Hey, all! Popping in today because it’s May The 4th! You’re probably all like, “Okay, Danica, WTF does that mean?” It’s Star Wars day! I don’t really know where the May The 4th thing came from, but it’s definitely a play on “May The Force be with you.”
So I’m here to tell you that I’m a huge nerd and give you my Star Wars book recs. Yes, there are books! Lots of them. Some of them are not “canon” anymore. Long story short, when Disney bought LucasFilm they wanted to have a cohesive story so all the “old” media got wiped away. But the books are still there for you to enjoy! Some people have a lot of feelings about this, but they do this a lot in comic book runs so it didn’t bother me.
Let’s dive in!
Thrawn Trilogy AND The Hand of Thrawn Duology By Timothy Zahn
Starting off with an old “legends” series. Actually I’m talking about two. First up is the Thrawn Trilogy which starts with Heir To The Empire. I have big love for this series. But I have to admit, I read the Hand Of Thrawn Duology first! This was definitely a “my library didn’t have the trilogy yet” type of thing. But man, I live for Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade. So hard! I think this is where my love of Enemies to lovers began! Highly recommend, even if these stories aren’t exactly canon. Although, props to LucasFilms for bringing Thrawn into canon! I’m still convinced Mara Jade exists, maybe she’s just still a smuggler and never got her jedi training. A girl can dream.
Dark Disciple By Christie Golden
Dark Disciple is a canon book set in prequel/clone wars era. If you haven’t watched The Clone Wars cartoon, this one might be hard to follow. You have a lot of Asajj Ventress backstory in that. I LOVE this one. Like five star read immediately. I did this one on audio and I LOVED it so much. There was some angst and you really felt for Asajj! Highly recommend! This author writes a lot of WOW books, so I think writing books in worlds is her thing.
Lost Stars By Claudia Gray
Claudia Gray has written a lot of Star Wars books in the new cannon. I honestly would recommend any of her books. I’ve read both Bloodline and Leia: Princess of Alderaan, but I’m recommending Lost Stars because it was the first from her that made me go, “Oh…she really gets Star Wars.” This is a cool macro level of how the empire took over and it really shows you WHY people would have followed them. I think some might take issue with this across the aisle type book, but I loved it. For my romance friends, you’ve been warned it does NOT have an HEA.
Ahsoka By EK Johnston
Ahsoka is one of my favorite characters of the new canon. She came out of the clone wars cartoon and when she first appeared people HATED her. They did amazing character development with her and now she’s a fan fave. So while I had some issues with this book in particular, I still recommend it if you love this character and want more from her.
Doctor Aphra By Kieron Gillen
I had to put at least one comic book run on here and Doctor Aphra gets the vote! I do tend to gravitate towards characters in this universe that DGAF or are on the outskirts just trying to survive. That’s what I loved about Mara Jade when she showed up in the old canon and what I also love about Aphra. Like she doesn’t care about the empire, she just wants to get hers.
Those are my picks today. These are mostly canon books, but that’s probably because I read a lot of the legends books like eight million years ago and some of my memory is a little fuzzy. Plus, if you are just getting into SW books, it’s probably best to just start with the new canon.
Do you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments below.
Happy May the 4th!
XO,
Danica