The Resistance has been reborn. But although Rey and her fellow heroes are back in the fight, the war against the First Order, now led by Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, is far from over. Just as the spark of rebellion is rekindling, a mysterious signal broadcasts throughout the galaxy, with a chilling message: Emperor Palpatine, long thought defeated and destroyed, is back from the dead.  

Has the ancient Lord of the Sith truly returned? Kylo Ren cuts a swath of destruction across the stars, determined to discover any challenge to his control over the First Order and his destiny to rule over the galaxy—and crush it completely. Meanwhile, to discover the truth, Rey, Finn, Poe, and the Resistance must embark on the most perilous adventure they have ever faced.

On my Twitter profile, I refer to myself as the world’s least critical Star Wars fan, a claim I pretty much still stand by. Yeah, it’s meant to be silly, but I just fucking love Star Wars so much. Like, even if something isn’t my ABSOLUTE MOST FAVORITE STAR WARS THING EVER, it’s still Star Wars and I will still love it.

I’m honestly still sort of processing my feelings about The Rise of Skywalker (the movie), and I think this is the only Star Wars novelization I’ve read where I had only seen the movie once. I was contemplating watching it immediately after finishing the book & before writing this review, but I think I’ll hold off until after the review.

Now, to get this out of the way…like a lot of Star Wars fans, I had some issues with The Rise of Skywalker. My immediate reaction to what I was seeing on the screen was just like…HOLY FUCK OK WHAT OMG WHAT NOW OH NO WHOA WOW WHAT….like…the movie is VERY busy, and I think that’s its main flaw. It just feels super chaotic, especially compared to The Last Jedi, which feels so spacious and nearly serene by comparison. The Rise of Skywalker felt like someone had poured Pop-Rocks, Mentos, and Coke into my brain and then fired up a strobe light.

It was a lot.

I was hopeful the book would maybe slow things down a bit, but the fact is The Rise of Skywalker novelization comes in at just under 250 pages, so it is every bit as frenetic as the movie. Rae Carson is a great writer & I like what she did with the story, but this isn’t something that had much of an overall impact on my initial impressions of the movie.

Both The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker have been released as “Expanded Editions,” which is a strange bit of marketing, as there is no “Regular Old Edition” to be had. What it’s translated to has been some scenes that weren’t in the movies (I’m fuzzy on if some of these scenes were ever filmed/made it to the Deleted Scenes part of the Blu-ray/DVD) are part of the books. And that’s actually really cool, and there’s one such scene in The Rise of Skywalker (page 240, if you’re playing along at home) that fucking delighted me, and honestly had me all kinds of choked up…like, I fully had to just stop & breathe for a minute afterwards. So that was really special.

This review has hardly been a review, and I’m just…trying to be ok with that. I periodically get folks asking me where is a good place to start with Star Wars novels. It’s one of my favorite things to be asked, and I have a lot of thoughts on the subject. Rogue One inevitably gets mentioned as an absolute must-read, a book that murdered both my feelings & my expectations. And while I think Rae Carson did some cool things with The Rise of Skywalker, and it’s very well written, ultimately, this is probably a book just for those of us committed to reading ALL THE NEW STAR WARS BOOKS. Of course I enjoyed reading this…it’s Star Wars after all…but it isn’t something I’m going to be raving about.

May the Force be with you!!