Phasma

I'd heard good things. I was excited. I love Star Wars, and I thoroughly enjoy the new characters. And I loved Ladycastle. But this book. This boooooooook. No, it was so hard to read. I don't care about Cardinal or Vi. She's trite. He's milquetoast. Soooo milquetoast, by way of the First Order. A First Order characters should not be milquetoast. Cardinal almost killed me.

This book has a terrible framework. A Resistance Spy gets captured by Captain Cardinal of the First Order, a man who trains the li'lest stormtroopers before they get big and go to Phasma for training. He's butthurt because she stole his thunder, basically, and he wants Vi to give him dirt on Phasma so he can take her down. So Vi tells the story of Phasma, and we basically get it THIRD HAND, because she gets it from someone who knew Phasma on her home planet Parnassos. Bad stuff went down on Parnassos. Phasma is conniving, cold, brutal, and will literally kill her own family to survive. And there's Brendol Hux, a jerk. And then there's a fight with Cardinal and Phasma, and it's lame, and lalalala stuff happens.

And once again, every time I read about Armitage Hux in anything, I feel like he's just a Villain, and there's no nuance. Fanfic writers handle him much better, and they can still make him do brutal things. And what the heck is with the asexual First Order, just kidnapping kids to make into stormtroopers. Where are the families and real people doing real things and having kids growing up into the First Order because they born into it, like Armitage Hux was? But he's the only one of the major characters who is? I dunno. The handling of the world is a little sophomoric here. The writing is beyond sophomoric. Which is sad, because Ladycastle is so awesome! It's adorable and clever! But maybe Ms Dawson was given ridiculous restrictions by people who don't write.

All in all, I was sorely disappointed in this book. I was bored by Cardinal, and I wanted more just...Phasma.