Star Wars: Rebel Rising Paperback – June 1, 2017

No spoilers here, and I will keep it brief. As someone who LOVED Rogue One and Jyn Erso, one of the main things I craved coming out of it was more of Jyn and Saw Gerrera's history. Both Felicity Jones and Forest Whitaker are heavyweight actors, and their performances conveyed a lot of emotional baggage. With Rebel Rising, Beth Revis tells all, from when Saw rescues young Jyn in Rogue One to when we see her on the Wobani prison transport.Beth Revis gives us the most compelling Star Wars book since Claudia Gray's Lost Stars, in my humble opinion. It gets right down to Jyn's psyche, and we see how she evolves and becomes the damaged young woman she initially is in Rogue One. We also get the seeds of the hero she ultimately becomes in Rogue One. Do not let the Young Adult label fool you; Rebel Rising is harrowing and brutal. I winced many times during this book, and much of it is emotionally devastating. But it never completely loses the feeling of hope. Beth Revis not only has engaging writing, even when the story slows down, but she does a fantastic job balancing bits of light within the dark.I recommend Rebel Rising to those who loved Jyn in Rogue One and those who did not. I also recommend it to people who just want to read a great book. It adds a whole other layer of sympathy and complexity to her. Tonally it reminds me of Platoon, The Shawshank Redemption, The Bourne Identity, and Logan. It is best read as the 2nd chapter of The Erso Trilogy, Part I being Catalyst by James Luceno and Part III being Rogue One by Alexander Freed. I also want to add that since I'm reviewing the product, the book is gorgeous. Underneath the slipcover is the same art on the book, just textless.May the Force Be With You as you buy and read Rebel Rising!

I was expecting a filler novel to hit the own points: training with Saw, abandonment, arrested by the Empire. Got more than I expected. A look into what makes Jyn Erso tick, her fears and regrets. The novel keeps the dark and oppressive tone of the movie, no Jedi or Force powers here.Recommended for Star Wars fans.

Rebel Rising is a young-adult novel that fills in the time-jump gap of approximately thirteen years that occurred at the beginning of the movie Rouge One between when Jyn Erso is found by Saw Guerrera hiding in the cave and when she is freed from Imperial detention by Cassian Andor. The book details Jyn's training with Saw, and why he ultimately abandoned her. It also explores what she did after she was on her own (including a bit of a love story) and ends just before she is rescued and taken to Mon Mothma and the rebels on Yavin IV.To me, the best part of the novel is the Saw-Jyn relationship, and the lengths he went to in order to protect her identity. It makes their reunion in Rouge One more emotional and more impactful. The book also shows that Jyn and Saw butted heads as she got older regarding his tactics in fighting the Empire, specifically, his willingness to allow collateral damage.The book is a fairly quick read, and can pretty easily be finished in a week or less, depending on how much time you have to read. It is about the length of the regular adult novels (at just over 400 pages) and the story is actually pretty gritty, so it could have easily been published as an adult novel. If you liked the character of Jyn from the movie, this is definitely worth reading.

I read the Kindle edition of this book.Set in the gap between the opening sequences of Rogue One, and the main bulk of the movie, Rebel Rising tells the story of how Jyn Erso goes from scared little girl to Rebel. Even though it is written for young adults, any fan of Star Wars should enjoy the book. I know I did. This is recommended reading for any Star Wars fan. I only hope we get a similar treatment for Rey once a little more of her story is revealed in Ep. VIII.MINOR SPOILERS AHEADWe know from the movie that Jyn is rescued by Saw Gerrera and raised by him for many years before she is imprisoned by the Empire. We know she is a fighter.Saw rescues her from her cave, and takes her to his secret base. As a freedom fighter, the Empire says terrorist, Saw is all business. Food as nourishment only. Fighting practice. Code breaking. Falsifying papers. Missions. Saw raises Jyn as his own, and teaches her what she needs to know. Many rebels come and go, varying with the mission. We see some of the brutality that Saw's band is capable of, and what has caused him to not be part of the main Rebel Alliance. We also see when Saw abandons Jyn in the middle of a battle with a blaster and a knife. Jyn manages to find people to take her in, always bringing the Empire along in her wake.

In "Star Wars: Rebel Rising", Beth Revis explores the history of Jyn Erso from the time Saw Gerrera picked her up on Lah’mu following the death of her mother through the Rebel Alliance's rescue of her at the Imperial Labor Camp on Wobani. Much like Claudia Gray's "Lost Stars", Revis demonstrates the utility of a YA novel in exploring larger themes of love and loss, duty and sacrifice in a manner that readers of all ages can relate to. Revis' exploration of Jyn's history helps explain her cynicism at the beginning of "Rogue One" and her hesitancy around Saw. While the film provides enough details that the audience can fill them in with their imagination, Revis' story lives up to that imagining. Along the way, she includes references to other elements of the "Star Wars" galaxy, including the Tion Hegemony (pg. 151), Ahsoka Tano's identity of Fulcrum from "Star Wars Rebels" (pg. 270), and Takodana from "The Force Awakens" (pg. 370). Longtime fans and new fans alike will delight in this story.