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A review by bookwormpersephone
Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
4.0
It's been a week since I finished reading Sanderson's Skyward, and its characters, dialogue, heart-pounding actions scenes and the plot twist at the end are still floating around my head as I go on with my life. Usually, a book can't hold much of a niche inside my brain as I have the attention span of a teaspoon, but golly gee. I couldn't have had a better introduction to Sanderson's books than Skyward.
And this is saying something. Science fiction ranks the second lowest in my list of genres to tackle, with contemporary romance being the last. I just didn't like the idea of aliens, space ships, pew-pew action scenes you'd typically see in Star Wars movies (I'm sorry fans!), and was expecting just that with Skyward.
However, as I read the prologue, my expectations of reeling over complicated space terms (though, to be fair, there are a lot of that in this book), space warfare, and complex politics washed away. All I saw was a father who took his more-than-pleased daughter to the surface of a planet in order to... Show her the stars. To bond with her, teach her the how light lines work (clever way of also orienting us for the future chapters where it is /very important/ to know how they function), and just give her a very important talk about aspirations and dreams and the reasons behind those.
In those first paragraphs, I've felt the warm love of a father, and saw through a child's naive eyes how strong and capable that said father is. So much that Spensa, the MC for this book, has set her sights on becoming what her father is: a pilot.
She clung so hard to that dream that even the inevitable fight that branded him a coward (which will worsen as you progress the story) didn't deter her from that dream. She pushed forward, her reason for her goals changing as her mind matures. First, as a small 8-year old, it was to avoid being looked down upon by her peers. As she became a teenager, it was to wash away the grime off of her father's reputation. And when the book ends... Her dream at her fingertips, her reason became simple, even childlike.
To see the stars, to fly through them.
As someone who has dreams and jumps from one reason to another for those dreams, I was immersed in Spensa's monologues a lot. Nevermind that half the time, space terms and even the actions scenes didn't click with me. Nevermind that I (almost) wanted to drop the story when Bim and morningtide died so suddenly, described their deaths so plainly and almost in a trivial way.
(Note: As I invested time and much thought upon this decision of his to kill them off, I slowly understood why. Spensa needed to see how serious being a pilot was. It wasn't just fame and glory and happiness. There was loss behind it, loss that cannot be predicted once they're placed in the battlefield, most especially if they're just untrained cadets. She needed to experience the loss and overcome it to truly grasp her dream.)
What anchored me to continue reading was Spensa and her adventure through life. Her grit and perseverance and courage, despite how often she called herself a coward, somehow helped me to become brave enough to finish it. And I didn't drag my feet, but rather danced and jumped and stomped it. It was such a /fun/ read despite being part of one of my most disliked genres.
This book isn't a full-on 5 stars simply because it IS still a science fiction, and because of my lack of knowledge about space and its endless amounts of terms, I didn't get to enjoy the book to its fullest. Have I been a science fiction enthusiast while still retaining my love for matters of the heart, stars, and dreams, I would have gobbled this up and gave it a 5 star stamp.
And because Bim was the best boy and I wanted a whole scudding chapter of him just being his goofy, awkward self around Spensa, but I digress.
Thank you for reading. If you're looking to read Brandon's books and want to open yourself up to sci-fi, Skyward is the best scudding choice you'll ever make.
And this is saying something. Science fiction ranks the second lowest in my list of genres to tackle, with contemporary romance being the last. I just didn't like the idea of aliens, space ships, pew-pew action scenes you'd typically see in Star Wars movies (I'm sorry fans!), and was expecting just that with Skyward.
However, as I read the prologue, my expectations of reeling over complicated space terms (though, to be fair, there are a lot of that in this book), space warfare, and complex politics washed away. All I saw was a father who took his more-than-pleased daughter to the surface of a planet in order to... Show her the stars. To bond with her, teach her the how light lines work (clever way of also orienting us for the future chapters where it is /very important/ to know how they function), and just give her a very important talk about aspirations and dreams and the reasons behind those.
In those first paragraphs, I've felt the warm love of a father, and saw through a child's naive eyes how strong and capable that said father is. So much that Spensa, the MC for this book, has set her sights on becoming what her father is: a pilot.
She clung so hard to that dream that even the inevitable fight that branded him a coward (which will worsen as you progress the story) didn't deter her from that dream. She pushed forward, her reason for her goals changing as her mind matures. First, as a small 8-year old, it was to avoid being looked down upon by her peers. As she became a teenager, it was to wash away the grime off of her father's reputation. And when the book ends... Her dream at her fingertips, her reason became simple, even childlike.
To see the stars, to fly through them.
As someone who has dreams and jumps from one reason to another for those dreams, I was immersed in Spensa's monologues a lot. Nevermind that half the time, space terms and even the actions scenes didn't click with me. Nevermind that I (almost) wanted to drop the story when Bim and morningtide died so suddenly, described their deaths so plainly and almost in a trivial way.
(Note: As I invested time and much thought upon this decision of his to kill them off, I slowly understood why. Spensa needed to see how serious being a pilot was. It wasn't just fame and glory and happiness. There was loss behind it, loss that cannot be predicted once they're placed in the battlefield, most especially if they're just untrained cadets. She needed to experience the loss and overcome it to truly grasp her dream.)
What anchored me to continue reading was Spensa and her adventure through life. Her grit and perseverance and courage, despite how often she called herself a coward, somehow helped me to become brave enough to finish it. And I didn't drag my feet, but rather danced and jumped and stomped it. It was such a /fun/ read despite being part of one of my most disliked genres.
This book isn't a full-on 5 stars simply because it IS still a science fiction, and because of my lack of knowledge about space and its endless amounts of terms, I didn't get to enjoy the book to its fullest. Have I been a science fiction enthusiast while still retaining my love for matters of the heart, stars, and dreams, I would have gobbled this up and gave it a 5 star stamp.
And because Bim was the best boy and I wanted a whole scudding chapter of him just being his goofy, awkward self around Spensa, but I digress.
Thank you for reading. If you're looking to read Brandon's books and want to open yourself up to sci-fi, Skyward is the best scudding choice you'll ever make.