Star Wars: Queen's Shadow

This book is the epitome of mediocre. It has some interesting ideas, but leaves them at the wayside in favor of far less intriguing things such as how the characters dress, which is described in vast detail every few pages. This overexplaining of minute details leaves less time for exploring the intricate ideas this book brushes aside. It is annoying how constantly the reader is told in a few sentences of an event that would have been far better if shown directly. What it feels like is the initial story overview, and E.K. Johnston said to herself "I will write the interesting parts later", and never got around to it. It is infuriating to see how close this book is to being phenominal if only the author trimmed the fat and expanded on the more interesting concepts. In the end though, what we have here is a delicious looking cake, with elaborate frosting, but with no cake underneath said frosting. Frosting is great in bursts, but it needs the cake to be truly good. 3/5

I expected more from this. If you want to read about space politics this book is all about space politics. At most it explains what Padmé was doing before Episode II but it honestly wasn't much. I got this book for free during Star Wars day sale. I guess you get what you pay for.

Though I'm reluctant toward the prequel characters, I love E. K. Johnston's treatment of them. She shows how a tightly knit group of women are able to bend an entire Galaxy toward the light with the carefully crafted persona of Senator Padme Amidala. The Queen's Shadow is a Star Wars narrative that's powerful enough to not need a single lightsaber in the ongoing battle against the coming darkness.