Xaden a reason to be overly possessive of his girlfriend. There's literally no other reason for it, as the storyline was barely touched upon and went nowhere. It was just there for that forced drama, or maybe even just to throw fans a bone and confirm the long-running theory that Halden was Violet's ex. That's it.

8 The Forbidden Romance Between Professor & Student Storyline Was Unnecessary

What Was The Point Of This, Exactly?

The same goes for the plotline of Xaden being a professor at Basgiath for a hot minute and professors and students being forbidden to date. I'm not even sure I can call it a plotline, actually, as a plot is meant to actually drive the narrative forward. It was just a side story that, again, was shoehorned in to manufacture drama for the couple because they couldn't organically manufacture any of their own beyond having the same fight they've having for three books - a fight that is so predictable and repetitive by now that even Violet's own friends dragged her for it in Onyx Storm:

"[Rhiannon] shoots a sideways glance my way. 'But he's right, you and Riorson bicker like you've been married fifty years and neither of you wants to do the dishes.'

'That is not true,' I protest as Sawyer nods.

'Agreed,' Ridoc says. 'And it's always the same fight.' He lifts his hand to his chest. 'I'll trust you if you stop keeping secrets!' He drops the hand and scowls. 'It's my secretive nature that attracted you, and why can't you just stay out of harm's way for five f**king minutes?'

Rhi laughs so hard she nearly chokes."

I couldn't help but think that these side plots had to be forced upon the reader because Violet and Xaden's whole main story as a couple was so dismally bad that, had Yarros not created these ridiculously childish moments of tension, they'd barely have interacted in Onyx Storm outside their sex scenes. After Onyx Storm, Violet and Xaden's relationship is the weakest part of the Empyrean Series, and that's not great for a series that hinges entirely upon their romance.

7 Too Much Of It Was Unnecessary, Period

200 Pages Could Have Been Cut. Easily.

It wasn't just the Halden romance or the professor-student issue that were pointless parts of the book. Way too much of Onyx Storm was just filler and should have been cut. In truth, a solid 200 pages could have been cut out of the third book and not only would it have not hurt the story at all, it would have actually made for a better, tighter narrative. Too many side characters no one re, too many new characters who don't matter, too many storylines that add nothing, and too much mess in general.

At 4.35 and with the score dropping every few days, Onyx Storm is now officially the lowest-rated of the three books on Goodreads, with fewer than a third of the reviews of Iron Flame and fewer than a fifth of Fourth Wing. The series was originally meant to be a trilogy until the publisher asked Rebecca Yarros to expand it to five. Unfortunately, Onyx Storm really drives home what some had already started to suspect after Iron Flame: there simply isn't enough story here to justify five full-length novels.

6 Rebecca Yarros Keeps Breaking The Rules Of Her Own World

She's Changing The Facts To Suit The Story Instead Of The Other Way Around

One other issue stemming from stretching a tight, three-book story into five books also reared its head in Onyx Storm: in order to keep the story going, Rebecca Yarros has had to start breaking the rules of her own world established in Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. Previously, there were rules about the venin and how they operate that were set in stone in the first two books and had been that way for literal centuries. Onyx Storm, however, threw all of that out the window.

Apparently, venin can walk freely among humans and never be caught. Though venin were previously established as little more than feral junkies unable to resist drawing power from the source, that's not true. They can control themselves and as human enough to rise high in the ranks of the war college. Conveniently for Xaden's arc, venin's red eyes seemingly come and go at will in early stages. The biggest rule break of all is what Jack Barlowe revealed to Violet: the wards are not infallible and venin can still draw from the source. Venin abilities, like Batman's utility belt, keep changing to suit the story instead of the other way around.

5 Aura Beinhaven's Entire Existence

Why Was She Even In This Book?

A question I would love to ask other readers: Why was Aura Beinhaven in Onyx Storm? What purpose did she actually serve? If you can answer those questions, that would be great, because I can't. After being nothing more than one of the dozens of mostly background characters in the first two books, Aura suddenly took a prominent role in Onyx Storm. It wasn't clear why, either, aside from the fact that Rebecca Yarros apparently felt that she needed Aura to be a Jack Barlowe replacement to antagonize Violet at Basgiath.

Aura might have been an actually well-written human antagonist, in comparison to formerly Colonel, now General Aetos' weirdly exaggerated hatred of Violet, but she was simply another repeat of what's come before.

The problem is, repeating the Basgiath bully storyline, this time with a mean girl, was completely unnecessary. Aura was never exactly Team Rebellion, but her over-the-top venom toward Violet was completely absurd, and I found myself rolling my eyes whenever she was on the page. Aura might have been an actually well-written human antagonist, in comparison to formerly Colonel, now General Aetos' weirdly exaggerated hatred of Violet, but she was simply another repeat of what's come before. The series' lack of three-dimensional, believable villains is really becoming a problem.

4 Violet Having To Work With A Different Squad

They Served No Purpose

Since finishing Onyx Storm, I've turned many of the filler B-stories over in my mind trying to see if maybe I'd missed something and they actually mattered to the larger picture. But no. They don't. This includes the far too many chapters devoted to Violet being forced to work with a different quest squad. They offered nothing to the plot and not a single one of the characters mattered - it's not like they had any mission-specific skills Violet's squad lacked. There was simply no narrative reason to justify the storyline or these characters.

There was simply no narrative reason to justify the storyline or these characters.

In the end, half of them died and the other half were immediately dismissed the first time Violet finally put her foot down, only further underscoring the pointlessness of the storyline. Imagine my anger when I finally slogged through it all only to realize I should have saved myself the trouble and skipped through all of it.

3 Too Many Characters Who Have No Purpose

I Couldn't Keep Them Straight

If you cared about more than a handful of the characters in Onyx Storm, you're a better person than I am, because I couldn't. And how could I, really? I didn't any of them. Apparently, I'm not the only one, because questions about these forgotten background extra characters suddenly popping up in Onyx Storm flew thick and fast after the book's release. Onyx Storm threw so many characters, locations, and new information at us that it was impossible to keep them all straight.

Be honest: did you have strong feelings about Trager? Did you even he was in Iron Flame?

It's a real shame, too. Not only did it make for a confusing read, but it also meant the character deaths in Onyx Storm had almost no impact. Be honest: did you have strong feelings about Trager? Did you even he was in Iron Flame? Unless you just reread the book before Onyx Storm, the answer to the second question is no. And even if you did who he was, the answer to the first question is still no.

2 Jack Barlowe's Resolution Was Underwhelming

He Deserved A More Interesting End

After being a serious antagonist through the first two books, Jack Barlowe was sidelined in the third. Jack spent the entirety of Onyx Storm in a cell and only trotted out when the story needed some exposition about the venin because if there's one fundamental rule of writing the Empyrean Series has never bothered with, it's "show, don't tell." And look, that is a problem with a lot of popular romantasy series, which is okay - I'm not looking for the skill of Atwood or Hemingway when I read these. But the character-as-vehicle-to-exposition-dump was really noticeable in Onyx Storm.

It was so bad that I even found myself angry on the antagonist's behalf that he got such an unceremonious, meaningless ending. Jack's death was treated as such an afterthought, merely a loose plot thread to tie up, that it actually might have been better had he been killed off the page. And I didn't even like Jack. But he deserved a more interesting story and certainly a more interesting end than the one he got in Onyx Storm.

1 The Ending Was Really Messy & Confusing

It Wasn't Actually An Ending

If you got to the ending of Onyx Storm and went, "What? That's it? What just happened? That's not an ending!" then congratulations, you had the same reaction I did. It ends on a cliffhanger, just like Iron Flame. Someone else turned venin, just like Iron Flame. It ends after a battle where the venin basically win again, just like Iron Flame. The ending of Onyx Storm finds the story more or less in the same exact place it was at the end of the last book. Sure, they learned a few things about the irid dragons and the venin. In the end, though, the main plot of Onyx Storm just repeated what came before. With the entire book serving as one big setup for the next, it just felt like a big waste of time.