justthatstarwarsbookgirl's Reviews (117)

This book took a light amount of time to read through. I was really excited when my Mom brought this book home that I read it on the same exact day. It’s a beautiful book with nice solid hardcovers and beautiful glossy pages that smell great. The cover artwork is beautiful and unique with great colors, it’s simple enough to not overwhelm but related to the book and not underwhelming. The pages have great coloring and exact images from the movie. The book is an odd size but not a bad size, just makes it stand out a bit. It’s larger than your average hardcover but not as large as a usual visual guide or storybook. The book is really informative. It’s pretty cool how the different main important characters each have large fact file boxes catered to facts specifically about them (usually with up to 4-5 facts that are numbered easily for separation and distinction). The book includes information on the different creatures, droids, Starships and vehicles of the movie as well which was a good aspect since they’re so important to the movie as much as any other aspect. The book even included information on important planets to the movie including their climate and atmosphere. It was fun to take the yes/no quizzes for “which character you would be” or “what planet you’d like to vacation on?” I learned a lot from this book I feel and I truly enjoyed reading it. One of the most important things I learned were individual facts about the different Knights of Ren, including their weapons, how they like to fight or their personalities. I even learned which Knight pilots their ship. You don’t really hear the Knights of Ren mentioned very often as they’re such minor characters and they’re hardly seen or mentioned for only a few moments on screen. I honestly didn’t even know there WERE facts and personalities to each Knight of Ren out there because they’re so minor. The book also included some facts about minor Resistance characters and leaders not mentioned or seen very often in the movie. The rating on this book is a 3.0 due to the fact that I wouldn’t pick it up to read it again but I do recommend this book to any Rise of Skywalker (or just Star Wars in general) lovers to learn some new facts in a quick and enjoyable read. The book leaves off on a hopeful ending with a joyous and dedicated quote at the end about the Resistance and its members. The book does not reveal how the Rise of Skywalker movie ends or the climax and major fights, rather focusing on providing you with the basic facts and knowledge about the different factions (Resistance vs First Order, Jedi vs Sith) and characters as well as creatures, droids, vehicles, starships and machines to explain the advantages of the First Order over the Resistance. The book tends to want to help you make your own conclusions as to if the Resistance or the First Order will triumph over the Galaxy-Wide Conflict. By not revealing the ending the book makes you want to hope for the Resistance to win in their struggle against the First Order. The book leaves off where the Resistance Team’s mission on Pasaana ends and has some short facts about Kef Bir and Jannah before ending out on the hopeful note. 

The first thing I truly noticed about this book as soon as I opened it was the artwork. It completely blew me away with just how beautiful every image was and how long I wanted to sit there and absorb every detail on each page. The style of artwork is just so beautifully detailed for a children’s book, it’s amazing. The colors of the book are gorgeous, bright and vivid as well as completely accurate to the storyline and movie of Star Wars. The characters are the most beautiful yet simplistic and completely accurate pieces of work on the page. Another thing I love about this book is something I would have major difficulty doing, and so therefore have amazing and great appreciation for the skill of: the author’s retelling of the Revenge of the Sith movie is completely accurate, and concises all of the most important details of the plot and storyline really amazingly, especially since The Revenge of the Sith is one of if not the most complicated Star Wars movie, due to all of the politics and the motives for Anakin turning from the Light to the Dark side of the Force. I think the author of the retelling also did a FANTASTIC job keeping the highest rated Star Wars movie (PG-13) completely child-friendly with little to no detailing or mention of the frightening or scary moments seen in the movie (I mean, admit it, we all watched Anakin catch on fire on the lava bank as a young child and got the s*** scared out of us as well as scarred for life). The burning and injuring of Anakin is mentioned only in passing as a small detail and the choking of Padme is not even mentioned. No aspects of childbirth were mentioned and the term “pregnancy” wasn’t even mentioned, Padme was said to be “expecting a baby” and that’s about it. Completely kid friendly, like I said. I like how solid the covers of this book are and how thin yet nice feeling the pages were. I love how short and fast paced the book was. The only detriment, I personally feel, is that the author’s name is not mentioned on the front cover. It’s only mentioned on the first page in the inside of the book AFTER the cover. I feel like for such a good job the author should definitely get clearer credit for his retelling. However I guess that’s just how Little Golden Books goes. But that’s the ONLY flaw to the entire book, and is clearly not even a fault of the author’s. So I loved this book!! I’d definitely recommend it for kids of ALL ages, and as a fantastic bedtime story to climb in bed with your kiddo and snuggle close under the blankets as they fall asleep. It’s definitely told in a comforting way as a bedtime story overall. Plus the book is super small and an average size, so easy to store but the perfect size for your kid’s little hands to grab and hold. Another small flaw that is not the fault of the author is I feel like with kids the pages are so flimsy I feel like any mess that would get on them (drinks, food, etc.) would definitely not come off and would soak in. I myself found major comfort in this retelling of this story. 

I didn’t really enjoy this book. As soon as I finished reading it I thought “really? That was so stupid.” The entire book really, truly has no point. It leads up to a climax that has a big, soggy, blah ending. I don’t really like to leave bad book reviews, but this one really had me like “what the heck did I just read?”. The book is definitely a kids book, but it’s not even enjoyable for me, and most times I enjoy other kids books that are Star Wars. I think the one-word pages were fairly worthless and no emphasis was put on why the words were said, their use or point in the book. It felt like every word was basically worthless, right up until the end. The entire plot of the book was overall really silly. The one redeeming quality of this book is the art and imagery, I didn’t like the depictions of the little children or the monster masks but I did however like the selection of Darth Vader. However for many children the good thing is the diversity of the different races of the children, there were children representing all sorts of parts of the world, super diverse, so that every child feels represented no matter where they’re from. The background was really dark, it was a nice backdrop but I think it gave the entire book a very dark, moody tone just from looking at the pages. I also think the overall size of the book is way too large for any average sized shelf and especially too large for anybody to take anywhere on the go as many people; especially children like to do. It’s definitely a bedtime-story reader sized book with the overexaggerated sizing. The book itself is also a garish bright yellow color; highly unattractive. The author’s photo is a photo of a vintage Star Wars action figure, which I thought was really clever and cute, but only works if you know about the vintage figures. I think it’s kind of not very accurate to not put an actual photo of the author himself on there, but that’s just my personal opinion. The book, since having no real content inside, also has no words on the back as an informative blurb, the back of the book is basically plain. Overall I wouldn’t recommend but I am keeping as part of my collection just because it’s a Star Wars book. 

This book wasn’t as fast a read through as your average children’s book due to being a DK reader. I read the end pages describing accurate and really wonderful ways parents can interact to help their children to learn to read, sound out and learn the different and new words, and use the different fact files as well as supportive commentary and compliments to help boost their child’s confidence. That entire section is definitely research tested and from the point of view of a girl who was a large reader from early on due to great encouragement from my parents, I think some if not all of those key strategies would work great on todays kids, and we definitely need more parents willing to do those things to actually help their children rather than ignore them. Some of the strategies may be overkill to me or would’ve been when I was a kid but that’s just me personally and does not reflect every other kid out there, especially kids nowadays. I like the gloss of the pages and I think they smell great. The pages have beautiful full color designs with pictures and images directly from the Force Awakens movie. The center subject of this book is a fan favorite character for many and a great inspiration for kids nowadays, especially young females, named Rey. We obviously find out much more of Rey’s story in the next two movies after this book was published. I think the book accurately describes and emphasizes how hard and difficult Rey’s lifestyle was living all alone from a young age and tirelessly working hard everyday in a rough environment at a difficult job just to survive in the basics and earn food to eat. I find I relate to Rey in many ways in her character’s emotions, feelings and drive to survive everyday, and I feel this book accurately represents that for people who may not understand that at the time in their lives so young. I also found out facts about Rey that even I did not know at the time; and I know a lot about Star Wars, trust me. Two of the facts I learned that I didn’t know for certain included Rey’s age and Rey’s height, which I found in a fact file blurb. I happily found out that I related directly to both in the fact that I am the same height and current age as one of my favorite fictional characters. That is extremely inspiring to me in a silly way. I believe the layout of the book with the fact files and blurbs is really cute and makes it interesting to read on. I enjoy how large the text is so that it’s easy to see and easy to read. I think that the book has a hopeful, uplifting and inspiring ending leading off to the hopeful change in Rey’s difficult life leading up to better days in her time and happiness and joy, hopefully finding belonging and family, caring people to surround her (which if we watch the movies later we know she does end up finding eventually). I also liked about the book that it included a question section, the questions were easy enough for me to answer off the top of my head and were worded wide and broad enough that any general combination of words related to the direct answer is a good and correct answer. I also like how the answers to these questions were not simply on the next page so that you may accidentally see them and flip to them before finishing all the questions in your head rather they were placed many pages after and in a small, unnoticeable box at the bottom of the page. The answers were general enough as well so that with any combination of related words you had come up with in your head as your answer was correct and made you feel accomplished for answering them correctly off the top of your head. I also like how DK books are separated by level, I think that makes them great for sorting into categories on a bookshelf or collection, especially with the colored spine versions of them. The rows of the same levels look nice and organized in a straight line. I think accomplishing all the levels of Star Wars books would be a great goal for anybody, including me. I have rated this book 3 stars only due to the fact that I would not like to pick it up again for a full reread. I think it’s a one time read for me, however I will be keeping it in the collection as a treasured collectible for my book collection. Overall I loved this book, all of its subjects, and I think it was a great overlay of all of Rey’s life and skills that we knew about in the Force Awakens. 

I think this book was very informative for much younger children, around ages 1-3, that you may be trying to introduce to Star Wars and the universe/world-building aspect of the seven episodes (it doesn’t include Episodes 8&9, as it was published before then). The book is simply a series of words, including character’s names, locations, vehicles, feelings, and aspects that are described that are part of the Star Wars universe. Each section of the book, which although not pointed out as being separate sections is distinctly separated per movie, includes essential and key words, ideas, vehicles and planets from each film Episodes 1-7 including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s a very simplistic book, the pages are hard cardboard as in a board book, and the book is shaped square like a block. I think children would enjoy the fact that some of the pages are cut around the shape of the images on them revealing the next page behind them, etc, making it fun to flip the pages and advance on in the book. It’s also very easy I’d think for parents to wipe any grime or mess from the book pages due to being hard coated cardboard. I really like the artwork in the book pages and the different artwork style of the characters, it’s a very distinct design style and I enjoy it, the characters designs are memorable. The font styles are cute and match the subjects well. Overall it’s a short book that’s super informative and a great way to introduce young children to the wider Star Wars universe. I have rated it three stars due to the fact I don’t believe I would pick it up again to reread. 

I really enjoyed this book. I really love the style of artwork on every page, and the colors of the art. I find it a quick read that I may possibly flip through again but not pick up to read fully again (reason for 3 star review). I think the ease of reading (since there are only speech blurbs), for what small one-word lines they had they were impactful, witty, fun, and inspired light joy in my heart. I think the concept is cute albeit non realistic in the Star Wars storyline, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. I think the parenting aspect of the book is also realistic for many situations depicted in the book. 

The book is a fast read, I learned a few new, unheard of by me previously, facts about the different places of the Star Wars universe that even I didn’t know before, and I know a lot about Star Wars. I liked how the book was told from Yoda’s perspective and narrative. The pages are made of a nice material and have a nice smell to them (if that’s your thing). The cover has nice art, and the pages have a nice, unique and interactive layout that you’re so excited you don’t know what to read first, as well as beautiful full color images in LEGO style. I like the particular fact files layouts including the DO’s and DONT’s of each planet and the key characters located on each planet/from each planet. I do wish that Alderaan was included when it was a planet rather than after it was blown up however. I think the table of contents was laid out nicely and clearly, especially liking how they were separated by location whether the outer, inner or mid rims. The 3 star rating is due to the fact that for me it was definitely a one time read, and I wouldn’t reread it at any point. But it was still an enjoyable book to read and I like what a unique and different release it was compared to numerous other Star Wars books.