Steve explores Justina Ireland’s The High Republic adventure A Test Of Courage and discovers a story strong with the force.
Helping to kick off the launch of The High Republic initiative, Justina Ireland delivers to us, the amazing young adult novel, A Test of Courage.
Star Wars: The High Republic | Justina Ireland
The character development in this story is nothing short of flawless. The New York Times best-selling author really gets into the meat of who the characters in this book are. Where are they from? Which Forces drives them? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Ireland hits a home run in getting the reader invested in these individuals.
The Force
The Force itself also takes a significant role in this book. Great attention was given to how the Force works, how different people perceive the Force, and how easily emotions such as grief can take someone on the path to the dark side.
The Characters
The story itself is more isolated than Charles Soules’ Light of the Jedi. While that one tells the story of a plethora of different characters and tends to skip around quite a bit, this one focuses on one group of participants. It is the story of a group of teenagers that are forced together by a chaotic event and driven to use their talents to learn how to work together toward the common goal of survival.
Young Adult Literature
The fact that it is a young adult novel should not deter anybody from picking it up. It deals with quite a range of emotions and the dialogue enhances the reader’s insight into the minds and personalities of the characters portrayed in the story.
I also enjoyed that there are a few illustrations in the book that helped along with the mental imagery. The artist, Petur Antonsson, also did the illustrations for Cavan Scott’s children’s book, The Great Jedi Rescue.
A Test of Courage is a solid story and a definite must-read.
Star Wars: The High Republic – A Test Of Courage by Justina Ireland is published by Disney Books and is available to buy NOW!
The Future of the Force. The future of pop culture writing.
Author
Steve Long is a new addition to the Future of the Force roster. Aside from being a passionate Star Wars fan, he also co-hosts the Rogue One Radio Podcast. Follow him on Twitter where he channels his passion frequently!
