Funny thing about this novelization: it's either breaking my heart or boring me to death. To be fair, it did mostly the former, but the second was enough for me to drop a star.

Anakin's pov here is made of everything that makes Revenge of the Sith my favorite Star Wars movie, and the way we can see how deeply he was groomed and precisely manipulated is gut wrenching. It also acknowledges that despite all the machinations, it was all still his choice, and I really appreciate not making him a simple victim. It has all of the aspects of the inevitability of a tragedy I love so much.

Now, this is definitely for the big fans of the movie. Differently from most of the more modern SW novels, this one doesn't deal so well with the action sequences, specially considering they are all ones we know the exact outcome of from the movie. It's were I got really bored and had to skim whole pages. Some things just don't translate exactly to another format like that.

I feel obligated to point out that this drinks a lot from Legends, and giving it was written before even Clone Wars was a thing I can understand it, but there were enough hints about "the jedi not evolving enough", leaning close to bashing Mace and Yoda in favor to Anakin and Obi-wan, to make me uncomfortable. At the same time, the exterior povs, that narrated events like an onisciente being, gave a lot of nuanced insight on the intricate plot Sidious had and the sad situation the Jedi were.

Overall a good read, extremely well written, and that made me bleed for Anakin Skywalker's tragedy even more.