I really have struggled with reading for the past couple months. It’s been a little while since I’ve posted a review but I hope now that all the business of prepping for the marathon and all the other bigger events of the past couple of weeks is over, I will now be able to dig into the pages of my newest and latest pick-ups.

As you can probably tell, I got my hands on some Star Wars books. I kind of splurged on these books because I picked up four in one trip to barnes and nobles. Barnes and nobles is a dangerous place for my wallet. Every time I go in there to browse I always come out with something. I wish I had better self control when it comes to books haha.

Anyways I had heard a lot of good things about the Thrawn Trilogy. To many, it was the trilogy that revitalized Star Wars. So I was excited to get my hands on it. I wasn’t really interested in reading the newer versions just because I wasn’t a huge fan of what Disney is doing with Star Wars. So I really wanted to dive deep into the legends series.

So lets get into this book review. To preface, I don’t know anything about Thrawn. All I know is that he’s a genius tactician. This book starts out introducing you to him and man was he impressive. He came off rather calm and assertive and his ability to think ahead and be in control was pretty astounding. I even thought to myself how are our heroes going to defeat him? He is so intuitive, it’s rather scary.

I think this book was a rather good introduction to the villain as well as Mara jade. I know even less about her than I do Thrawn. I really like where this is going though. She’s a bit mysterious, there’s more to her than what we’ve seen and I hope to dive deeper into her backstory as the story goes on. Will she be Luke’s foil?

Overall I like the whole idea of stripping Luke of his source of power and seeing if his confidence lies only on this power or on his own ability. I also like that it addresses the fall of the emperor and what the rest of Empire was doing after. One question proposed and answered by the book is, “what would have happened if Thrawn had been in the battle of Endor?”

One thing I need to say is that even though I like the fact that Luke is stripped from his power, it kind of didn’t make sense. According to the movies the force is what binds the universe, it lives in living things and moves in and around them yet there is a creature who nullifies the force? Its a small nitpick.

One other thing, Even though I really enjoyed seeing our characters again there was a bit of a sense that most of the book was set up for the whole trilogy. Im used to subtlety in the world building but the book was not very subtle about it.

Either way I really did enjoy the book and being introduced to new characters and locations. the story was pretty good and the action sequences scattered throughout kept the book engaging and pushing forward. There was a lot to like from this book and if you like Star Wars I think you’ll definitely enjoy this book. Something I felt was missing from the movies was the sense of worry about what the big bad was plotting next. The emperor was menacing but only in the sense that he was very powerful. Thrawn is menacing not because of his power but because of his genius. His ability to logically come to conclusions based off details that you easily gloss over was spectacular and makes him a much more devious foe than the emperor. You just don’t know what will happen next because Thrawn seems to have contingency plans for every situation and his ability to adapt. So I’m excited to see what happens. Anyways thanks for reading! God bless!

Also, since its getting to spooky season I would really like any recommendations to books that really fill that role! if you have any recommendations please let me know! thanks!