Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Spark of the Resistance

By: Justina Ireland

Narrated by: Jessica Almasy

Length: 4 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

When a distress plea goes up from the isolated planet Minfar, Resistance heroes Rey, Poe, and Rose hear the call! Together, they will face down a First Order battalion, terrifying flying creatures, and a weapon that could change the course of the war!

©2019 Justina Ireland (P)2019 Listening Library

Wow this one was hard to listen to.

The narrator was really bad, may have been the editing. It was hard to get through.

Fast Exciting Read

I loved Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Spark of the Resistance
This was such a fast and engaging read--the chapters are short and quick; read the entire book in under a day. Very informative and enjoyable. I recommend this book to any Star Wars fan!

can't wait for the movie!

This was an exciting read and helps set the tone for the new adventure in Episode IX. The new characters introduced here feel believable and 3-Dimensional. This overall serves as a good appetizer for the final installment in the SW Episodic series.

An empty story with glaring continuity errors

As a "Journey to xxx" title, I was expecting more. The story was super generic and the characters all felt 1 dimensional. The story also had a hard time keeping Rose's established canon right which was a lil frustrating.

Performance wise though, the narrator did awesome. It sounded like she was having fun which really helped her get into character.

Overall, this isn't really a great story. Random adventure that doesn't add much.

Sweet, funny, unexpectedly deep slice-of-life

Frankly I almost didn't get this book. At only 4hrs or so and meant for 8-10 year olds, it seemed an easy pass. But then someone online mentioned that the porgs, ridiculous things though they are, were in the book and named(!!) and I had to get it.

I expected a simple plot, bad bad guys and really good good guys, nothing too complicated or deep, with maybe a few light conversations between Rose, Rey, and Poe. In a sense, that's what the book was. The FO officers and troopers were hopelessly stupid and their commanding officer was a complete idiot, though both things are somewhat plausibly explained in-book. Poe, BB8, Rey, and Rose teased each other and bantered and honestly made me laugh out loud more than once.

But despite it's brevity and target audience, there are a few conversations and passages that put the book squarely in line with traditional Star Wars. It's a light book that deals with heavier topics in a way that's appropriate for all ages, and I appreciate that, despite not being who the book was meant for at all lol.

Ignoring plot and message completely, the dynamics between Rey, Rose, and Poe were really, really entertaining. Rose's never ending optimism, Poe's flyboy charm, and Rey's determination all shine. There are even a few lines/situations that show that the characters haven't forgotten their previous hard-learned lessons, and they all just, just get along so WELL, despite a few believable conflicts. It's great.

This being the first real interaction post-TLJ between these three, and it being as sweet and wholesome as it is, gives me such hopes for EP 9.

The acting for Rose is A+++ perfect, Rey is sometimes oddly perfect and sometimes a bit wobbly, Poe is good all things considered.

TL:DR if you want a short, sweet, and amusing look into the post-TLJ dynamics of some of the main characters, and have an extra credit, I def reccomend this book.

Another good addition to the Saga

This is another good addition to the saga. It highlights how the resistance went from some survivors and Resistance remnants to starting to gather the people of the Galaxy together to fight for freedom

Definitely meant for young readers, but ok.

This book gets a lot of hate about it being immature blah blah blah. It doesn't say it on the summary but this book is definitely for younger readers. I could see this as a standard story for ages up to 15, depending on reading level. Once you realize it's for a younger audience it makes more sense. It was nice to see a book that lies in the middle ground of reading audiences (not too childish and definitely rated PG). Wasn't as god awful as many people say it is. If I had kids, I would read them this book. But for the sake of reading and listening to as many Star Wars books as possible, not a bad few hours.

Such a great primer for Rise of Skywalker!

These stories post- The Last Jedi truly redeem the characters that weren't so liked I. that movie. The narrator does a tremendous job of the voices. Truly captures the first order officers in great tone and fashion.

Sort of superfluous

It was nice having a story with more interaction between Rey, Rose and Poe...but it didn’t really feel like much happened. I’m still unsure how this ties into ROS, and it doesn’t feel like anything super compelling happened.

The narrator was ok but not as good as some of the ones I’ve heard in other recent Star Wars audiobooks. Also, totally not her fault but the repetition of the name Spiftz was driving me crazy. I would have appreciated if the writer had worked a little harder with the writing to not have to repeat names/titles so often.

I didn’t dislike it, but thought Force Collector was a much more compelling story that impacted my experience with Rise of Skywalker in a more profound way. I’m excited to listen to Resistance Reborn next!

Good performance, average story

3.5 stars. Like all Star Wars books, the narrator is good. The story is very familiar though without much to offer in the way of new character insights and a plot that you have seen before if you read a lot of Star Wars or sci-fi tie-in novels. Still, if you love the characters of Rey, Rose, and Poe, this is a breezy little adventure that shows them leaning to how work as a team and the First Order Commander is good for laughs. Those who like Ewoks should get a kick out of the natives of this new planet. A solid book younger fans should enjoy but older ones may want to skip it.