#98. Rebecca Yarros' meteoric rise to fame
A recap of my night seeing the new Mother of Dragons
On Wednesday night, ten of my friends assembled in St. Paul to watch Rebecca Yarros chat about Onyx Storm with one of Minnesota’s most well-known literary legends, Abby Jimenez. When Rebecca asked the crowd for a show of hands to see how many people had finished the book already (in the eight days it had been available for sale), significantly more than half of us raised our hands, despite the fact that our $50 ticket included a signed copy we took home that night. (If anyone wants my extra copy, you can have it!)
Onyx Storm is currently #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list, followed by Iron Flame at #2, and Fourth Wing at #3. Regardless of what you think about it, this series is a smash.
Being the unhinged fangirl that I am, this week I thought I’d probably write a review of Onyx Storm. The book was equal parts messy and fun – it’s my least favorite of the three so far, but I’m still firmly entrenched in the fandom. While I listened to Rebecca and Abby chat, though, I actually found myself the most interested in the moments Rebecca talked about her meteoric rise to fame and how difficult it’s been to manage, especially with six children, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, POTS, and ADHD.
Before Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros almost quit writing entirely. She was really struggling with her Ehlers-Danlos (and POTS) diagnoses, and had an honest conversation with her agent about possibly being at the end of her career as a contemporary romance author. She changed her mind, thank Zihnal, when Entangled Publishing decided to launch a romantasy imprint – Red Tower – giving Rebecca the chance to try writing her favorite genre again (fantasy! Not romance!) after the only fantasy book she’d ever written didn’t sell when it went out on submission.
She pitched five different ideas to the team at Red Tower, in the order that excited her most, and Fourth Wing was number three or four(!!). She didn’t see the overnight success of the series coming, and she still doesn’t think it’s really sunk in yet. Rebecca said it often feels like the success is happening to someone else, except for the moments when her privacy is invaded, like when she and her family were forced to move because people found her address in Colorado and were sending weird stuff to their house, scaring her teenage kids. These days, I guess that’s how you know you’ve really made it. I hate it here.
The crowd went feral when Rebecca said she used to regularly work 12-15 hour days, but now she’s drawing a line in the sand around overworking. Pushing back against burnout has become such a fucking relatable thing for Millennial women, who made up an overwhelming majority of Wednesday’s crowd.
She didn’t mention it during the event, but I remembered reading a People article about Rebecca’s rise to fame that said Rebecca “wouldn’t have survived” without writing Variation, which came out a few months before Onyx Storm:
“I've had a year to kind of adjust and grow and write Variation, which I think helped process a lot of those emotions. And I can tell you, if I hadn't written Variation, I would not have written Onyx Storm. If I hadn’t written Variation, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Social media is very much like a hall of mirrors, and when you stare too long, it distorts who you think you are. Mostly it’s just remembering that real life is what happens inside my house and not in my phone.”
Throughout the night, Rebecca made multiple references to generally “pretending she doesn’t exist online” for her mental health, which means avoiding anything on the internet regarding her or her books. She doesn’t participate in fan theories, hasn’t read any articles written about her, and avoids seeking out reviews of her books. Her restraint is mesmerizing. When she mentioned Instagram, which she uses solely to connect with her existing fans, Rebecca made one thing very clear: She’s an author. She’s not a videographer, and she has zero interest in making “better” content for Instagram, even though that critique has been suggested to her more than once. She just wants to write books.
After finishing Onyx Storm last weekend, it feels to me like some of these viral BookTok sensations are quickly approaching the literary equivalent of fast fashion. The audience is hungry, so publishers push authors too hard to get the books in readers’ hands quickly. The Empyrean series has birthed not one, or two, but three lengthy bestsellers in less than two years. In my humble opinion, Onyx Storm reflects that – it feels like a first draft, instead of one that’s been meticulously edited and re-shaped to become the best possible version of the story (like Fourth Wing).
I’m obviously giddy that reading and fangirling finally feels cool again. I fucking love it. We should go this crazy for all the authors of our favorite books. But I also wonder how sustainable it is to push popular authors this hard to meet the demands of readers and, ultimately, make shit tons of money for the publishers. No author should be implying that a writing deadline nearly killed them in an interview with People magazine. If that’s true, then the industry is very clearly doing something wrong.
For the last question of the night, Abby asked if Rebecca had any advice for aspiring authors. Without hesitation, she said her #1 piece of advice was to publish under a pen name (something I’ve been thinking about.) Clearly this is a response to her swift rise to fame. Not every author becomes so wildly successful that they need to keep their real name under wraps for safety, but it truly seemed like Rebecca Yarros, our new Mother of Dragons, never thought going this viral would ever happen to her. The internet (i.e. BookTok) has made it much more likely for authors to find this level of success, and for that I am grateful, but it definitely hasn’t come without a cost.
“‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for Gen Z” by Emily Gould for Book Gossip
Dystopian fiction is back, baby! Did you know The Cut has a book-centric newsletter? I forgot about it until I received this issue in my inbox this week, and I’m HOOKED. It features gossip about I Who Have Never Known Men (speculative fiction), The Motherload (memoir), and Onyx Storm (duh):
The whole issue is worth a read (the middle section made me STRESSED) but the first headline about BookTok’s latest obsession was particularly interesting:
“Not to paint with too broad a brush here, but I was initially surprised that the BookTok girlies had taken up an obscure literary title, since their tastes tend to run more to romance, romantasy, and generic women’s fiction. But maybe the BookTokers, like me, were drawn in by this thought experiment: How, the book asks, would one make sense of existence if concepts like time, written language, and the bonds of friendship and family all had to be learned in a vacuum, slowly, over the course of a mostly solitary lifetime? Reading I Who Have Never Known Men forces the reader to contemplate what an immense privilege it is to be able to read books at all, not to mention eat food that doesn't come from cans.”
“Can Influencers Predict the Next Big Thing in Books?” by Lauren Puckett-Pope for Elle
There are so many juicy predictions in this article about publishing in 2025 and beyond, but here are two that caught my eye:
“Because reading can be such a solitary experience, there’s this need to talk about it, which is why book clubs exist. And because so much book media, especially mainstream book media, is failing—not necessarily because of the people who are making it, but because of the way their institutions are crumbling—there really are not a lot of outlets for good, meaningful conversation around books…One of the things that online spaces do is enable people to create a community in which to talk about art that excites them and interests them, which is such a human desire.” —Traci Thomas, @thestackspod, creator and host of The Stacks podcast and writer of the Unstacked Substack
“I attended YALLFest [a book festival for young-adult literature] and, in general, my conversations were all leaning adult—in that a lot of YA authors were leaving YA to publish adult fiction, because that’s what publishing was looking for. It’s romance that’s driving it. It’s smut; it’s intimacy.” —Azanta Thakur,
The big news this week in my group chats was Rachael Kirkconnell going on Call Her Daddy. She and Alex talked about how Rachael was completely blindsided by Matt James breaking up with her on vacation, and then hit publish on a weird breakup post without her consent while she was on a 12-hour plane ride from Japan to Atlanta. So much juicy tea in here, omg. I’ve dissected this interview with a few of my reality TV obsessed friends and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m on her side, boy bye!
Okay, it’s time – come talk to me about Onyx Storm in the comments. Be warned, the comments section of this issue is a spoiler zone. I need to know if anyone else has seen the Schitt’s Creek ‘Lewellen’ Reel, lol.
That’s so amazing that you got to see her! I personally really enjoyed the book, but certainly had moments of confusion (yes, the schitts creek Lewellen vid is soooo on point - I genuinely was like wait is it a person or a place?!). I will say I had reread the first two and fully engrossed myself in podcast recaps and theories episodes leading up to the release as a way to fully dissociate from the realities of the world rn, so that certainly helped set me up for success. I also think I somewhat adopted a reading strategy (which perhaps is a terrible strategy???) that I just keep reading and assume the pieces will fall into place eventually. I think this started with Crescent City which truly threw me for a loop with the world building initially, but ultimately what was important kept coming back and made more sense. Again, this could absolutely be a reflection of a writing flaw, but I’ve still been able to thoroughly enjoy books despite it. I personally loveddddd violets character development into a more confident leader in this book, was laughing out loud at Ridoc throughout, caught myself smiling or blushing at Xadens one liners (love the quote you included above from him!) and was surprised with so much (the irids, the twist at the end, I ate it all up!)
omg, the lewellen video!!!! at one point on the same page they refer to lewellen the city and lewellen the person! so many times i had to reread a page or two. all that being said, im freaking here for it. i miss violet and xaden and riorson and rhi and andarna etc etc. it did feel slightly like filler, and i couldn’t help thinking about all the little side quests as episodes lol (i work in film and tv). maybe i need to fill the void with ACOTAR (though i have so many good books to read on my shelf, its hard for me to commit to that). already finished TOG. sigh. nothing like romantasy!