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A review by inkandplasma
Spark of the Resistance by Justina Ireland
2.0
One of the main things that jumped out at me with this book is that it felt like a side-quest. That's the case with a lot of Star Wars novels, to keep the movie canon coherent, but where Resistance Reborn (above) handled it well, this one just felt like nothing happened? The plot was fine, I guess, but there wasn't any development. No background development, no First Order development, and definitely no character development. Honestly? It annoyed the shit out of me.
This is supposed to bridge the gap between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. Not that you'd know that until page 141 of this 224 page book. Two thirds of the way in before there's any acknowledgement! At all! References to The Last Jedi are so infrequent I actually kept track. It happened three times. Three. Page 141, page 179 and page 203. Honestly, if Rose wasn't one of the main characters in this story I would genuinely insist that this book was set after The Force Awakens and had been mislabelled. Especially when they talked about expecting back up - the point of The Last Jedi's ending was that they were all alone. Who is this back up?
There's the hill I'm apparently going to die on, too, which is that kids can have a little violence in their books. The Star Wars movies are violent. People die, people get hit with blasters and don't get up again. If a kid can watch a movie in which Poe Dameron explodes a TIE fighter with the pilot still inside, they can read a book in which Poe Dameron blasts someone in a fire fight. There's a point in this book where Poe knocked someone out in the middle of combat and stopped to disable their blaster. Who the hell has time for that during a fire fight. It was so ridiculous it knocked me right out of the book for a minute. I wrote in my notes that I could let this go, but since then I've read other kids books that have handled violence really well, and you know what? I can't let this go. This avoiding violence to the point of pantomimery shit is so annoying, and it does not tonally match a series where several characters get their HANDS CUT OFF at all.
It's not just the violence that is massively oversimplified. I fully believe that children can understand morally grey characters. One of the major themes in Star Wars is the dark and the light and the space in between. Redemption, and forgiveness. So why is this book so black and white? Rey coming out of The Last Jedi is a conflicted character. She saw light in Ben Solo, and darkness in Kylo Ren and she's coming to terms with them. So whyyyy the hellll does she sound like Rey from The Force Awakens in this book? She talks about him like he's a monster, and like she's only ever heard rumours of him. Where is the woman who threw hands with Luke Skywalker halfway through The Last Jedi? I would just love some character complexity, and it felt like the character development in this book was going backwards. Treating kids like they can't understand complexities in character motivations is pretty patronising. Poe felt out of character for most of the book too, and there was no mention of where Finn was or why he wasn't there. I'm not convinced he was even mentioned during the story.
The plot was fine, and I'm sure children would probably still enjoy this, but honestly? Buy them a better Star Wars story, they deserve it.
This is supposed to bridge the gap between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. Not that you'd know that until page 141 of this 224 page book. Two thirds of the way in before there's any acknowledgement! At all! References to The Last Jedi are so infrequent I actually kept track. It happened three times. Three. Page 141, page 179 and page 203. Honestly, if Rose wasn't one of the main characters in this story I would genuinely insist that this book was set after The Force Awakens and had been mislabelled. Especially when they talked about expecting back up - the point of The Last Jedi's ending was that they were all alone. Who is this back up?
There's the hill I'm apparently going to die on, too, which is that kids can have a little violence in their books. The Star Wars movies are violent. People die, people get hit with blasters and don't get up again. If a kid can watch a movie in which Poe Dameron explodes a TIE fighter with the pilot still inside, they can read a book in which Poe Dameron blasts someone in a fire fight. There's a point in this book where Poe knocked someone out in the middle of combat and stopped to disable their blaster. Who the hell has time for that during a fire fight. It was so ridiculous it knocked me right out of the book for a minute. I wrote in my notes that I could let this go, but since then I've read other kids books that have handled violence really well, and you know what? I can't let this go. This avoiding violence to the point of pantomimery shit is so annoying, and it does not tonally match a series where several characters get their HANDS CUT OFF at all.
It's not just the violence that is massively oversimplified. I fully believe that children can understand morally grey characters. One of the major themes in Star Wars is the dark and the light and the space in between. Redemption, and forgiveness. So why is this book so black and white? Rey coming out of The Last Jedi is a conflicted character. She saw light in Ben Solo, and darkness in Kylo Ren and she's coming to terms with them. So whyyyy the hellll does she sound like Rey from The Force Awakens in this book? She talks about him like he's a monster, and like she's only ever heard rumours of him. Where is the woman who threw hands with Luke Skywalker halfway through The Last Jedi? I would just love some character complexity, and it felt like the character development in this book was going backwards. Treating kids like they can't understand complexities in character motivations is pretty patronising. Poe felt out of character for most of the book too, and there was no mention of where Finn was or why he wasn't there. I'm not convinced he was even mentioned during the story.
The plot was fine, and I'm sure children would probably still enjoy this, but honestly? Buy them a better Star Wars story, they deserve it.