Lost Stars spans the period from 11 years before the events of A New Hope, to the battle of Jakku, which was the last battle of the Empire versus the Rebellion 1 year after the Battle of Endor. The story focuses on a pair of friends named Thane Kyrell and Cienna Ree who live on an outer-rim planet called Jelucan. When the Empire, superficially Tarkin, visits the planet they are both impressed by the Empire and want to join up and serve. As they age they fall in love, but loyalty to the Empire threatens their relationship. As Thane sees the brutality of the Empire he becomes disillusioned and eventually joins the rebels, while Cienna remains loyal to the Empire and rises through its ranks.
Ultimately, the story is in part a Romeo and Juliet type of love story between characters on opposite sides of the fight, and in part, it is a telling of the war between the Empire and the Rebels through the eyes of the grunts who do not really know anything about the Jedi and Sith and are not making the big decisions. As a result, we get scenes in the book that are scenes from the movies in which the characters from the book are in the background (almost like how Forrest Gump was inserted into historical footage), and we see things play out from their perspective.
While the book technically falls in the young-adult category, it can easily be enjoyed by older readers. At well over 500 pages, the book is pretty long, longer than most of the young-adult canon novels. The love story aspect is definitely a focus of the novel, but it does not dominate every single chapter and it is not horribly sappy, for the most part anyway. It is interesting to see the events of the original trilogy from another perspective, and readers find out how the star destroyer that Rey scavenges in during The Force Awakens crashed on Jakku. Some people get all of the canon novels and others pick and choose which books to get. If you are in the former group then you will get this anyway, but if you are in the latter, I do think that the book is one of the better canon novels and is definitely worth reading at least one time.
Ultimately, the story is in part a Romeo and Juliet type of love story between characters on opposite sides of the fight, and in part, it is a telling of the war between the Empire and the Rebels through the eyes of the grunts who do not really know anything about the Jedi and Sith and are not making the big decisions. As a result, we get scenes in the book that are scenes from the movies in which the characters from the book are in the background (almost like how Forrest Gump was inserted into historical footage), and we see things play out from their perspective.
While the book technically falls in the young-adult category, it can easily be enjoyed by older readers. At well over 500 pages, the book is pretty long, longer than most of the young-adult canon novels. The love story aspect is definitely a focus of the novel, but it does not dominate every single chapter and it is not horribly sappy, for the most part anyway. It is interesting to see the events of the original trilogy from another perspective, and readers find out how the star destroyer that Rey scavenges in during The Force Awakens crashed on Jakku. Some people get all of the canon novels and others pick and choose which books to get. If you are in the former group then you will get this anyway, but if you are in the latter, I do think that the book is one of the better canon novels and is definitely worth reading at least one time.
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