Nathalie

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.

Duuuuuude. THAT ENDING.

Once again, as enjoyable and truly heartbreaking as ever. I wouldn't however say this was “more of the same”, since for the first time in the Fitz books, we get an added POV. Which I was unsure of at the start, but does add very much to the story.
Seeing these characters 15-20 years (if it isn't more) from where we last left them feels so natural, and I'm pretty much in awe of how they all seem so real, and how you're able to care for them even with all of their flaws. (I know I've been saying this since Assassin's Apprentice, but it remains true as ever).

I am beyond excited for Fool's Quest, but also equally dreading the upcoming Assassin's Fate. I don't want this to end!

Unfortunately wasn't as into it as I would have liked to have been. The different names and the omniscient narration took a bit to get used to but were fine by the end. Didn't get as invested into the story and characters as I would have hoped though. I saw that this book was recommended for fans of Robin Hobb so maybe I just went in with the wrong expectations. Loved the Inda/Sponge friendship though but kind of expected more from that as well. Maybe that's something that's more developed in the next few books but I don't think I'll be reading those.

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

I thought the book looked grander in scale than it actually ended up being. We had only two different POVs, both of which were different enough and served their purpose in being a bit more personal and developing their side of the world. (Which I like!) I switched a few times between the two when it came to which POV I was interested in the most. At the start it was Bordan, then in the middle it switched to Kyron and so on. They both had their high points and their lower points.

The story itself was interesting, but it had an incredibly slow start. It took me about halfway to really warm up to it, and I was pretty invested by the time I hit the 80% mark, but because of that it took me ages just to get to that halfway point.

I scoff a bit when I hear people's reviews of something being “I know the start is pretty so-so, but it gets good later, I promise!” which is often something I don't agree with. In this case though, I would say it's true. Not that the start is so-so at all, it's just slow, but as long as you're semi-interested in the characters and what's going on around them, the road to the end is going to pay off. It isn't as straightforward as it appears to be.

Certainly a promising start!

I'm an absolute sucker for stories on ships. It's why I loved the second Locke Lamora book better than the first one. Unfortunately most of those stories leave me a bit wanting in the character department, as that setting is very ideal for some good dynamics, especially when it comes to loyalty and honor. The Bone Ships delivers in that regard.

To be honest, I wasn't always 100% sure of what was going on in the story (I'm still not sure why The Tide Child had to be the first to get to that particular destination?), but the characters more than made up for it. There's quite a few characters here, yet I have a feel for most of them, and I immediately know who's who and what type of person they are. Which is honestly weird, because most of the focus is on Joron and Meas, and yet you already get quite a good sense of the other characters with so little.

I found the character dynamics very believable. It's not weird that the crew's sense of loyalty for Meas grows throughout the story. It's not too sudden, and just right. Hell, I‘d follow Meas to hell and back. Joron himself also has some real good growth, and has some interesting relationships of his own as well.

Very much a “part one” though. The story that is set up here isn't resolved, but there is a clear sense of where it can go from here. And that has a lot of potential!

This one is very action-packed from the get-go, which makes it a bit overwhelming at the start as there is a lot of information to take in. It doesn't take too long to grasp everything though and then you're just along for the ride.

An entertaining and enjoyable story, with good, distinct characters. Due to their nature and their obligation to “the clan” I had trouble relating to them as they don't really show their emotions or talk about them. They could have been developed more.

Story-wise it went in a few directions that I certainly didn't expect, and at the same time I wished what I thought was going to happen would have happened. I did love the setting and the world.

This is currently being developed as a TV series and I think it's going to work even better in that medium! Especially with the action scenes being brought to life and a chance to give us more insight into the characters.

Oh, this was a fun one! And yes, I realize that it's weird that a book in which lots of people die in gruesome ways just makes me think “fun” is pretty fucked up, but that's this book pretty much. The things that are happening at times are horrible, but they're never explicitly described or gratuitous and the overall tone remains fun.

I loved the main characters, Hadrian (especially Hadrian) and Royce and the only thing I think it lacked was more development for them. I also just want to know more about them and spend way more time with them, but I guess that's what the other books are for!

Atticus O'Sullivan is a 2100 year old Druid, the last of his kind. He lives in Arizona with his dog (whom he talks to) and his problem is that he has a big beef with a god over an ancient sword.

The story is as exciting as it sounds, but my main problem is of course, that Atticus is over 2000 years old. Nothing phases him. All kinds of magical creatures want him dead, but he doesn't care as much as he should because he's seen some shit. This made it hard for me to really get invested in the book, even if it was enjoyable enough (and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny). He's also pretty powerful with some powerful friends, and I never really felt there was anything at stake.

Oberon is pretty cool though, even if the narrator's voice for him was kind of over the top sometimes that it was sometimes hard to take seriously.

This was enjoyable and fun and interesting, but overall I'm just a wee bit underwhelmed. I wasn't really drawn to any of the characters (more annoyed with everyone than anything) and I wanted the ending to be a bit more fleshed out instead of just glossed over.
Also the slang they used at the battle school..... Why? I cringed every time there was a scene with that, though maybe that was slightly because of how the narration did it.

I'm not sure how I felt about this one, to be honest. I liked the world, and it was really easy to get into (from page one, actually), but all in all it didn't leave that much of an impression on me.

The book is very character-heavy, and they take precedent before what story there is in here. I actually really liked that aspect of it. Unfortunately most of the characters fell sort of flat for me. For some reason I just wanted to know more about Corbin (even if he is an asshole throughout the majority of it) and I really liked Ashby by the end, but because I was never properly invested in them, a lot of the dramatic and emotional moments didn't have much effect on me. There may have been too many characters? There are a few in there who seem like they never get the proper time to shine.

I liked it, but it's a shame that I can't stop thinking about how it could have been slightly more, because I loved the concept and I loved the idea a lot. It's still a worthy read, even if just for that.

If you like Star Wars, if you really really like Star Wars, and you're always on the hunt for more on Star Wars, go get this book.

No, really, this goes into pretty much everything I've ever wondered about. The first part of the book is more about in what ways Star Wars has taken over our world, how it's something everyone knows something about even if they've never seen any of the movies, on Jediism, the start of the Expanded Universe, some media that inspired George Lucas to want to create “the Star Wars”, on what fans unintentionally contributed to the movies, and a lot more that I can't even remember.
The second part is what I found the most interesting - there it goes through each of the movies, from 1977 to 2005, how they came to be, how they were received, and what happened afterwards. Then it goes further into Star Wars: Underworld (which never made it past pre-production) and the two The Clone Wars series, and eventually, up to when Disney bought Lucasfilm.
Throughout its entirety, they also mention a couple of popular rumors surrounding the franchise that they debunk/disagree with.

As a fan of Star Wars and as someone who wants to get their hands on everything related to it, this was really great. I've read some reviews here and there that this will still be interesting for someone only moderately interested in Star Wars, but I'm not too sure of that. I think in that case, you'd more want to skip ahead to the chapters you're inclined to know more about, instead of some chapters about “obscure” things you might be less interested in.

The reason I was mostly interested in choosing this book next in my adventures of getting caught up with the new Star Wars canon, was because of the release of the new Rebels midseason (two) trailer. I hadn't gotten to Rebels yet (I was still watching The Clone Wars at the time), but I got intrigued by this book mostly because this is set a few years before the TV show.

All in all, this was a fun read. It helps that I'm already interested in Rebels, because I'm not sure how interesting these characters would be if it wasn't for that.
At times, the book felt like a chore to read and I was reading more for the sake of finishing it. Not that I disliked it per se, but it didn't excite me all that much.

However, in the back of my mind I had already known this but for some reason I had forgotten, I was incredibly excited to see Rae Sloane turn up again. She was arguably one of the more interesting characters of the Aftermath novel by Chuck Wendig, and I love getting to know more about her. I also found Count Vidian an interesting adversary.

I recommend this one if you're a fan of Rebels and are interested in how Kanan and Hera met eachother, or if you want just a bit more Rae Sloane after Aftermath, or even if you want to read about a new villain. Though overall I do not consider this a must read.

Amazing. Incredible. Perfection.

It's so weird to think about how much this series has grown over the course of three books. Characters I felt indifferent towards in the first installment are now fully fleshed out characters I grew to like. The world that was essentially just a backdrop is now a really important element of the story. The story is still hella fun and a joy to spend time in, but it also had its serious moments and it mixed those really well.

While I was reading this, I was a bit worried because at this point, there are no follow-ups to this story, only prequels (which I will get to sooner rather than later!) and I was afraid this wouldn't end so good for these great characters. But the ending was actually really great and I don't mind not checking in with these characters again after that point in time. Though I certainly wouldn't mind if it was ever planned!

I already feel like rereading the entire trilogy, which says a lot about my enjoyment of this series! :)

Ultimately a super interesting and juicy story, but I didn't feel as if I got more out of this compared to say, reading the plot outline online. I missed some of the immersion and emotion that some of the other books were able to do, whereas I felt this one was more “matter of fact”.

Lyra is pretty awesome though, and little Jyn is super cute!

It's not an exaggeration to say Carrie Fisher had a, to say the least, very interesting life. Each of her memoirs go into more detail on a certain part of it, and this one very much focuses on her family and some of her family's closest friends or connections to them. A lot of interesting stories about people like Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor, but also a lot of heartbreaking stuff, especially when it comes to her relationship with her dad. Having it be narrated by her also really adds to the emotion of it.

It shouldn't be surprising, considering the name, that this book was more about the treasure hunters than it was about the pirates itself, but it's still disappointing to me because the latter was just infinitely more interesting whenever it came up.

The story (based on real life events) is about two men who are looking for the ship (The Golden Fleece) of the merchant-turned-pireate Joseph Bannister. The book recounts the events of what led to them eventually finding the ship back in 2009, which was not an easy feat, as they weren't the only ones after it.

Most of the book is about the hunters and their search, but it's also intersected with various history on pirates in general, outside of Joseph Bannister. On their stance on democracy or crew relations or even how they handled amputations. I loved those parts, while I was losing more interest in the hunters' part the more it went on.

Two TV critics decide the 100 best US shows of all time, decided on overall quality (writing, performance, directing, editing), innovation, consistency, how much they changed TV overall,... Every entry in the top 100 gets their own essay saying why that show was so good and how it earned their place.

Mixed in with the top 100 there's also a few fun stuff like “Best Bosses” or “Best Cliffhangers” or simply “Best Pilots” and “Best Finales”. After the top 100 is done, there is also a section on current shows that may get their place in the “all-time best” if they don't drop in quality before their end, and also shows that had at least one outstanding season but didn't make it because the overall quality of the series was inconsistent.

I love TV, and I love finding out about TV and discussing TV, so I was a bit disappointed to find out I wasn't really familiar with a lot of shows from the Top 100, since a lot of them were from the 60s-90s era, and a lot of them were classic US shows that I never bothered to check out. But I was way more familiar when they got to the parts after that.

Even then, it's still fun to hear both Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall talk passionately about TV, even if you're not familiar with what they're referencing. Of course, in the print or digital book you get to skip around to shows you know and read their essays, but as I listened to the audiobook, I didn't have that luxury. That's a good thing though! I may have to check out some of those classic TV shows.

I honestly never really got the hype over Heir To The Empire, which was the series that introduced the character of Thrawn to the Star Wars EU back in the 90s. I feel like people remember it more fondly than it actually is, or appreciate it for what it did to the expanded universe back in the day.

Grand Admiral Thrawn remains a fantastic character though, so I was glad to really get to know him in the Star Wars Rebels series, and now in this book (which serves as a prequel to that series).

Technically, we get Thrawn's origin story in this, but also Governor Pryce's story, which I eventually also found incredibly interesting. The book itself had a really strong start, wandered a bit towards the middle, and then really picked up again by the end. Excellently written, and probably my favorite Empire-focused novel so far. I hope Timothy Zahn ends up tackling a few other novels and characters outside of Thrawn, because I'd definitely be interested in seeing that.

From a technical standpoint, this is a really good audiobook. Its cast is chockfull of great actors, including Mark Hamill, Simon Pegg, Kal Penn, Nathan Fillion... all doing great performances. There's great moody interlude music too.

But as for the story itself, it is pretty interesting, but there's a lot of different ones with one general theme - the apocalypse, which at this point has already happened. So most of your interest in the current chapter depends on how engrossed you are in the current story or in its voice actor, as the story they're telling isn't happening in current time.

Unfortunately for me, I found the concept to get pretty tiring at about the halfway point of the book. There were still a few highlights after that, but I wouldn't say I needed every single one of those interviews to be in this. I guess I'd have preferred to have fewer stories, and have each of them a bit longer. Then you could make each of the stories very good and not have so many one-offs with one that you're into and then followed by one that you're not.

“Kenobi”, or also known by its alternative title, appointed by me, “Tales Of People On Tatooine, With Some Special Appearances By Kenobi”. In the end, that turned out okay though!

In a way, I often felt this was the Legends counterpart of the Ahsoka novel by E.K. Johnston in the current canon. Both are about (ex-)Jedi once close to Anakin, post-Order 66 and on the run, fleeing to a remote planet and trying to stay out of trouble, yet ultimately failing to do so by their inability to not help people eventually.

There is however a big difference, and that's mostly mentioned in my first sentence. This book is not from Obi-Wan's point of view. Our main characters are citizens on Tatooine who've been facing some trouble, when suddenly this stranger enters their lives. So all we really get when it comes to his state of mind is what we can make up from observations that other characters make about him. Though the “Meditation” sections, in which he talks to Qui-Gon Jinn, are perhaps a tad more informational on that front.

I found that this bothered me at first, since I had completely different expectations going in. By the end though, I liked and was interested in a lot of these characters, and I do think we have all that we need to know when it comes to what Obi-Wan was feeling and doing during this time. In a way, this was kind of what the Ahsoka novel lacked. I didn't care about the people she was saving that much, whereas in this one I did.

All in all, super fun, and makes me want to check into some more Legends material for in the future! :)

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com.

Unfortunately the only reason I even finished the book is because of the reason above.

First of all, the narration was excellent. Jeff Hays was great at distinguishing the different voices and accents so I never questioned which character was speaking. Though this was a bit ruined by the quality of the production - the volume was pretty variable depending on which character was speaking (it would suddenly become a lot quieter compared to the non-dialogue parts so that I'd have to turn the volume up to hear it).

The story is, simply put, that six young people (and a seventh who's not “officially” a part of them), most of them strangers to another at the start, have to go on a quest to obtain a crystal. But there are other forces also looking for it.

The problem for me is that the characters never became anything beyond “words on a page” (or “voices” in this case). Now that I finished it, I still have no idea who these characters are or how they're feeling about all this (It's touched upon, but very lightly). Actually, the one that distinguished itself the most might have been Blaidd (I had to look that up because in my mind I spelled it like “Blade”), even if he's technically the seventh of the Six. There's also two friends along on this mission, and we're told they're fairly close friends, but you wouldn't know that if it wasn't explicitly said. This happens with a few other parts, we're told something but we're never shown it.
I never got invested in the characters, and therefore I never got invested in the story. Though I don't know if this would have been a different experience if not for the audiobook.

The story and the execution of it were fine, and that might very well be enough for most people, but I just never cared about any of these characters and that's usually the biggest part of my enjoyment of a book.

Nothing much to say about this one unfortunately. It's enjoyable enough, but not much more than that. There's a mystery that needs solving, and I had trouble caring about it enough to keep it suspenseful for me. So I took way longer about finishing this than I otherwise would. Still wanted to finish it so it definitely wasn't bad! Just not “keeps you on your toes” good.

For a while I've been stuck between either 2 or 3 stars, but eventually decided on the former. Characters can either make or break a certain book for me, but in this case I'd say they broke it.

The story is about an apocalypse, happening in 2035. It takes place before, during and after, and it's about a teenage girl and her family (her mom and sister) trying to survive by getting on a generation ship which will leave Earth in order to start anew.

That is basically the gist of the entire story. Denise, our protagonist, finds ways to get the generation ship's captain to allow her on board, and then also tries to find ways to get her family on board. There's not a whole lot of interesting story there, so you have to really care about the characters in order to make it gripping. But unfortunately it wasn't really.

The perspectives, and the characters themselves, are interesting in theory. Denise is autistic, and this being in first-person, we really get a good look inside her thoughts. The problem though was that she just came across as very whiny and self-absorbed, and I had a really hard time trying to root for her when it seemed like everyone else in that world was weirdly civil about things. Unlikable traits can work in characters, but I didn't find her character very compelling and it all ultimately felt flat and incredibly frustrating and I didn't care if she won this particular battle or not, especially when there were other people that were much more deserving of it. (And don't even get me started on the mom, ugh).

As for good notes, I thought the narration was excellent (at times maybe even TOO good, because the “panic-y” voice just annoyed me after a few times), and I love that the story is set in The Netherlands (with mentions to Belgium) and that there's a few Dutch names and place names. The idea is pretty cool too, and I could imagine the world like how it's described. I just wish it was from a different perspective than the one we got.

Some interesting and surprising points, some not so surprising. Overall I would recommend if you have a bit of social anxiety. It won't fix the issue but it can provide some context and ways to make things better for yourself.

Kinda fun and action-packed (it didn't take too long to get started on that front!). Overall it was alright but didn't leave that much of an impression. The story was the most fun part, and the characters had their moments at times, but nothing really special otherwise.