Context and Criteria
Queen’s Shadow, written by best-selling author E.K. Johnston, is the first book in this Star Wars trilogy series that revolves around Padmé Amidala’s character between her appearances in the movies.
Book Overview (Spoiler Free)
Queen’s Shadow is a canon Star Wars novel that takes place after the events of The Phantom Menace and before Attack of the Clones. It oversees the relationships between Naboo’s current Queen- Amidala- and her handmaids. One of them being Sabé, whose job was to pose as a decoy for the Queen in dangerous situations and under threats. After a new queen was elected, Padmé joined the Republic Senate and struggled to fit in while balancing her personal duties to assist other people in the galaxy. Luckily, her loyal bodyguard, who also resembled a good friend, was open to continuing working with her. The two of them continued to fight for peace and balance alongside one another from afar until conflict brought the two together once again.
Literacy Analysts / Writing Quality
The book is written in the third-person perspective and shifts between Padmé and Sabés’ points of view. Books often written in a third-person perspective can make the characters feel more distant or lack depth. While this is a solvable matter, it seemed more noticeable in this story. The character’s thoughts and feelings are brushed over by the plot itself and lack further exploration of relationships in these main characters’ lives. The plotline itself was also hard to follow at some points. Being that the story was central to the vital politics of Padmé and Sabé’s lives, it became extremely complicated as it unfolded, especially when split between two people who dealt with different topics.
Reader Verdict (Minor Spoilers)
While Padmé is such an overlooked character, her legacy isn’t pushed too much further by this book. In Queen’s Shadow, Padmé does accomplish achievements like helping free slaves back on Tatooine, voting on important matters in the Senate, and overall throwing herself selflessly into danger in attempts to maintain peace across the galaxy. But her character’s successes didn’t actually add much to the list from the ones fans had already known about. In fact, the reader can learn much more about Sabé’s legacy, rather than Padmé’s, whose story was entertaining, yet-slightly misleading as the book was marketed more towards her.
Recommendation Preference
Yes, if you choose to read it for the familiar Star Wars-style writing. The story is a lot of politics and action, and it is done very well; however, the actual character of Padmé is a little overshadowed by the central plot. Not a lot of the book is spent in her head or in relation to things that lean more towards the sentimental topics that might be expected. Overall, the story is well written- if a little hard to follow at some points- but generally concludes pretty well.
