Leia: Princess of Alderaan

One of best on the new canon, definitely worth a read!

If Catalyst was a prelude to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story then this book was a prelude to Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It did justice to one of the most inspiring and iconic characters in science fiction/fantasy by giving her fitting backstory. Introducing us to Holdo, long before they reunite in The Last Jedi was great, and I must say, based on the description in the book, Laura Dern nailed the character. I enjoyed the story, it gave us great insight into how Leia's character was formed. The romance with Kier was a bit too much for me, it did seem out of place for Leia, but I can understand the argument otherwise. So much was set on Alderaan that I constantly felt so horrible, knowing their fate, not long in the future.

As the title says, this book is about Leia's pre-Rebellion days. More specifically on how she got caught up in all of it, as a sixteen year old Princess.

There's some cool stuff in here (Crait!), a bunch of new character information (Leia's mother Breha), and, what Claudia Gray excels at, great characterization (both for Leia herself and her own side characters).

I didn't find it as good as either of her other Star Wars works though, but still very much worth a read.

Disclaimer: I liked Lost Stars. I don't mind YA titles, nor the idea of a romantic one. This book though is profoundly frustrating. About halfway through, I gave up hoping to enjoy it and kept going in case any new bits of the canon were fleshed out. They weren't. There's really no good reason to read this book.

Why is it so frustrating? The novel goes out of its way to both point out Leia's privilege and her awareness of it, but it's just so dull to observe Leia learning what we already know about the nascent Rebellion. It's a fatal flaw, as this tack just makes her come across as young Picard in “Rascals” rather than someone we can empathize with.