Love Padme. Not much plot

I LOVE Star Wars so much it has helped me through so many tuff challenges. And I love learning about Padme as she is one of my favorite characters, who has been through a lot of hard situations. The things I enjoyed about the book was learning about Anakin and Padme’s early relationship after their Marriage and Padme and Sabe’s friendship. Sabe’s internal conflict. Palpatine’s manipulations are always very interesting.
The book was excellently narrated by Catherine Taber. I loved the Clone Wars and her Padme, so it was perfect.
Although there are parts of the book I enjoyed, this story just didn’t quite hit the mark with me. What I am not particularly fond of in this book is that it doesn’t really have a plot. It just “I am gonna do this. Then someone wants me to do this, so I do that.”
The next thing that bothered me (please don’t get me wrong, I am not hating on people) was the constant promotion of homosexuality and Trans people throughout the book. Like it wasn’t even critical to the story. When those scenes came up, it completely took me out of the story (what you never want to do) bc not only it didn’t belong there, it also didn’t sound like Star Wars. If you took those scenes out, they would not change the story AT ALL. It was characters who said “I am trans” and then a main character would say “that is ok.” That’s it. And it happened multiple times. I am just saying you should focus on writing a plot instead of advertising.

7 people found this helpful

Not great

I have a love-hate relationship with this book series since it covers my favorite SW character, Padme, but does it in such a lackluster way and breaks the established canon. There's barely a story in this one. It genuinely felt like we only got one third of a full book before this randomly ended. The author's continued hatred for Panaka, a character respected and trusted by Padme in The Phantom Menace, poisons all of the characters, making them unlikable since they become mouth pieces for the author in her inexplicable vendetta against him.

After this, I hope Johnston moves on to her own original fiction and another author takes up writing the story of Padme and her handmaidens.

3 people found this helpful

Pandering and Poor Continuity

It seems like E. K. Johnston looks for any excuse to insert a LGBTQ agenda item in her books that makes absolutely zero sense. A Trans clone?.. really?
Aside from that, the books do not do a good job of keeping their stories in a straight line. I started this trilogy because I wanted to know more about Padme’s awesome handmaidens, but was letdown.
If you were looking for the same then I would still advise reading Queen’s Peril. It’s the only book in the trilogy worth reading.

2 people found this helpful

Disney's woke garbage ruined my book...

Catherine Taber is amazing as always but Disney decided to inject gender identity politics into the story line and it was so bad I didn't even finish the book. Star Wars as a whole is supposed to be about the heroes journey and good vs evil. Star Wars is supposed to be an escape from our universe to a galaxy far far away where our politics don't matter. This is my 60th Star Wars book on Audible and this is the first one I can't finish because of Disney's woke ideology. Thanks for ruining a book about one of my favorite characters. I miss George Lucas. Kathleen Kennedy needs to go and Dave Filoni should be in charge. Nobody deserves to lead Lucasfilm more than he does.

2 people found this helpful

Brief Period of Happiness for Padme

This was the conclusion of the Padme trilogy. It begins with the aftermath of the Battle of Geonosis, covers her marriage to Anakin Skywalker and the rest of her handmaidens relationships. It was actually quite good, showing how young women had grown and adjusted to ever changing situations. Johnston did a good job with Anakin as well. The only part of the book that was weak to me was Palpatine/Sidious. He is much too disciplined to use Force lightning that could be discovered by others. I also don't believe that he would call out the decoy swap either. Johnston isn't good at writing Sith. Otherwise it's an nice wrap up to the beginning of the Clone Wars, with hints of sadness only glimpsed. Catherine Tabor, who voices Padme once again narrates. She does a good job with the exception of Yoda. Much better than many of the High Republic YA books that have come out.

2 people found this helpful

Not good

Would not have finished, but Catherine Taber kept me going. Nothing really happens and never feels like a cohesive story is developed.

2 people found this helpful

Fantastic

Love these books but this one is by far my favorite. Love having more context in this time period and you get to see from the eyes of all the main players at this time. Must read.

2 people found this helpful

Padme and Anakin deserved better.

The Author's dislike of Anakin Skywalker showed in this book by writing weak content any time he is involved:

Very short book. It feels as though the author didn't really want to dive into anything esp, Padme and Anakin at all. They only appear in the beginning of the book and a small snippet at the end.

LGBTQ+ characters were more thought out and cohesive than Padmes relationship with Anakin. It would be nice to get a conversation in about when and how the decided that marriage was what they both wanted. Perfect time to be a fly on the wall to over hear the explanation of their love and expectations for their decision...never happens. but we get a perfect explanation for LGBT characters even though their explanations are unnecessary because this is literally another time and place that is filled with different species, races, cultures, and backgrounds. Their explanations are unnecessary for this being a Star Wars universe. Usually character do not explain themselves.. they simply exist and do the things that they do. It then comes off as pushing another agenda on people, sadly.

She's tells us more than she shows us. Again, no real conversations. We are mostly stuck in people's heads and get the bare minimum of explanations, intentions, and motives.

Padme and Anakin usually have fun and epic adventures in the Clone Wars, other books, and Comics! However their adventure in this book is only hours before they married (which is fine) but it is wasted and unnecessary. Nothing happens. It would also be fun to have C3P0 counting down the hours they have left until they "miss" their wedding since it mentions that He would freak out over them seeing each other and leaving before their wedding. Nope, again, we are only told things but never shown anything tangible. They get on their ship, go to another planet, pick up someone and go back to Naboo. BORING!

The Author also changes what "Spice" is. Playing SWTOR and watching The Book of Boba Fett, I was under the impression that Spice was a drug that causes devastation to communities and family due to what it does to people. It's highly addicting and serves no good. But E.K has now made Spice into a pain management drug that is illegal on Naboo. Sounds a lot like another newly legal drug that people use for pain management...again Earth Controversy in my Star wars...yuck!

Cat Taber is always great.

I love Padme (and Anakin as you can tell). I was really excited to read this book and got the audible version since I work a lot. I didn't want to miss anything and offer my support as soon as it was announced. However, this book was a disappointment to me. the author didn't seem to care about her main characters love story which was the feature of the book (and an important part in the Skywalker Saga) and because she didn't care, it showed up clearly in how to wrote it. please, let's get authors who actually love their characters and understand who they are writing. Padme deserved so much better.

1 person found this helpful

Very well done

Love the voice actor I loved anakin and Padmes relationship padme understood anakin wasn’t perfect and anakin was done so well I loved padme and her relationship with war palpatine and his constant manipulation was great throughout I loved the little character breaks beru barress sister breha this wasn’t high in action I don’t think a saber was drawn but this was my favorite of the trilogy. If you love the prequels read this book even if you haven’t read the other two. The connections to shadow and peril were nice some moments paid off but you don’t need to read either book before this one.

1 person found this helpful

Not a required reading

Story didn't really add to the story of Padme or Anakin, or even the handmaidens that is not already really stated in previous stories.