Review: A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy by Alexandra Bracken

Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm Press

Publication Date: September 22th, 2015

Rating: 4 Stars

Source: ARC Trade

Pages: 317

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Summary (from Goodreads):

The galaxy is at war.

Although the Rebel Alliance has won a few battles against the Empire, hope is fading. The Empire is about to unveil the greatest weapon the galaxy has ever seen--the Death Star. The Rebels' only chance to defeat it now lies in the unlikely hands of a princess, a scoundrel, and a farm boy....

Since I've finally watched the first six Star Wars movies, I figured it was about time to read this book! I don't really know what I was expecting going into this book, but I think I was expecting more along the lines of a retelling of the story rather than a novelization of the actual movie.

Not that I found that to be a bad thing, it just wasn't what I was expecting!

The book is split up into 3 main sections and an epilogue. The first section is from Leia's point of view!

The story starts at the same point that the movie does, Leia is leading a mission to retrieve important information from the Empire and her ship is boarded and she is taken hostage. While the general story is the same as the movie, the feeling is not!

You get to see more into Leia's background and her life on Alderaan before she joined the Rebel Alliance. Getting to be in her head is really interesting because she's so spirited and feisty and it's almost weird to see that she doesn't feel nearly as confident inwardly as she tried to present outwardly.

The second part of the story is from Han's point of view. We find him in the cantina where he is hired by Ben and Luke to take them and their droids to Alderaan. Getting to know Han on a deeper level was fascinating. It's almost too weird to see that he's so much more human on the inside than he likes to show. Watching him develop friendships with Luke, Leia, and Ben is interesting because they almost seem to grow on him without him even noticing. He finds it hard to imagine staying with them, but one selfless act from Ben leaves him unable to see himself leaving them behind.

Also, seeing how he communicates with Chewie and how he can understand his grunts and roars is cool.

The final part is from Luke's perspective. Starting from when they get the Millennium Falcon back from the Death Star and Darth Vader. Luke is really not a lot different inwardly than I found him to be in the movie. Perhaps he's a bit more upbeat and slightly less whiny. He just seems to be just as brave and optimistic as ever. I think I like novelized Luke a little better than movie Luke!

In the movies, I really loved R2-D2. He's my favorite part of all the movies! I love him even more in this book! He sounds like a cute adorable little pet and I want one.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but that didn't take away from the experience of reading it! I'd definitely say you don't have to have prior knowledge to the movies to read this book, but I'm glad that I did! I'm excited to pick up the other two novelizations of the original trilogy now!