Reviews

Update 3/9/22
Just watched the beginning of Top Gun and realized that this book has the same exact premise.

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Initial Review 1/17/22
A book about a girl who trains to become a fighter pilot despite the odds was calculated to engage my interest. I’ve always been in awe of fighter pilots, having grown up going to air shows and watching close-formation squads like the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds. I always left the shows thinking I wanted to be a pilot, which would last a day or two until I remembered that I hate flying and spend every moment in a plane anticipating my imminent demise (why yes i am a nervous flyer, why do you ask). But the wonder, admiration, and respect I have for the people who do fly will always remain. Some people have a thing for firemen, I have a thing for pilots.

Needless to say, this made me disposed towards the story from the start. Reading about Spensa’s journey was like living out a childhood fantasy.

The Writing
This book is clearly aimed towards a YA audience. The writing seemed rather juvenile at times and Spensa's character was a bit of a caricature and very young. She was always making over-the-top statements about being a warrior / hero and killing her enemies, and she'd occasionally speechify with painfully cheesy and contrived results (e.g.

Spoiler

when she was talking about her fallen comrades

).

The Plot
I suddenly understand why people love Sanderson so much. This book was predictable -- no particular element was original or hadn't been done before, but put altogether they made for an engaging story.

And there were some very see-through plot devices.

Spoiler

For example, when Spensa found and began repairing a ship in a cave, it was obvious that there would be some reason that she'd need to fly it to save the day. Add to that the societal stipulation that ejecting from a ship was a form of cowardice and would result in loss of flight privileges, it was clear that Spensa would be forced to confront that decision, would choose to eject to survive, and then would lose her pilot's pin and be "grounded". This would neatly set her up to use her repair-project ship in an emergency. And it all went almost exactly as predicted with some slight variations.

The (future) love interest was spotted immediately. Also, jerk-face? I found that simultaneously cringeworthy, very YA, and somewhat amusing. Jorgen earning the respect of his flight was another thing that you could see would happen from the start.

The ending was predictable as well. In fact it mirrored the ending of the Dark Knight Rises movie. I’m not saying one copied the other, I think it was just a side effect of there being a finite number of ways to accomplish all the objectives and resolve everything with a positive outcome, e.g. Spensa saving the day without dying or destroying her ship, both Alta base and Igneous surviving, and creating new avenues of exploration in the sequel by unlocking functionality of Spensa's powers and ship, etc. It’s only when authors give up on positive outcomes that they become truly unpredictable.

Sidenote, Sanderson must really love his Interludes, as he's put them in this series as well.

I will say this for Skyward: it takes a lot to get me to read a sequel these days and I did move on to Starsight after finishing this book.