Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston

my favorite non-Jedi Jedi

My rating: 4.5/5

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016

Legends/Canon: Canon

Timeline: 18 BBY

Welcome back to the Star Wars Book Club and to the first review of 2023! Today we are getting back on track with the reading and reviewing schedule and discussing one of my most anticipated reads of this project: Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston. This review will be spoiler free, except for the very end. I will indicate the upcoming spoilers later in the review for anyone who wants to avoid them.

Amateur photography is back!

First and foremost, this book did not disappoint. As a huge Ahsoka fan, I was so excited to finally sit down and read more about her story. This book takes place in the years after Order 66 and leads up to Ahsoka’s appearance as Fulcrum in Rebels. These are Ahsoka’s years of isolation and survival in a world controlled by the Empire, in which she isn’t supposed to exist.

Loneliness and finding your place in the world are themes that Johnston did a great job exploring. We see Ahsoka hold back, even as she grows closer to people. She’s lonely, but can she truly open up and risk the Empire finding her? She’s used to being a hero and fighting battles, but things are more complicated now. When the Empire swoops in, it’s safer for her if she runs, but what about the people she leaves behind? This is the constant dilemma, perfectly summed up in this paragraph.

“She could just hide. Bury her head in the dust, eat only what she could hunt, and disappear from civilized life entirely. It wouldn’t be easy, but she’d be safe. She’d also be completely cut off. Hiding wouldn’t protect anyone except herself, and it wasn’t like she had anything to wait for. She’d just atrophy, alone. It would be better to try lying low again, until she figured out her next move… Not having a mission was hard.”

Speaking of having a mission, this book reads a lot like a string of Clone Wars episodes, which mostly just made me want to binge my way through all 7 seasons of the show. I think this is becoming a common theme in my reading. It’s so easy to compare the pacing of the books with the pacing of the show(s), and it all just feels so Star Wars to me. 

Anyway, back to the mission. While Ahsoka doesn’t technically have a mission, she also kind of assigns herself missions throughout the book. It’s really fitting for her character, though, because even though she’s supposed to be hiding, she can’t keep herself from thinking of the needs of the people around her. She can’t just turn off the strategic side of her brain. She can’t just let the Empire have their way with people she’s come to care about.

And that brings us to the small farming moon of Raada, where Ahsoka unwittingly becomes friends with a group of teenagers. These teenagers then become endangered by the sudden presence of the Empire, who proceed to take over the fields in order to grow the plants that make up the nutritional food stuffs that Stormtroopers eat, or something like that.

The teenagers then act like teenagers and make a handful of irrational decisions, which leaves Ahsoka with the hard, but not so hard, choice of whether to help them. It shouldn’t be a spoiler to say that she does decide to lend a hand. This lending of the hand takes up the last quarter of the book and was hands down my favorite part. The tension went sky high and the payoff was perfect.

So, after that high praise, why did I not rate this book 5 stars? It was weird, but when I finished the book the number that popped into my head was 4. I think it’s because the middle dragged just a little bit for me. I don’t think I can pinpoint the exact reason why it dragged, but apparently the great ending didn’t quite make up for it, so I tacked on an extra half star for the ending and called it a day.

Now for a handful of random things that I want to briefly mention.

One: After reading a good dozen or so Star Wars novels, I’ve found that they almost all have some sort of special gimmick/formatting thing. This one in particular had little sections where the pages were gray, which indicated flashback. Then it got even more special when the gray pages focused on other characters like Obi-Wan, Anakin, and even the Grand Inquisitor. It was fascinating, and I quite enjoyed it.

Two: This quote was amazing. “She almost admired Palpatine for his ability to pull off a long-term plan -- except for his being evil and all.”

Three: I was surprised to run across a little torture in this book. The Empire doesn’t hold back.

And finally to adequately highlight my adoration for Ahsoka, here is a cross stitch I spent four months making:

[Finally, Finally, Spoilers Below!]

I can not talk about this book without talking about lightsabers because the fact that Ahsoka’s lightsabers are white absolutely blows my mind. That in and of itself probably isn’t a spoiler, but how they come to be is something I am definitely calling spoiler material.

I think back fondly on the moment in Rebels when we get the white lightsaber reveal. It’s probably my favorite reveal in Star Wars ever, which made me so excited to read this book and see where the white sabers came from. I was not disappointed. The set up was so perfect with her carrying around that little bag of metal parts. I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for the moment to come when she assembled the new sabers. But the best part was getting the crystal. The fact that she took it from the lightsaber of an Inquisitor, during a fight with said Inquisitor!!! Literal chills, okay. And then we get this line:

“Ahsoka didn’t have any charges, but she did have a pair of lightsabers, so she engaged the tanks without a second thought.”

the white sabers!

It is with that thought that I sign off and bid you adieu.

May the Force be with you.