I am about 57% of the way through Onyx Storm and I'm not impressed...at all. To start off I LOVED fourth wing, and was very meh on Iron Flame but I chalked it up to the fact that Yarros churned out two books within the same year so that's why the quality went down. My issues with Iron Flame were pretty much the same as everyone else (miscommunication trope, a lot of filler, Violet and Xaden very much acting immature due to their age, etc.) But with the year between Onyx Storm and Iron Flame I thought Yarros would have tightened up the plot a bit better and had more time to map out what she was doing. Being halfway through these are still my major issues:

1. the characters - I do not care about a single person in this series except for Ridoc (who is clearly comic relief set up to die) and Tairn and Andarna. There is 0 character progression or even distinguishing characteristics between any of these characters compared to the first book. I don't see any growth or challenges to any of them, and that is ESPECIALLY including Xaden and Violet

2. the plot - this (and I could NOT stress this enough) needed to be a trilogy, which I think was the original intention. To create a five book fantasy series you really need to look at other authors such as Sanderson, N.K Jemisin, or George RR Martin to understand how much a mapped universe matters. Yarros world is not enough to fulfill five book series, it's really not. She does not have the capability to color a universe so intricately because she's mostly just done contemporary romances up until now. It's clear even SHE does no know how to stretch this for five books, hence why a trilogy would have suited the series better. Hell I could tell you how a trilogy could have worked - Book One can kept as it is. Book Two - reveals are kept the same but the Venin/Navarre deception is revealed to everyone in the continent halfway through the book, like the whole venin trying to take down the wards happened earlier in the book. Start the Andarana search and beginning of all out war at the end of the book. Book three is all out war and findings Andarana's kind who will inevitably help them win the war. Characters die, Xaden and Violet probably get a somewhat happy ending. THE END. Xaden being venin is a hit or miss for me, but as of right now halfway through the book it's not even a huge concern, he's literally the same guy, so maybe we could just leave that out.

3. The romance - boooorringggggg. Xaden and Violet absolutely act their age the entire book, which is immature and annoying. I cannot tell you how hard I rolled my eyes every time they say "you're mine", anytime Xaden enters a room and all Violets inner monologue is about hot he is, or pretty much all the spice scenes being absolute snoozes. I partly think I'm so harsh on them because I think I've honestly grown out of the shadow daddy romance phase. Once you've seen one shadow daddy you've literally seen them all. The jealous scenes don't move me, their love in general doesn't move because there is just such a lack of emotional connection. Let me see them cry together, grieve together, go through challenges that test their spirit their connection and then see them overcome it all. I don't like to compare Yarros to SJM, (but they are the primary romantasy authors right now) but compare Xaden and Violet to Feysand and there is even a stark difference between those two couples. There is a much bigger emotional connection I felt between Feysand that makes me believes their romance a lot more. That's the issues with getting them together so early on, there's just nowhere to go from here.

Overall, I am not done with the book and I will still finish it but these are my thoughts so far (so no spoilers please! I already know the ending is crazy)