#honestly thinking of rewriting Human Touch to include Kier

[graciecatfamilyband]

Leia, Princess of Alderaaan Review*

*Really just a mixture of my thoughts/impressions/feelings. Way too long. 

Note: So, after almost a year of “defending” certain choices made in Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray, I decided to actually read the darn thing. It might surprise people to hear I hadn’t yet, since in some ways I was a very vocal “supporter.” The truth is, I usually don’t enjoy Star Wars books very much, and prefer whatever I or my fellow fans make up instead, so I was never particularly interested. When the “controversy” hit, I never “defended” it out of any attachment to the book or its author, but out of a belief that most of the storytelling choices that were decried as out-of-character were actually legitimate possibilities for Leia’s history either in this book or in fanfiction stories, regardless of whether or not they were a part of anyone’s personal canon. It was entirely possible that LPOA itself was out-of-character trash. Based on the excerpts and summaries and spoilers I’d read to engage with the criticisms of it, it did not seem to me that it was- but I hadn’t read it, so I couldn’t definitively say. If it were trash, though, the fact that Leia speaks to people her own age or had a boyfriend (also her own age) weren’t to me among the reasons why. And that in particular is what I was so vocal about.  

Finally, however, I figured if I was gonna go down in fandom history as one of the people who “supported” LPOA, I might as well actually read it and find out whether or not I actually liked it.

I’m so glad I did. I liked it *immensely.* Far beyond what I would have thought.

Here’s the TL;DR version, and then I’ll post a more detailed gushing review under the cut. Spoilers included. 

1. It is as much a political thriller as it was a coming of age novel. Which is exactly my jam. 🙏🏻 I knew every major plot point going into it, and it still somehow left me dying to know what would happen next. Sure, it’s written at a “young adult” level so it’s not incredibly “advanced” as a “political thriller” goes- but it got the job done much better than I thought it could have. (And for a YA political thriller, I think it is actually incredibly advanced.) I had SO MUCH FUN reading it. SO MUCH. 

2. It was practically perfect as a “prequel”. It managed to do its own thing without “stepping“ on the original trilogy at all. The backstory for Leia is good, plausible, in-character, and manages to allow her to grow (essential for a coming-of-age novel) while leaving tons of room for the character growth we see in the OT. It inevitably won’t be everyone’s personal backstory for Leia, and that’s okay. But I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t a legitimate, sensible possibility. 

3. It captured this stage of Leia’s development so well, which it turns out is something that’s really important to me. 

Leia was to me the perfect balance of intelligent/well-educated/innovative/tenacious and still learning the ropes as a political player. Navigating a tyrannical government and wrestling with how to respond in a way that is likely to be effective is something almost every character in this book wrestles with (save characters like Tarkin), and Leia engages with it on a level that is sophisticated even though it’s also age-appropriate. I knew a couple more things than the Leia of this book, but that’s understandable- I am much older than she is in this book, and if she knew everything already, there would be no development, no story, and indeed, there would have been no childhood for her. She is coming out of childhood in this book and learning as much as she can, and it’s just so…. appropriate, believable, wonderful. And she’s no fool; she knows a LOT, she was well and duly educated in her childhood, and she pieces together things very quickly. (I must say, she’s also much braver and more ballsy than I, which is also in-character.) 

I also loved the way the book handled the changing attachment/relationship to one’s parents and the anxiety and distress that comes with that (especially when one has had a close relationship to one’s parents) in adolescence. I loved how that resolves as both the young adult and their parents learn to have a new, more adult-to-adult relationship. (It also fit my headcanon of the Organas being a loving and close-knit family, which I deeply enjoyed.) 

I love how the book allowed Leia to start building much closer relationships with same-age peers, and that this was both a part of her learning to separate from her parents and define herself (not to become the same as any of her peers but to learn from them and accept certain ideas and reject others) as well as a part of her laying the foundations for the coming civil war (after all, they are going to need as many allies as they can get). 

This is probably my favorite thing about it, because I am a nerd interested in and care about adolescent development. I don’t think I’ve ever read a Star Wars book that cared as much about character, character development and growth, and psychological motivations, which is why I enjoyed it so thoroughly, especially as compared to other SW books.

5. I could not recommend it more highly. 

Spoiler-y unnecessary ramblings under the cut. 

More Things I Loved About It 

Leia loves storms. YAS.

We get to see Leia spearheading her first (legitimate) diplomatic missions!!!! And doing things on her own for the first time as an Apprentice Legislator (rather than simply as her father’s intern)!!!! And learning to exercise leadership with people who’ve known her since she was a kid! And fucking up in very understandable ways- ways that don’t infantalize her, but are normal for a young politician learning to navigate her way through this political terrain with limited information, and sometimes in ways that still trip up seasoned politicians because they are literally traps laid by the Empire. We need to see Leia make mistakes in a book like this / in any story of her adolescence, and to learn from them- and they need to be mistakes that don’t take away from her overall competence or character. This book does that very well. 

I loved reading about the ways Leia attempted to learn all her parents knew and to help them in their respective positions throughout her childhood. I love that Leia interned for her dad for several years in the Imperial Senate by this point! 😍😍😍 And all the little “her dad always told her”, “her mom always said” moments in this book are just beautiful and very in-character for both Bail and Breha. I love that as Princess of Alderaan and as a member of the Organa family, Leia has always looked to them for guidance on how to rule, who to be, what skills she needs, etc. and worked hard at those things. That all seemed very in-character to me. 

I love the familial and parent relationships, period. I’ve already said how much I adored the way this book represented the push-pull of the parent-adolescent relationship, and how much I love that this book nevertheless gives her loving familial relationships as her foundation. It was so wonderful to read these little moments of the Organa family, both when they were struggling and when they were finding more common ground. These relationships were also very “3D” to me, human, what I personally would “ideally” want for Leia without being “too” ideal or unreal. I didn’t know how much I needed to ready more of the Organa family all together until I read this book.

I love that this book was able to make me angry at Bail Organa (my bae 💚)- sometimes quite repeatedly- without making him out-of-character or an ass; that’s not easy to do. It was clear he had his own character struggle work through, and as difficult as that was for me as a Bail fan, it seemed in-character to me, came from a place of deep love, added layers to him, and made the intimate moments between him and Leia and the resolution between them that much more satisfying. 

Breha Organa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💜🙏🏻😍🙌🏻👑🙌🏻😍🙏🏻💛💜 What a queen, what a leader, what a mother. I loved watching her differ in her opinions from Bail, and handling some of the differences between them including how to approach the Rebellion, and their daughter. I found it interesting and unexpected that she accepted the reality that the Rebellion would eventually mean civil war sooner than Bail did, but in a way that worked very well.  

Bail and Breha’s marriage. It’s so wonderful that they have such a beautiful partnership, in which they can wrestle with difficult questions, and disagree, and even need space from each other, and yet always come back to each other and support each other in their endeavors (and enjoy a bit of romance too). It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted and headcanoned between them. 

I thought it might be distracting to me that Bail and Breha and Alderaan might vary in small ways from the ways that I have headcanoned them. For example, the pulmonodes thing is kind of aesthetically cool, and it is nice to see someone in the GFFA with some robotic/mechanical parts who is described as the opposite of evil/ the embodiment of warmth, but is a major departure from how I’ve seen Breha for years, and that kind of thing is always a struggle for me. But it turns out it’s much more difficult for me to engage with when it’s an abstract post on Tumblr. In the book, it didn’t bother me almost at all? It was subtly and well-integrated, and the character was so well-done, that it didn’t matter that’s not how I had seen Breha and is not (as of now) part of my personal headcanon. 

 Candlewick flowers 🕯🌹 are such a gorgeous addition to the GFFA.

I think it’s great that there was a process for Leia declaring her intention to pursue the throne and at minimum a very challenging ceremonial way she had to earn it, even if it’s not the way I would have chosen. 

I’m going to go ahead and say on Alderaan they have basic guaranteed income. 👌🏻

It was so good to see the Captain Antilles of the Tantive IV and spend time on Alderaan itself (sad as it is too 😪). Like so many of the characters, I liked him and I’m incredibly sorry he’s dead within the first few minutes of ANH.

Lieutenant Res Batton is a treasure. 

Queen Dalné of Naboo is a character I’d actually love to see appear in later stories (including fics) that occur during the OT or afterward. Do she and Leia meet again? In what context? What is that like??? Although her reign has probably ended by then, Dalné help with the Rebellion in any way or with the rebuilding that comes after the Empire’s fall? I like the way they connected in this book, and I’d love for her and Leia to become friends. 

I had mixed feelings about Amilyn Holdo, but I appreciate that the inclusion of a female character who could be a peer to Leia and that she ultimately ended up being an important and foundational relationship both personally and “professionally.” @otterandterrier summed the good qualities of her character up to me nicely, saying, “I do appreciate [Amilyn] becomes closer to Leia, is a person who will inform her to not be set on her first impressions of people, and by TLJ is a long-time friend her age, rather than thinking all her childhood friends died.” Agreed. 

Mon Mothma 😍 🙌🏻. This book cemented Mon as a new fave of mine. Great to see her be such a positive and wise mentor to Leia, and to see her be able to see things that her parents (especially Bail) cannot yet. 

The cameos worked beautifully without being “too much.” Threepio’s was excellent, but Artoo’s was even better. Also, I was incredibly skeptical at the fact that there was a Millennium Falcon cameo, but it worked just perfectly. They succeeded at making the reader feel clever and “in on” it, which is 👌🏻. 

Thank the Alderaanian goddess that the romance was a side-plot and not the focus! 🙌🏻 It was great to see Leia have a book that allowed her to have so many different sides, and that her romance was one of those sides but not the exclusive or even the most important focus. The book could have survived without it, but Leia’s relationship seemed to me to add to the narrative rather than take away from it. 

It was such a great first romance, from a writing and story-telling standpoint. It absolutely did not threaten to overshadow the major romance of Leia’s life that most readers are so invested in, which is essential in a prequel story like this, but it was also a good experience for Leia even if it ended so sadly. I really like that the relationship was good and meaningful at the time, but it was also clearly not a relationship with longevity. This post on why Kier works so well as first love is a very good one. I also just really genuinely liked Kier as a character, even if ultimately I disagreed with him and of course don’t want him to end up with Leia “forever.” 

The Chalhuddan storyline was 😍😍😍. I loved that they insist that Leia require something of them before accepting her mercy mission donation and calling out her “wealthy saviorism.” I love that she exercises good diplomatic judgment in how she handles that, and that it ultimately turns into the beginning of a potentially lasting political alliance between her and them. Again, I just love the political elements of this book in general, and this was 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻. I’d love to see them again in fic or wherever. 

I had a list of things that I did not like. I’ve already spoken about some of these in other posts. But honestly, this book gets so much vitriol hurled at it, and I loved it so much, that I just don’t want to include those things at this time. 

#leia princess of alderaan #leia princess of alderaan is a fucking treasure #leia organa #bail organa #breha organa #the organa family #leia learning how to be a political and rebel badass #leia coming of age #i'd totally love to take asks about this book or chat about it #really sorry for what a mess the format of this post is on mobile #i enjoyed the movie Solo enough as a movie but it was much less satisfying to me as a backstory than LPOA was #like LPOA is much closer to possible 'canon' for me personally than Solo was #honestly thinking of rewriting Human Touch to include Kier