I have had a difficult time with Justina Ireland's Star Wars books. "Spark of Resistance" was a fun little story that built up hype for the Rise of Skywalker, but basically had no plot. "A Test of Courage" was a step up in that Ireland had an intriguing plot for such a short story. The problem there was that Ireland made a lot of small, subtle decisions in the story that made me frustrated with it. So I went in hoping that third time was the charm...
...unfortunately, it really isn't. This book has a much better plot than the other two(being YA and not Middle Grade). Unfortunately, Ireland had a LOT of things that irked me, and they were much less subtle than in previous books.
I'll start my review with some positives. I enjoyed reading about the Jedi in the story. Vernestra Rwoh is Ireland's "baby", and Ireland does a good job with her. I thought her handling of Vern's dynamic with Imri was decent, despite the fact that Ireland wrote herself into a corner in "A Test of Courage". The best part of the book was Vernestra's conversation with Master Cohmac, where Cohmac lays out exactly what I think is wrong with the set up of Vern's story.
As I mentioned earlier, this book has an interesting plot, that is much more character focused than the Adult novels happen to be. The problem with the plot is it relies on the audience connecting with the characters in order for it to have significance. The adult novels have such big plots that you don't have to like the characters in those books(even though I did in Light of the Jedi and The Rising Storm). This book really relies on the audience liking Sylvestri Yarrow, and I just didn't. It didn't help that Ireland included something in her character that naturally rubs me the wrong way, which I won't get into here, but I found Syl very unlikeable and uninteresting.
I cannot believe I'm going to say this, because I usually like this sort of thing, but this book really suffers from "Small Universe Syndrome". There were numerous times where someone from a protagonists past would show up and just fit into the story. This happening a few times would be fine, but it happened with almost every major character, and thus felt cheap, unbelievable, and uninteresting.
Ireland also isn't as good with political intrigue as Claudia Gray and isn't as good at writing the force as Charles Soule or as good at writing plot as Cavan Scott. It really seems to me that of the authors of the High Republic, Ireland really is the weak link. This is bound to happen in any storytelling venture with multiple authors, but it sticks out here.
One thing Ireland did that worked was laying "pipe" for future stories. While the adult novels really are the main force of this publishing venture, the YA books are able to introduce elements that will be important. I think that it's more obvious the additions that this book makes to the story as opposed to "Into the Dark", which was a better read overall but I didn't realize the importance of the book until much later.
Overall, I was really let down by this book. That's really hard for me to say because I have loved the High Republic so far. Not every book has been amazing, but as a whole it's been enjoyable. That just isn't the case here. However, I will make a comparrison to the New Jedi Order, and while there were books in that series I didn't care for, I kept going because the series itself was great. This is just one of those duds. Sorry Justina Ireland, but I have to give this one a 4.0 out of 10.