Nathalie

Ah, this trilogy. It had a very rough start, but then in books 2 and 3 improved to the point where they became “ok” with a few moments of greatness. Ultimately though, this really didn't need to be a trilogy.

It excels at expanding the universe a bit, telling us what's going on in the galaxy (with interludes and mentions), but it doesn't quite work on the character level. I imagine this ended up being a trilogy so by the end we would at least somewhat care about these characters in the final battle, but I just found them tiring and a bit of a waste. It makes me wish instead this had been a book with only the interludes, maybe expanded a bit, so it'd almost be a short story collection (those interludes are the perfect way to get us to check in with characters we haven't really heard from outside of the movies. One of the interludes in the book is about the ultimate fate of Jar Jar Binks and this was the perfect way/medium to do so). But most of all of course, I wish we'd have gotten characters that would have made the story more engaging.

Of course, not all characters are that bad. Sloane is still the best and Sinjir is pretty cool. Towards everyone else I'm either indifferent or I just don't like them to the point I don't like reading about them. (The latter being most notably Norra and Temmin). In the end, the book works because interesting things are happening, but that alone doesn't elevate the book to being a “must read”.

This was a pretty enjoyable story, but then suddenly the unexpected happened... they find Kix, or Clone Trooper CT-6116, who was onto Order 66 from back during The Clone Wars series. That was such a nice surprise that I had to mention this separately. :) It almost made me bump this up to four stars, but I feel like that might have been too high for a short story where you don't get all that much time to invest in a lot of what's going on.
But ayyy, pirates!

Ah, this saddens me immensely, because I am absolutely in love with the concept of this. Travelling between dimensions? Living the life that could have been yours, if only some choices had been different? Experimenting with what could have been! That is immensely cool! And that aspect of the book I think is great, though I think it's taken further in the next of the series, it's just that I was incredibly bored by everything else. I didn't find the characters too interesting and it probably didn't help that certain plot points about certain characters weren't very surprising at all, which is fine, but it might have helped otherwise.

Also, they touch upon this a bit at the end of the book, and this series obviously can't continue without that aspect of it, but I was a bit bothered with them taking over their other's selves bodies and doing whatever the heck they want with it. Marguerite at one point has sex with Paul while she's a Russian princess, which is sort of gross, but also brings with it that the other Marguerite may very well be pregnant (due to sex she'll barely remember) and that one instant may have just ruined her life. She thinks about that for an instant, and then is obviously distracted by that dimension's Paul being wounded and dying, so it was kind of *shrug* and move on. I mean, if they had to go there, I had hoped for more consequences for it. More repercussions. Anything.

I finished this pretty quickly because it was an audiobook, and maybe some of my lack of enjoyment was due to the narration and perhaps it would have been better if I had read it, but eh. It was a bit too much on the “YA side of YA” for me, if ya know what I mean.

Well, that's 2 for 2 for Claudia Gray on the Star Wars front.

I had been looking forward to this one a long time, and I was not disappointed. It answered a lot of the questions people had after viewing TFA, like how long ago Luke had disappeared or when the temple massacre happened, and more on the state of the politics, like how The First Order came to be and why there was a need for the Resistance. Politics are a huge part of this book, but there's so much more.

What I was mostly excited about was more insight on Leia's character, and how she experienced the events in the Original Trilogy. Combine that with some really great side characters (that I came to care about deeply), that were either new or from the movies or other novels, and a great story, and you get this great gem of a book.
Though I was kind of hoping (and I realize this is entirely my fault) that we'd get a bit more on Ben and Luke and Snoke and that entire situation, but we'll likely get into that more in the following two Episodes so they can't exactly spill the beans on that one. The information we did get though, did ruin some popular theories out there (especially for the timeline!), so the mystery thickens!

A perfectly enjoyable short story about one of the people present in Maz Kanata's castle in The Force Awakens and probably the closest book we got to that movie chronologically (maybe aside from Before The Awakening). It probably won't have much of an impact on later movies or books or comics or the like (though maybe the asylum could end up being relevant?), but it's fun nonetheless.

This may have been a case of mismanaged expectations. I fully expected to be in love with it and having this be a new favorite series, as I really love anything Riyria and I like Michael J. Sullivan's writing, but for some reason this just didn't do it for me. I kept waiting for the moment I'd be so engrossed in it I'd barely realize I was almost at the end, but instead this just took ages for me to finish because I was so bored.

I may have just not been in the mood for this at this particular time or something like that, and I might give the second book a shot if it improves just like Riyria did. Talking about Riyria though, I wasn't in love with that from the beginning, but I at least was in love with the characters, and the ones in this just never clicked for me.

It's your typical “boy meets girl, they fall in love, and eventually end up on opposite sides of the Galactic Civil War” type of story.

This is probably my favorite Star Wars New Canon book so far. I loved the characters, and the book never felt like a burden to read.

I definitely recommend this for anyone who's just generally a fan of Star Wars. If you've been looking to get into the EU, let this be your introduction. With the only downside being that everything that comes after that will not be as good and engaging.
There's not an overabundance of Star Wars novels that has normal people starring in them, let alone within the Empire. These are just kids who graduated from the Imperial Academy, and then started having doubts of what exactly they were being loyal to. And while the story does feature some known characters from the movies, it's never distracting or shoehorned in. This novel definitely makes me wish for more stories like these.

Though the book ends in such a way that this could definitely be more, like a duology.

I am also hella excited for New Republic: Bloodline now.

I had finished my audiobook for the week, so I decided to get this (free!) short one to entertain myself. The story is quite interesting, if not fleshed out to its fullest, and enjoyable enough, but nothing quite more than that. I definitely wouldn't be against reading more books from this world though.

Essentially it's a mystery set in a world where people can't be murdered... technically. You come back from the dead only if you've been killed and your body is reset to a few hours before your death. Dispatchers are people who are hired to effectively “end people's lives” so they can easily come back if they've, for example, just broken their neck.
Tony Valdez is our main character who starts assisting the police when a fellow Dispatcher disappears.

The Dispatcher is currently free on Audible, so if you're interested, go get it!

It's hard to put it all into words without using spoiler tags everywhere, but safe to say that everything that made me love The Mad Ship continues into this one. Absolutely loved it.

I don't know when exactly it happened, though it was more than likely at the beginning of this book, but the characters all suddenly clicked for me. After spending most of the first book being vaguely interested in these characters, though not particularly invested, I am now finding myself being excited for all of them (even if I don't like the character, I'll still find them interesting to read about).

What Hobb excels at is characters, and in that case a slow burn is often necessary. Who's going to care about all the exciting action going on if you have no clue who your characters are? Most of the conflict here stems from the characters themselves and their motivations, and it makes for an addicting read.

On a sidenote, I just really really really love Amber. This has nothing to do with the review, but I just wanted to mention that.

It started off well enough, and I was thoroughly enjoying it and interested. But somewhere at the end of the first part and going into the second part I just got more frustrated and it started losing me. I didn't care for Nona, and the others were either boring or predictable. Only Abbess Glass was great but she wasn't used enough (funnily enough when the kids wanted to go to Glass but then realize she would be gone and they would have to fix it themselves - Harry Potter déja vu haha). I'm also not one who cares too much for detailed descriptions or explanations or anything but the lack of it here just started to bother me.

I hate that the second part soured my experience with it so much, because the first part had genuinely good and interesting things. Mark Lawrence's writing might just not be my thing.

In which Shonda Rhimes talks about learning to say yes. Yes to events. Yes to compliments. Yes to badassery. Yes to being confident. Yes to being happy.

Speaking for myself, I don't watch any of her shows. I have never seen an episode of any of her bigger shows (though I did see How To Get Away With Murder and a few of The Catch), but I do know of her and admire her for all the work she does, so this was still pretty interesting to me. The parts I loved the most were the taped speeches (which you probably don't get with the physical book or the ebook) and some parts really wanted me to get more out there and not be afraid to be myself.

She tends to not get to the point easily, and she talks around it a lot, and while that can get frustrating after a while, it's also in a way part of the charm. The book feels more like a (albeit very one-sided) conversation than anything else. Loved it.

I was keeping this book for last in my readings of the new Star Wars canon, mostly because I didn't think this one would interest me that much. I figured this one would spend most of its time on the war, at the cost of developing its characters, but boy was I wrong.

Don't get me wrong though, there's still plenty of battles and fighting in this, and there's characters that you'll grow to like that will eventually die (and you won't be there to witness all of them), but it's still a thrilling read.

We follow various POV characters throughout the book, but the main character is Hazram Namir, a sergeant in Twilight Company. He's a rebel who doesn't believe in the rebellion, which I found very interesting. Though he does get very frustrating at times, but it's also part of what I like about it. He's not 100% a good guy.
We also follow some other characters in Twilight Company, and then also other sides of the war - like the Imperial side and even that of one of the Stormtroopers. It was interesting to see their motivation and why they were doing what they were doing, but in the end I think I would have liked to spend a bit more time with them, just so their stories would have a bit more impact than they did.

But overall, a very enjoyable read. When it was time for the Hoth battle (and its aftermath) I could not put it down. I also very much enjoyed the characters a lot. Even the ones I was never sure how to feel about (looking at you, Governor Chalis!) but I didn't think there was ever a weak point.

This is a book that I'd been looking forward to reading quite a long time. It's been recommended to me on Audible for about a hundred times, and it interested me a lot based on its description. However, I can't help but feel disappointed now that I've finished it.

I find it very hard to put it into words exactly what was missing for me, but I lacked a connection to the story. It slowed down in pace often enough, and there were chapters that I felt were not needed, and I could live with that, but it was hard to really grasp the story at times. We have a main plot, that is heavily touched upon at the start of the book, and only resurfaces for a bit at the end, but in the meantime we also have (magical?) beasts on the loose in a forest and some high-powered people in the city aren't all what they seem, but neither of those two had a real effect on the story or particularly high stakes. The beasts felt random, and the political intrigue felt almost like a story filler until we got to the actual thing, which will likely be most of the next book. Since they're leaving the city, are we even going to see much of it in the next one?

When it comes to characters, there are quite a few. Aedan is our main character, and he's alright, but again I was missing that connection. Osric is the true MVP though, and I liked Lorrimer as well, but that's about it.

The parts of the story I did find interesting though, was the whole beginning in Mistyvales with just a bunch of kids having adventures and having fun, as well as the school parts with the lessons and the exams and the students helping eachother out. That's definitely when I was most into it, but I felt otherwise it spun a bit out of control and wanting to be too many things at once. Which is why it's three stars, because overall I liked it, but I'm just a bit down on it because I felt that it could have been much more (or at least much less, like just if the story was trimmed down, or just with a focus shift).

I loved this! You'd think the novelization for a movie would be a great waste of time, but this was a great read.

This book was based on the script, and not necessarily on the movie itself (though drastic changes may have been made afterwards), so parts that were eventually removed from the movie are still present in the novelization. You also get more insights into what the characters are thinking, and added dialogue that might clear up some doubts that the movie may have raised.

I definitely recommend this if you've seen the movie, and just want a teensy bit more on it. It's a quick read, because you already know the setting and what happens, but it's enjoyable nonetheless.

This was just not for me.

And honestly, that's my own fault. I should have looked into it more. I wanted a book that would give me nice life descriptions of some of the more famous pirates back in the day, because I'm genuinely interested in that sort of thing and I was hoping for something that's more exciting to read than a Wikipedia page. Some cool side info on piracy in general was also a nice addition!

Unfortunately the “general history of the pyrates” is a bit too... general for me. It had more to do with who took whose ships and what was on that ships, or just geography information that went on for pages at a time. The worst part for me is that it was all in very classic and dated English, and as someone whose first language isn't English, it was very hard to get through.

The only worthwhile chapters for me were Mary Read's and Anne Bonny's, as those went more into their personal lives, as well as parts of Edward Low's chapter.

So.. would not recommend. It would have already made a huge difference for me if only the language was a bit more modern. So I think a modern version of this book, that sort of seeks to tell the same things, would work better.

HOLY. SHIT.

You know how the middle book of a trilogy is mostly just set-up for the third one, so they save the best for last? That may very well be, but goddamn, if this didn't already feel super intense, I can't even dare to imagine what else is in store.

There was a certain point at which this book just refused to let me go. I did the “One more chapter” thing a little too often every evening and decided I didn't need that much sleep after all. Hell was about to break loose every new chapter and I just couldn't wait to find out. And then it did.

These books do something to me. They make me smile, they make me cry. And to be perfectly honest, not a lot of books (or at least of the ones I've read) have been able to do that to me. This series did it almost from the very beginning, so wow.

Aside from story and the characters I already loved, it also made me see some of the existing characters in a new light. Just one sentence about them, and suddenly, I understand them and fall in love with them and just want the best for them. Which is exactly why I usually prefer series to standalone novels, not everyone gets their chance to shine at first.

Robin Hobb has officially got me, and as much as I want to devour everything in the Realms of the Elderlings series right away, I also never want it to end and want to savour them as much as possible. Which is perhaps the most clear sign that I've fallen in love with this world and its characters.

I listened to the Audiobook version of this, and overall I did enjoy it, but most of the characters were so dull and shallow that by the end of it, I didn't care about anything that happened to them. I might still check out the sequel next year since this series could be good if it improved on certain areas (mostly characters) and could end up being very interesting. I guess my decision on whether or not to recommend this book, depends entirely on the following books in this trilogy. In its current state though, I wouldn't recommend this one.

I received a copy from Melville House Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

The Strange Beasts Of China is a strange beast in and of itself. It's about a woman writing a bestiary in a town where beasts, sometimes not all too different from humans, live. The book itself is written as a bestiary, with each chapter focusing on a different strange beast, followed by a story relating to that beast. What the woman writes about them is all based on her own experiences with them, and through those stories her story gets told as well, so all short stories are very connected and all happen chronologically.

The way it's written feels very surreal and weird. The dialogue isn't quite right, the way these characters behave and interact with each other doesn't feel realistic, and yet it works as part of its charm. It very much reads like a weird fever dream.
I found the stories of the beasts interesting, but I was also curious to find out what the deal was with some of the recurring characters and the mystery of who exactly they were.

It's not a book I would recommend for everyone, but I think this would be a good read for when you feel like going out of your comfort zone a little.

In a way, it's kind of like Rogue One got the most direct EU canon connections out of all of the movies so far, between this and Catalyst, Guardians of the Whills and the Rebels series (and more to come). Though (ROGUE ONE SPOILER) it makes sense, as we won't see anything of these characters post-Rogue One, and they won't contradict any of the events in the sequel trilogy or beyond.

Rebel Rising is one of the two YA novels that came out last May, centering on a few of the Rogue One characters. This one centers on Jyn, but in a way also tells the story and downfall (in a way) of Saw Gerrera (whom we'll see more of in Rebels' fourth season).
I thought it was great, and interesting. Though there were a few scenes I could have done without. (You see why it gets the YA tag, but then in other scenes this does tend to get a bit more adult). It fits in perfectly well as a prequel to Rogue One, and makes the character of Jyn a bit more emotionally rewarding (if that makes sense?) than she was in the movie. A lot of her backstory in the movie is told or implied, but having her actually go through these things and how she feels about these or just her general thought process helps a lot in that regard.

When I finished seeing Rogue One, my main thought was probably more like “I want more of these characters”, and I think this is all we can possibly get out of Jyn Erso as a character. Which is perfect, as you're not left hungry for more (BOOK SPOILER) as the book ends where the movie begins for Jyn. It feels very complete.

I cried through the last few chapters so... you know.

Overall I found this an easily digestable story (though it got emotionally compromising at times!) that is easy to get into and to follow. Then suddenly before you know it, you're caring for these characters.
The story is relatively simple, which was both a positive and a negative - I enjoyed the story a lot because it wasn't an overly complex one, but I did get tired of it when it was nearing the end because the way it all started to unfold wasn't overly interesting to me (anymore). Because of that, I'll likely not check out the rest of the trilogy.

I've been reading this book since forever (slightly over exaggerated since it's been 10 days, but I usually do finish a 400 page book in less than a day), so today I said “fuck it” and went ahead and finished it.

That oughta tell you enough about my investment in this book. The story itself is interesting - what if the Nazis won the war, and what if the experiments they conducted lead into a certain girl, Yael, being able to change her appearance at will.

Yael is on a mission to kill Hitler, and to do this she has to, disguised as Adele Wolfe, win a (very long) race. But of course, not everything goes as planned.

I can't immediately say what I didn't like about the book, or what kept me from really immersing in it, but I just didn't. I liked Yael and I liked Luka and Felix, but everything else was just very shortly touched upon. The story is more action-packed than anything else, so it does make for a pretty fast read (combined with short chapters), but not a very soothing one (for me).

Dark Disciple is one of the new media released, the other being comics and story reels, that contain stories that would have normally appeared in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series if not for its cancellation. This was the last one out of those I had to consume, but I think this was my favorite.

The novel focuses on Quinlan Vos, a quite unusual Jedi Master (he was known to bend the rules every once and a while) and with the ability to see and feel the memories of certain objects when he touched them. The Jedi Order feels the war has gone on long enough and feel Dooku needs to die by assassination, so they send Vos out to find Asajj Ventress so they can take him on together. However, the two form a connection, and things don't turn out as planned.

Once I got about halfway through the story, I didn't stop. It's quite an addictive read, and it was never dull. I took me a while though to see Ventress as someone who was able to love, be selfless, to care. All relatively quickly. But I guess this was because I wasn't used to seeing that from her. In the end I cared though, and I was somewhat rooting for her and Vos.
I also really loved the Jedi parts of it - I loved that Obi-Wan had an important role, and Anakin and Windu and Yoda. A lot of the new canon so far has been in the A New Hope/OT era, so it was refreshing to get to read about those characters again.

I think when starting this, I would have preferred (or just generally would have liked) to have seen this as one big arc in the The Clone Wars series, but as it went on, I don't think they would have been able to go into as much depth as they did here. The psychology of the characters and their relationship probably wouldn't have worked quite as well.

If you've just finished The Clone Wars series and are looking for more surrounding that era, this is a really great read. It gives you closure, and more characterization for Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos, both of whom are really interesting characters. I especially like that Vos was featured in this, since there's not much information on him yet in this canon.

A lot of celebrities books I've read (or rather listened to) have all been a collection of different experiences and essays and what they've learned from them. This one might be the first that put more focus on how the person broke through and what they've learned from that.

I've always liked Felicia Day, and this made me like her even more. My favorite chapters were definitely the one criticising how gamer culture has evolved over recent years and how much effort they put into making The Guild, from when YouTube was just a relatively new website. There's a lot of references here and there that made me feel totally nostalgic.

The audiobook also has an added chapter that comments on the reception on the book, and experiences she's had during the book tour(s). I always would recommend the audiobook version of a biography, if the person narrating is also the author, since they usually come with a few extra stuff, and this one is no exception. Very much recommended.