Happy Sunday!

I hope you’re having a nice restful weekend. Mine’s been pretty good.

Today I’m stopping by with another book review. This time it’s Skyward by Brandon Sanderson.

This is a buddy read I did with Gigi aka The Beachy Reader, and it’s my first time reading Sanderson. I’ve heard nothing but great things, so a lot rode on this being a good book.

This post will be followed up by a buddy read and rant, so stay tuned for that.

So, how did I like this book? Keep on scrolling, folks!

Blurb:

Defeated, crushed, and driven almost to extinction, the remnants of the human race are trapped on a planet that is constantly attacked by mysterious alien starfighters. Spensa, a teenage girl living among them, longs to be a pilot. When she discovers the wreckage of an ancient ship, she realizes this dream might be possible—assuming she can repair the ship, navigate flight school, and (perhaps most importantly) persuade the strange machine to help her. Because this ship, uniquely, appears to have a soul.

GoodReads

The Review:

I gave this book four and a half stars!

This is my first time reading Sanderson, and this guy has a lot of good word of mouth. That made me really nervous jumping into this book, but it really paid off.

In this scifi novel we follow Spensa aka Spin on a bizarre world. Ever since her dad died in the famed battle for Alta, all she’s wanted to do is redeem her family’s label of coward and make him proud by becoming a fighter pilot. But that journey’s easier said than done. With an extremely low graduation rate and internal forces working against her, can Spensa rise to the occasion or will she crash and burn under the pressure?

I really enjoyed this book! Spensa was a fun character to follow around. She’s punky and scrappy, and I love those kind of personalities in books. It was easy to relate to her given her past and how others treat her, and she had some guts, so it wasn’t hard to root for her along her journey.

An easy favorite of mine was M-Bot. All the great humor and interaction with Spensa made this book really shine.

There was plenty of character progression going on, not just with Spensa and M-Bot, but with her fellow flightmates as well. Each of them had a distinct personality that made them feel extremely three dimensional.

The plot was intriguing from the start. Spensa and her civilization live on this strange planet where a large outer crust of buildings and ships orbits the planet. Her people are essentially stuck on the planet and have to unite to survive. Things really hang on a thread to begin with, so the stakes only get higher with each plot twist.

We follow Spensa’s journey into getting into flight school and her struggles to persevere and survive from not just Krell attacks from space, but against the admiral, who carries an awful, judgmental grudge against her because of her father’s disgrace.

If I had to pick at anything, I would say that the first half of the book could lag here and there with certain chapters, but in the second half things really took off and kept me hanging on the edge of my seat.

I can’t wait to continue reading this series and explore Sanderson’s other works!

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out the book review section of my blog or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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