Review: Star Wars- Rebel Rising

Quick Summary

Pros: The focus on Jyn Erso is interesting and develops her character significantly. The narrative has a bit of decent suspense and intrigue.

Cons: The overall narrative is underwhelming. Portions of the read feel generic or drawn out. The conclusion is just alright.

Overall: This is a book that succeeds in one place and is mediocre everywhere else. The success comes from Jyn Erso, who gets a ton of interesting backstory and character development over the course of the read. The mediocrity comes from the narrative tying Jyn’s story together, which ranges from just alright to disappointing. Overall, this book is for fans who are really interested in learning more about Jyn Erso, not fans simply looking for a good Star Wars book.

Story

Rebel Rising, by Beth Revis, isn’t exactly bad but it isn’t exactly good either. The book really focuses on developing Jyn Erso as a character, giving very interesting pieces of her history. However, the actual storytelling within this book is pretty lackluster.

As mentioned above, the chief positive in Rebel Rising is the way it highlights Jyn Erso. The book essentially explains what happened in Jyn’s life from the introduction scene in Rogue One to the main story in Rogue One. This delves into her feelings, her beliefs, her complicated history with family, and her constant struggle to find purpose in life. All of this gives the feeling that this book was written for fans who enjoyed seeing Jyn in Rogue One and wanted to see more of her.

Unfortunately, the narrative surrounding this Jyn Erso showcase is just alright. Large portion of the narrative are somewhat mundane and feel drawn out. There are also characters and moments that come across as very generic and feel like they could be found in dozens of other young adult novels. There is still a good bit of suspense and intrigue throughout the read, enough to prevent it from being downright bad, but not enough to significantly help either.

There is a point near the book’s conclusion where things start to get more interesting, where it feels like the story is ramping up to something big. However, mismatched themes and an underwhelming conclusion prevent this from going anywhere significant.

Continuity

Star Wars: Rebel Rising serves as a direct tie-in to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The narrative in this book mostly takes place between the introduction and main storyline in Rogue One.

This book takes place after the events of Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel (Review) and makes numerous references to that book.

This book also makes a few references to other Star Wars works:

• Saw Gerrera’s story of resistance and loss against the Separatists is told across Episodes 2-5 in Season Three of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. 
• The mysterious reference to the word “Fulcrum” is a reference to a character from the Star Wars: Rebels animated series. Fulcrum’s identity was eventually revealed in the finale of the first season of Rebels.