Join the Resistance Book 1 Spoiler Free Review

Join the Resistance is the first book in its series featuring a group of young recruits to General Leia Organa’s and Admiral Ackbar’s Resistance movement against the rising threat of the First Order. It is quick, fun read and has a similar feel to both the Adventures in Wild Space and Servants of the Empire junior-reader series.

Book 1 in this series is set sometime after the events of Bloodline (which depicts Leia’s creation of the unsanctioned Resistance movement) and sometime before the events of Episode VII The Force Awakens. Mattis Banz catches the eye of Resistance recruiters and finds himself training on D’Qar with a group of other young recruits to join the ranks alongside the Heroes of the Rebellion. Conflict inside Banz’s squad results in the team being sent on a mission to a remote, swamp world as punishment to scavenge for materials the ill-equipped Resistance can use. Unexpected struggles on their mission force the team to either put their squabbles aside and work together or risk their first mission together also becoming their last.

While I am not a young teenager (Acker’s and Blacker’s target audience), I thoroughly enjoyed the simplicity of the writing and the storytelling in this book (with the exception of the numerous Gungan slang references). To my surprise, there were even a few insights that helped round out my understanding of the climate of the galaxy in the early stages of the Resistance’s opposition to the First Order. But as always, I ended up with more questions than answers. Having just read Aftermath Empire’s End and learning about the events that led to the creation of the First Order, I am still dying to know more details about the decades in between.

I would recommend this book to any Star Wars fan of any age. Not only is it a quick read, but it is a fun adventure into a relatively unexplored timeline in the Star Wars Saga.

Written by Jacob Burdis (creator of The Star Wars Challenge)

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