Rebel Rising

The beginning and end of the novel showed a lot of promise - dealing with both Jyn's early years with Saw, and with her subsequent capture by the Empire. Both were dark, gritty, and well plotted, even in their YA context. I just wish these moments in Jyn's life could have been explored by a non-YA novel. However, the middle of the book just reeks of the worst of YA tropes and character design. The love interest and his mother are very shallow, especially compared to how genuine the love story was in Lost Stars, another, better YA Star Wars novel. Rebel Rising is not a bad book at all - it's just very forgettable.

On a side note - why did Disney decide to create Jyn's story in the YA realm? I mean, Ahsoka worked as a YA novel because the character came from a cartoon targeted at the YA audience. But Jyn's character comes from the most mature Star Wars to date, so...IDK. Seems odd to me.

Also, I'm ready for the Star Wars novels to move on to something other than "Here's a Story about a Character", i.e. Tarkin, Ahsoka, Thrawn, Rebel Rising, Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel, etc. Time to start thinking bigger. Maybe now that the Aftermath trilogy is done, they will. Please.