Justina Ireland

A Test of Courage Book Review

Eric Pfeifer · March 1, 2021

By: Christian Corah

Descriptives

Page count: Paperback, 248

Author: Justina Ireland

Timeline: High Republic era, which precedes the Skywalker Saga

Main characters: Vernestra Rwoh, Avon Starros, Honesty Weft, Imri, and J-6

Brief synopsis: While aboard a luxury ship, disaster strikes sending a brand new Jedi Knight grouped with inexperienced, yet talented, children on a dangerous mission.

Gut Feeling

In the first phase of the High Republic novels, A Test of Courage brings with it much excitement. While it may not have been hyped up as much as Light of the Jedi or Into the Dark, this book is still set within the new period of the Star Wars universe. So, I was expecting something good from it. Admittedly, I was not a fan of the other book I’ve read by Justina Ireland, Spark of the Resistance, but that didn’t hurt my expectations. Even though this book was intended for the middle school age, I still enjoyed the read. I figured it wouldn’t have the depth of Light of the Jed, but that is ok. For the most part, it was just a fun, exciting, and self-contained adventure. Nothing about it was very complex, but it was still a good read and I’m interested in what score it is going to get.

Characters (8/10 pts)

A little bit surprisingly, characters were the strongest section of the book. The story follows a brand new Jedi Knight (who is actually the youngest to ever be a Jedi Knight, very cool!), three children, and a droid. In many ways, this felt like a classic coming of age story. These kids are all brimming with talent and wanderlust, but also feel anxious about being on their own and not being able to live up to their own expectations. Even though these characters have these similarities, they are all unique in their own ways as well. We get to see the classic internal conflict of good and evil, the immediate attempt to cope with trauma, the feeling when one is thrust into a leadership role when they don’t feel ready, and we get to see all of these personalities interact with each other. None of the characters themselves were overly complex, but the character development done by Ireland was still excellent. I even enjoyed J-6. While a droid being reprogrammed to attain some sentience isn’t overly unique in Star Wars, J-6 was still a nice compliment to the group dynamic. I couldn’t really expect characters to be better in a novel intended for a younger audience, I am giving eight points.

Writing Style (7.5/10 pts)

After reading Spark of the Resistance, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing. Because the book is intended for a younger audience, I thought that the writing style was going to be a major downside. However, I was wrong. I feel similarly when it comes to A Test of Courage. While the style does lack some depth and complexity, it isn’t to a point that makes it distracting from the story. Plus, the lack of depth does add to the readability of the book. It just flows really well. When details are added, it can take away from this (although, the best books have flow and depth). I will be giving a slightly below average score of 7.5 points, but that is great considering I am grading it for young adult to adult readers.

Plot (7/10 pts)

The plot is where the score is going to take its biggest dip. While I did expect most aspects of this book to be simpler than a book intended for my age, the plot was just a little bit too simple. It was just a little bit too linear. The entire plot consisted of just a few different events that were delved into. While it was exciting, most parts of the plot were high stakes, just not enough happened in this book. Spark of the Resistance is the other junior novel by Ireland and its plot was much more complex. While that is my biggest critique of the plot, the foundation of the story was still decet. What was in the book was good, I just wanted a little bit more. I am giving 7 points for the plot.

Intrigue (8/10 pts)

There are a couple of things that really worked for the intrigue of A Test of Courage. The simpler writing style made it easy to read. It never felt like it took effort to read large portions of the book at a time. And shorter chapters really keep the book moving. With a faster paced novel, the excitement just keeps coming. Also, most of the book’s plot was high stakes. From the beginning to end, the main group of characters were tasked with tackling danger. The threat was always real and I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. There were also a few twists and turns that kept me on my toes. The only critique that I have again is the complexity. With a little more depth, I wouldn’t be even more invested in what was going on. However, I am still giving 8 points for the intrigue.

What does it add? (8.25/10 pts)

Because A Test of Courage is set in a new time period of Star Wars, there is a ton of potential for what it could add to the universe. While it certainly doesn’t add as much as Light of the Jedi (this book did the most world building of this first trilogy of High Republic novels), it still added something pretty cool to Star Wars lore. While there were some cool additions unique to the time period, the coolest thing has to be Vernestra’s lightsaber whip. For the most part, most lightsabers are effectively the same. While some can have different hilt designs, colors, and even multiple blades, this is the first time (to my knowledge) that we’ve seen a lightsaber like hers. It is certainly something that I think would look great in live action, and I hope that one day we will. I am giving 8.25 points.

Logic (0 pts)

There is nothing in A Test of Courage that adds to or takes away from the logic within the Star Wars universe So I am neither adding or taking away extra points for the logic.

Final Thoughts

My final score for A Test of Courage is a 7.75 out of ten, or a C plus. Keep in mind that I am giving this score for a young adult to adult audience, which is outside of the intended audience of the book. I understand that when read by a junior audience, this book should be received better. Still, it is a book that I enjoyed. It was a fun and easy read that added a little bit to the Star WArs universe. The common theme is that it needed some more depth but it is still a good read. I know many of you are excited about the High Republic universe, so this book is worth a read. But if you just have the time to read one or two, I would recommend Into the Dark or Light of the Jedi over this one.

I hope you enjoyed this book review and if there is a book that you want me to read or review, please let me know at christiancorah@gmail.com. As for now, I will only be doing Canon books (but in the future that might change).

Spark of the Resistance Book Review

Eric Pfeifer · October 13, 2020

By: Christian Corah

Descriptives

Page count: Kindle, 224 pages

Author: Justina Ireland

Intended Audience: Middle grade

Timeline: Follows Resistance Reborn, precedes The Rise of Skywalker

Main characters: Rey, Rose Tico, and Poe Dameron

Brief synopsis: After receiving a distress call from a planet in the outer rim, Rey, Rose, and Poe find themselves on an adventure that may help to bring new life to the Resistance.

Gut Feeling

So because this book is intended for a younger audience, I think many older Star Wars fans are passing up this read. But because it is a part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker series, I decided to read it. I just wanted all the background information that I could going into watching TROS. My favorite part about the book is it featured both Rey and Rose. Because they both had background roles in Resistance Reborn, I was excited to have more of them. Another plus was the writing style didn’t seem too simple, even though it was intended for a younger audience. That was a pleasant surprise. That being said, I had to really motivate myself to finish this book. It was pretty unexciting throughout its entirety. Even though it was a shorter book (224 pages), it felt long. So overall, I was pretty disappointed with Spark of the Resistance, but perhaps it is just a better fit for the intended audience.

Characters (6.25/10 pts)

Because the three main characters in Spark of the Resistance are also well-known in the Star Wars universe, I look for what other information we can learn about them. This is especially true for Rey and Rose because they did not have featured roles in Resistance Reborn. However, I was pretty disappointed with the three main characters’ development in this book. They didn’t seem to have any character development at all. Even though I love these characters in the movies, I did not feel similar levels of love for the interpretations of them in this book. This sucked a lot of the excitement out of the book for me. The most redeeming parts of the book regarding characters were the new characters that joined the Resistance. They didn’t have as prominent roles as Rey, Rose, or Poe, but I still enjoyed what their characters added to the story. I just wish these new characters had an actual role in TROS. But overall, characters were a weakness. So I am only giving 6.25 points.

Writing Style (8/10 pts)

Another Star Wars novel, yet another New York Times Best-Selling Author. The writing style was one of the few pleasant surprises of the book. Since it was intended for a younger audience, I was expecting the writing style to be the most significant weakness of the book. However, I quickly realized those expectations were wrong. The writing style was better than I expected, even through the perspective of an adult reader. There was more depth in the writing than expected. It is probably less than average in quality when compared to other Star Wars books, due to its simplicity, but I am still taking into consideration the intended audience of the book. From that, I am giving a score of 8 points, which is a score on par with the average Star Wars novel.

Plot (6.5/10 pts)

The plot did seem pretty well organized. It had a series of peaks and valleys that successfully led up to a somewhat climactic conclusion. Also, Ireland did a good job of bringing closure to the book. Those were the strengths of the plot, but they were not enough to overcome the weaknesses. For starters, the plot was limited to a single adventure. This greatly limited the overall scope of the book. We could have learned much more about how the Resistance was sparked if the book included more than just this one adventure. Another problem with the plot was it being fairly unexciting. I wasn’t invested in the story at all. It may have hurt that I knew the three main characters would be ok, and there wasn’t much else going on that made me excited to learn how it would end. The ending was pretty expected due to this. So the plot being unexciting and expected brings me to give it a score of 6.5 points. The strong organization of the plot is what keeps it from an even lower score.

Intrigue (5.75/10 pts)

A combination of the unexciting plot and insufficient emotional attachment to the characters significantly hurts the intrigue of Spark of the Resistance. Instead of having motivation to find out what happens in the book, it was my motivation to get this book review out before TROS premiers that helped me finish the book (the initial review was published previously). I really had to grind to finish it, even though it is the shortest Star Wars book I have read. This is even with the simpler writing style that should have resulted in a quick read. Even with books that typically have low intrigue, there are usually sections of the book where intrigue peaks. This didn’t happen during Spark of the Resistance. Due to that, I am only giving 5.5 points for intrigue.

What does it add? (6.5/10 pts)

I was expecting Spark of the Resistance to add some interesting information regarding the Force because Rey was a featured character in the story. While there were some instances where we got a glimpse inside of her mind while using the Force, they were pretty limited in their detail. They were also insignificant parts of the book and didn’t add much to the overall understanding of the Force. I was simply expecting more from it. What Spark of the Resistance did add that was positive was a cool new species (the Zixon) and an interesting new weapon (the Echo Horn). The Zixon are the most interesting, because they may use the Force to communicate, but it wasn’t explored as much as it could have been. Still, I think there was much more potential to add significant content to Star Wars than what was explored. I am only giving 6.5 points for this section.

Logic (0 pts)

The only thing I can think of for this section is that the Rey and Poe in Spark of the Resistance did not seem like the same characters as the Rey and Poe in Resistance Reborn. Also, Rey REALLY shows a strong hate for Kylo Ren in this book making him seem unredeemable. That doesn’t match up with TROS. However, I don’t think I can take points away from just one book for that issue. It is more of a problem with the continuity and consistency of Star Wars holistically. So I will neither award nor take away points for logic.

Final Thoughts

So my final grade for Spark of the Resistance is a 6.6/10, or a D. This makes Spark of the Resistance my lowest rated book so far. Admittedly though, this book should be received much better when read by the intended audience. But because I am an adult reader and these book reviews are also written for adults, I must review the book from that perspective. I would only read this book if you are wanting all the clues possible about TROS. But I would rather recommend Force Collector or Resistance Reborn.