Star Wars: Legacy Review

It’s 2026. The Force Awakens came out over a decade ago. Rey Skywalker — the main character of the sequels — has zero major books about her. (To be pedantic: she was featured in the junior novels Spark of the Resistance and Before the Awakening, plus passing roles in Resistance Reborn and Shadow of the Sith. But this is her first headline appearance as a main character.) 

To say this novel is overdue would be an understatement. Because of this unfortunate wait for a Rey-centric story, Legacy carries an immeasurable amount of pressure. Delivering a satisfying story for a major character is no small assignment, but Madeline Roux is exactly the right person for the job. Roux effortlessly brings Daisy Ridley’s performance from screen to page as Rey enters a new era of her Jedi training.

Legacy has the all-too-common task of fitting a story within a broader Star Wars narrative, rather than simply being able to tell its own story. Some stories excel within these limitations (Resistance Reborn) while others struggle to stand alone. Rey’s year of training is locked down by the framework laid out in the Sequel Trilogy and has struggled to escape those restraints.

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Likewise, the realities of publishing and film storytelling make it difficult for authors to move the needle too much with certain characters. We know Lucasfilm has plans for Rey on the big screen, meaning Roux is likely unable to take many big swings for her character development, even when discussing Rey's past. This is an issue that has held back Sequel Era storytelling for the past decade and unfortunately doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

As a result, Legacy ends up feeling a bit like two different books wearing a trench coat. Perhaps because there’s simply not enough room to dig into Rey, the story of her training under Leia teased by the cover is supplemented by a mostly unrelated tale of the First Order versus a small rebellion. And sadly, the best parts of the book are those featuring characters other than the protagonist.

Leia shines as a mentor to Rey, perfectly capturing Carrie Fisher’s portrayal of the character. Her passing meant she could not have a large role in The Rise of Skywalker, but she lives on here. Her chapters are such a highlight of the book that you wonder if Roux wouldn’t rather be writing a Leia novel.

That said, Rey is fantastic here as well. Even though other characters have more interesting things to do throughout the story, Roux captures her voice well. Rather than the confident and at-peace Rey we see adopt the Skywalker surname at the end of Episode IX, this Rey is angry. She’s just lost a mentor for the second time in only months. Every new discovery she makes comes with more questions, but she feels no one can help her. Pressure is building to be the savior of the Resistance. Her frustrations are earned and remind the reader of how young and inexperienced she truly is. She’s the perfect student for the calm, wisened Leia. They make a great duo, and I wish the whole book focused on them as the cover suggests. 

The First Order story is tougher to parse. On its own, it’s actually a solid dig into the very real effects of authoritarian rule. This B-plot is split into two sides. The first follows Major Wolstenholme, a deep pull from the 2019 Age of Resistance — Rose Tico comic. This one-off officer becomes a compelling character as she starts to realize that she’s not nearly as important to the First Order as she thought. 

Her story is directly tied to rebels that Rey & Co. meet up with who have an ongoing vendetta against the officer. In their pursuit of revenge against Wolstenholme, they have to confront their biases against the idea of Jedi and decide what victory actually looks like. It would be a great book on its own, but it feels completely separate in tone and theme that it acts more as an interruption than a complementary story.

Weirdly, throughout the entire book, Rey and Wolstenholme do not interact a single time. While there are intersections of the two plots, there’s never a sense that these two characters matter to each other. Rey’s journey is one of personal growth, while Wolstenholme’s is about revenge against the novel’s side characters. With such unrelated stakes, the ending does not feel like a satisfying conclusion at all, despite closing off both threads.

Rey’s crossover with the Hays Minor rebels is not completely unsatisfying, though. There are some fantastic conversations between her and Gavrian, a Force skeptic whose father is a die-hard believer in the Jedi. Making two ideologically opposed characters into reluctant allies allows for Rey to wrestle with her own worldview. Her whole life was spent as a loner, and she’s met very few people outside of the Resistance. Though even when the storyline is interesting, I couldn’t help but wish I was reading about Rey exploring the Force instead. 

Those are the scenes where the book really stands out. On their journey to Tython, Rey discovers an Old Republic-era Jedi temple. In the absence of a living Jedi master, she digs into the past for answers. In this quest, the book reveals a slew of new Jedi lore, including plenty of names for new Jedi and Sith characters to keep Wookieepedia editors busy for a while. This serves not only as a fun, rare glimpse into the Old Republic, but also a perfect way for Rey to learn from the Jedi without having any trained Masters around. It would have been nice if Leia was able to be more of a teacher — you’d think she would have more than the bare amount of knowledge despite her short training with Luke — but this works well.

Likewise, the Haysians’ conflict with the First Order feels very real. The team, though aligned in spirit, has different ideas of an endgame when it comes to revenge. The desire for revenge is natural and human, but Roux digs into Rose Tico’s thesis from The Last Jedi: “That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” The debate of fighting versus living is a relatable and compelling exploration of how the eponymous Star Wars continually affect the civilians of the galaxy.

While both storylines have their high points, they’re simply too disjointed to elevate each other. Instead, the back-and-forth pacing halts any momentum that either plot would build, almost as if switching between two different books. What we’re left with is a novel that is less than the sum of its parts.

To her credit, Roux navigates these difficulties deftly. She nails the characters, and her writing emphasizes the themes of the Sequel Trilogy. There is plenty here to entertain. In a world where fans have a bookshelf full of Sequel content, Legacy is a solid entry. But as it is, this will likely fail to deliver for fans who are eagerly awaiting our first deep look at Rey.

It’s clear that Madeline Roux is both a fan of these characters and has compelling things to say about Star Wars. I hope she’ll return for another story where the walls of editorial mandates aren’t so immediately apparent. 

Verdict: Good