Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston

Fans have long wondered what happened to Ahsoka after she left the Jedi Order near the end of the Clones Wars, and before she re-appeared as the mysterious Rebel operative Fulcrum in Rebels. Finally, her story will begin to be told. Following her experiences with the Jedi and the devastation of Order 66, Ahsoka is unsure she can be part of a larger whole ever again. But her desire to fight the evils of the Empire and protect those who need it will lead her right to Bail Organa, and the Rebel Alliance.

A fairly dull first act, but that's by design: living on the run is depressing. Gets better from there.

I've been wanting to read this novel for a long time, as Ahsoka Tano is my favorite character from the Clone Wars cartoon, and second-favorite in the entire Star Wars series. (Because General Leia exists.) I picked the book up at a used book store in Oregon when we went home from the holidays, but I've just had so many other things to read. I finally read it for May 4th, Star Wars Day.

I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. I've read another book by Johnston, That Inevitable Victorian Thing, which I enjoyed but thought was too fluffy. And comparing this to the last Star Wars book I read - Phasma - this tilts that way too. It's not as fluffy as TIVT - people die, and the Empire is the ever-looming possible doom that it always is - but it just didn't feel as gritty as Phasma did. Perhaps it shouldn't; Phasma is a villain, and her backstory is suitably dark. And Ahsoka, here, is floundering a little in the wake of Order 66, and being alive when none of her compatriots, to her knowledge, are.

I did enjoy learning how she got her lightsabers back, and the story should lead well into the Rebels cartoon, which I have yet to watch.

So I don't know. It was an entertaining book, and it was effective at furthering Ahsoka's story, it just...wasn't quite what I wanted.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This book was quick to get through. I loved that the audiobook was narrated by Ashley Eckstein. It started slower than the previous Star Wars books I've recently read (I started this right after the Leia: Princess of Alderaan), but it really ramped up in the second half and was really exciting. The story was great to learn more about Ahsoka, one of my favorite characters, and it fit in between where we left her at the end of the Clone Wars and when she shows up in Rebels. We got a few glimpses into her past, but mostly the story flushed out her character.