A review by melsage1823
Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An absolutely amazing character study on Leia, Breha and Bail and the planet Alderaan itself. Be warned that this book will leave you emotional and extremely angry at the empire for destroying Alderaan. 
Leia was perfectly characterised and set up to become the strong Princess she is in A New Hope. From her point of view we get to see what she thought of the empire and the struggles she generally faced coping during such a difficult time in her life after her Day Of Demand. Gray just gets Leia and understands how to write her in such a poetic way. 
Speaking of characters I am so glad we get even more development from Leia's parents Bail and Breha and that's absolutely amazing as not even the prequel era gave them both the development we deserved to see. Gray gets both characters and makes sure to show us why we should care about their relationship with Leia and their eventual deaths. Sure we get to see Bail in other media but Breha barely gets any focus so I'm glad she was put to good use in this book. 
I also like how this book gets me to like things from The Last Jedi I hated such as the character of Amilyn Holdo and the planet Crait and gets me to like them and appreciate their importance to the Star Wars universe. It once again proves to me female characters shouldn't be written without a women's voice at the writers table. Amilyn next to Leias parents was definitely one of my favourite side characters in this book. 
Alderaan another thing underused in other Star Wars media was written beautiful and described so well it made me ache when thinking back to what happens to it in A New Hope. Alderaan feels like a character in his own write and Gray brings to life the landscape of the planet and the culture and royal traditions of the planet so well. Learning about Leia's day of demand left me feeling extremely emotional. 
Overall and absolutely incredible book that developed characters and parts of the Star Wars universe that haven't been explored much extremely well. Highly recommend this book to any Star Wars fan especially if Leia Organa is your favourite character. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings