Probably one of the heaviest/most laborious Star Wars novels I've gotten through so far. Not because the plot was necessarily complex, but mostly because the delivery was in chunks of switching points of view that ended up making everything more complicated than necessary. You would get a couple paragraphs narrated by a side character, then change to the protagonist, then jump to one of the antagonists, and then another side character. It was exhausting!
But I really enjoy how the empire as a regime was handled by the narrative. Being target towards a younger audience, Star Wars oftentimes shies away a bit from the brutality of dictatorship, and this aspect really is a central point of this novel. It's not only the corruption and lack of care for the people, or even the somewhat graphic violence and death, that paints the context of a galaxy under the empire, but the straightforwardness and rawness in which the exploitation and decay of a population is portrayed.
Even with the ridiculous and funny moments worth of any Star Wars media (and the Kanan and Hera backstory), what really shines in A New Dawn is the despair from consecutive chaos, devastation and tiranny that really makes you question if there's any victory at all.