Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I'm not going to lie, I almost put this book down because of how Darrow was in the beginning of the book, but a really good friend insisted I keep going and I'm glad I did. This series has become one of my favorites. This book feels a little YA due to the age of the characters, but halfway through the book you forget how young they are (late teens). There IS character development, which kept me hooked and I felt the character development worked well with the plot. Darrow still sometimes feels like a Gary Stu, but he became rather endearing so I'll overlook it this one time.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Classism
Moderate: Alcoholism and Sexism
Minor: Sexual content
There is a trope in here that is usually a MAJOR turn-off for me in sci-fi, but is unfortunately hard to avoid in the genre (I think some of you can see where I'm going with this...). It's a little bit of a spoiler so read at your own risk: why the good golly GOSH DO WOMEN HAVE TO DIE TO ADVANCE THE PLOT OR GIVE THE MMC PURPOSE????
So usually I try to find the good in everything, but this book TESTED me. A friend sent me a TikTok about the book from the author/publishers account and it really caught my attentions! Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings?? It sounded like the most epic sci-fi/fantasy space opera lovechild, but it was just...not good.
The writing was...bad. It wasn't even not good, it was just bad. Like I'm not sure if they had an editor? The story was painted with incredibly broad strokes, the characters personalities and actions was all over the place, and the pacing was incredibly clunky. It seriously reminded me of a Wattpad fanfic. I wanted so bad to keep going because another review said that they did representation really well! Being a big consumer of sci-fi and a lady, I was dying for some amazing female representation. The whole reason I FINALLY gave up was because the two only named female characters so far were being set up to fight over the main male character. Maybe that's not the case, and MAYBE one day I'll try again, but I wouldn't hold my breath...
Absolute favorite Maul book! It really shows how intense and powerful he is even without use of the Force. The first chapter is by far the best way to get into one hell of a ride, and I love that it pits him against a Yuuzahn Vong, one of the most ruthless and basically unkillable species in the universe. The plot can get slightly twisted - it's Palpatine and Plagueis, afterall - and it definitely requires a second or third read. I'm biased, to be fair, but it's an action packed book with a straight forward writing style (which I greatly appreciate!)