Star Wars: Lost Stars Paperback – August 1, 2017

Lost Stars has the had unfortunate luck in being published on the same day as Aftermath. As such, very little attention has been given to this book. To begin this review, it's necessary to clear up some basic points. First, this novel is labeled as young adult. Don't let that dissuade you from reading the novel, at some points it feels like a young adult novel (in the first few chapters), but as the story progresses it stops feeling like a young adult novel. Second, this novel spans about 16 years, so this review might contain "spoilers", but rest assured that they won't be important things, rather minor, insignificant points to illustrate the strong and weak points of the novel. Events from the Star Wars movies will be mentioned and are some of those 'spoilers'.This novel is fun. It follows Thane and Ciena, children from the Outer Rim who dream of joining the Imperial Academy when they're 8 (8 years after Revenge of the Sith) and continues until the Battle of Jakku (several months after Endor). From the back cover you'll know that one joins the Rebellion and the other stays in the Empire, something which you can basically figure out within the first few chapters. That is one of the novel's strongest and weakest points in my opinion. The plot is predictable at times, by the time they finished the Imperial Academy I already figured out how the novel was going to end (which turned out to be correct), but on the flip side the author is talented enough to take the plot and characters to their necessary points in a fashion that it doesn't feel forced. The character's decisions were made, not because the plot demanded it, but because that's what they would have done. Admittedly, these chapters were a bit boring for me but they did present the second strong point for the novel: you see and understand why people join the Empire. You get an understanding of how the Empire was presented, what it stood for, what people believed and how they justified their views. To my knowledge, no other Star Wars novel does this (I can be mistaken).As we all know, the Empire is evil and our characters see and live this. The characters are placed in the events of the Trilogy, from the Death Star to Hoth to Endor. The way the author does this is very good and doesn't feel forced. You can easily believe that they were in those battles, and the author knows how to build the tension in these moments. They both witness the greatness and horrors of the Empire and react, not how the plot needs them, but how they as characters have been presented and developed. The author quite cleverly took 'minor' points from the movies and placed the characters there in a way that doesn't affect the established cannon nor feel forced. To give an example of this: in A New Hope two imperial extras comment how an escape pod was launched but was empty. One of the characters in the novel is in that room and overhears this.Perhaps the best part of it all is how the characters (main and minor) justify their actions. They go from blind idealism, to rationalizing the events before their eyes. Some are disgusted with the Death Star, while others defend it. Slowly, through the years, they are forced to compromise their basic values because the Empire demands it. You see the slow process of how they fall out of love with the Empire, that moment when you realize that all that you have believed in and followed is evil and you are disgusted with yourself because of how blind you were. Others see the horrors of the Empire and rationalize it until the end, taking pride in what the Empire does no matter what. While others are so disgusted they just leave as soon as possible. This examination, which happens to several characters, is the biggest highlight of the novel and takes up a good portion of it as character development for them.The novel does have only three bad things to it. One of them contains a significant spoiler, so I won't include it in the review. Suffice it to say, that at the end, one of the character's beliefs/ thoughts about their future doesn't make sense with what was presented. You''ll have to read it to understand what I'm going on about, but it is possible that I missed something. The second thing is the predictability of the plot. With all seriousness, you can deduce the ending by reading the first chapters. It's spelled out before you in clear words. The third and final downside is that the last fifth of the novel ups the tempo and it seems as though the author was rushed. To put this into perspective: the Battle of Endor starts. Same page the '"it's a trap!" line. Two pages later the Death Star fires and they move to attack the Star Destroyers. Within five pages the Executor and Death Star are gone. The Battle of Endor comes down to basically one chapter, no more than twenty pages. After that there's a small time jump, but the final act of the novel feels a bit disjointed because of this.However, these three criticisms are minor. They didn't ruin the novel or make it bad. At the end of the novel you'll want to know more and want Caludia Gray to write a follow up or see how (if) these characters make it into the movies, even the minor ones. This novel should have been the flagship novel for the Journey to Episode VII, not Aftermath.TL;DR: this book is well written, fun, and worth your time and money. If nothing else, read the fourth paragraph in my review to see why the novel is great.

Amazing story of love and honor. Worked into known story very well.Hope to read more about the key people described.

Love the book. I do feel it was a tad under and overhyped. I think that mostly game from fans who were disappointed with Aftermath. But I do agree, this book definitely crafts a better story than that one. Also the YA is a disservice. The slug lines made it sound like Twilight meets Star Wars.Also, Lost Stars had a much stronger theme, or at least, the pursuit a theme. It’s a story about honor and loyalty. Loyalty to country or a cause, to man or woman, and loyalty to yourself. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book with such strong themes, especially in Star Wars. It’s something you see in all the acquired reading in college, those classic books that have themes that can be discussed for days.This book asks a lot of compelling questions and it tells it through some strong characters.Essentially this book is Romeo and Juliet, in the sense that there are star-crossed lovers, pun intended. You have these two characters, Thane and Ciena, that grow up with each other but eventually splinter off. One joining the rebellion, the other staying with the Empire.Some very beautiful and touching scenes. There is one point where the two characters are talking through hologram and they are trying to touch each other through the hologram. Imagining that in my mind, it would be beautiful imagery. Two ghostly figures trying to reach each other. Pretty deep.Speaking of deep you get a deeper look into the Empire in the Rebel. We see how both factions recruit. We already had a good idea about Imperial academies but not much about Rebel recruitment. We get a more in-depth look at how Imperial Academies work, which we got a hint of in Rebels but now we get a full fledged version here. All the way up to graduation. Rebel recruiting was really interesting though. There was on sequence where our rebel protagonist talks about potentially being left behind because the fleet was moving so often. It’s discussed how difficult it would be to link back up with the Rebels if you are left behind.I felt the novel was a bit too convenient. The two protagonist are gonna meet up often, that’s just the nature of a romantic novel like this, but I felt the ways in which they met weren’t very natural aside from two particular scenes relating to their homeworld.Also, the juxtaposition of their lives felt a bit too perfect. But that’s more personal preference. I can see the beauty of that as well. Like George Lucas says, “It’s like poetry, it rhymes.” There is a case for that here in this novel. Ciena and Thane’s lives rhyming with each other, even in their contrasting environments.But man the ending of this novel is fantastic. It’s a complete culmination of the themes presented through the novel. It was great finally seeing a story that presented clear themes in the beginning and then manifesting them in a cathartic way in the ending. Very good. I also like the consequences both characters are faced with. It’s pretty heartbreaking without saying too much.SPOILERS:So now I’m going to discuss a few spoilers. In terms of timeline this story takes place before A New Hope and even a year after Return of the Jedi. I actually think the post-ROTJ material was handled very well, especially the mess that the Empire is in. I feel like they are definitely still a presence just waiting to strike again.There is even mention of Naboo being attacked three times sense the second Death Star destruction. We even saw one of these battles in Shattered Empire.Also, it seems after a year the Empire has finally accepted Palaptine’s death.And that brings us to the largest spoiler! You know that Star Destroyer that is crashed on Jakku? Well Ciena was the commander of that ship and she crash landed it herself. In fact the book cover shows this and we don’t even realize it until we’ve read it. But it’s awesome the detail we got of that battle. It’s described as the largest battle since Endor. It’s sort of the Empire’s last big push, which of course, ultimately fails.It’s great we get to see this from our protagonists’ perspective. We’ll also get the perspective from Battlefront as well which should be interesting.I also really liked how deep into the Empire we got. We really got to humanize them. I’ve always been under the impression that there were good people in the Empire. I mean, Luke was almost an Imperial himself had he gone to the academy. But this book highlights that.But Nashwinrider’s character didn’t make a lot of sense to me. He goes from being Thane’s best friend to his worse enemy in a second. What’s crazy about that is Nash is from Alderaan and he saw it being destroyed right before his eyes. I never fully understood that character, nor his motivations. I mean there was an attempt, its written that he too like Ciena and it could have been a plot of jealousy but I was never fully on board with that.But the destruction of the Death Star did take a whole new meaning. While it was a super weapon it did hold millions of innocent people on board and we even get to know some of the people stationed there. The cruelty of war and the ambiguity of war is really highlighted here.There was also an interesting point about war criminals. It’s very interesting how that works. IT really depends on who the winning side is. Mon Mothma could easily be prosecuted for war crimes just as much as any other Imperial leader. It all depends on the winning side though.