Plot
Characters
Originality
Writing
Entertainment
Our Verdict
Here at Youtini, one of our favorite topics to cover in the world of Star Wars publishing is that of new releases. Moreso than ever before, Star Wars literature is filled with new stories, writers, characters, and worlds, and participating in the discourse surrounding these adventures is one of the true joys of running this company.
Thanks to the amazing folks at both Del Rey and Disney Lucasfilm, we are afforded the privilege of accessing early copies of each new Star Wars book in order to help promote the material as well as present our review. These reviews are published on the launch day of each new book both on our site in a written format and on our YouTube channel as a video. Producing this content represents our effort to simultaneously celebrate the achievements of the writers of Star Wars and keep you, our community, informed on the quality and occasionally pure quantity of new stories.
However, we at Youtini have recently completed a thorough examination of our review system, and we discovered some flaws that we have subsequently addressed. If you’re a longtime fan of our reviews, you may notice that we have done away with numbered scoring.
Why?
Our core mission here at Youtini is to celebrate Star Wars books. We unabashedly love these stories, and over the years, we have noticed that our decimal based rating system was beginning to unfairly pit wonderful books against each other in a sort of unfair competition.
Who was going to be the highest rated?
How many points higher is Book A than Book B?
While we are no strangers to healthy discussion or debate around here, this sort of granular comparison doesn’t serve the main goal of our company which is to indulge in the excitement of a galaxy far, far away as much as humanly possible.
Nonetheless, we still feel a responsibility to inform you as readers, viewers, and consumers of all things Star Wars. There are certain books that exemplify everything that it means to be a Star Wars story, and unfortunately, there are certain books that will not enhance your love of this universe as much as they probably should.
Because of that, our review team has created a new standard that will not only be used on every Star Wars book going forward, but has retroactively been applied to every Star Wars book ever written. This new standard focuses on specific categories that will organize books into tiers that will hopefully maintain a clarity of quality and enjoyment while minimizing the unfair comparisons that our previous system invited.
The Official Youtini Rating Categories are:
This is our highest recommendation for a book that is genuinely near a perfect experience. These books leave a lasting impression on readers and are regarded as some of the best Star Wars content that has ever been written. Of course, no content is truly perfect or without criticism. However, these books are as close as we could ask for and will likely continue to have impacts on readers for decades to come.
These books are extraordinary in their own right and highly recommended as one of the best Star Wars books in the reading universe. An Incredible book is one that was a joy to read and seriously impressed us with inspiring new ideas or ideas true to Star Wars storytelling that were expanded on in a new way. These books are exceptionally memorable and come to the forefront of your mind when thinking about the top Star Wars books that exist. Simply put, this book was hard to put down and comes highly recommended.
Reading this book was time well spent and we came away from it with a generally positive experience with some caveats. In general, some things could have been better. Perhaps this book lacked clear direction or ambition. Or in the case of Legends, maybe the themes and language are a bit outdated. Regardless, there are things to enjoy about the book and it is worth reading.
This book has some flaws that take away from the reading experience. As with all Star Wars books, there is a positive experience in there somewhere and there are certainly good parts. Though it likely comes by ignoring pretty obvious drawbacks, uneven execution, or giant plot holes. This book may be worth reading in some regard, though you may walk away from the experience with more questions than answers.
These books are problematic in a way that makes them very hard to recommend. Perhaps the themes are controversial, the writing is outdated, or the story is no longer relevant or worth spending time on. There may have been one or two redeeming qualities, but overall, reading this book alongside modern Star Wars literature is regarded as a poor experience.
As each new book comes out, our review team will analyze the book’s Plot, Characters, Originality, Writing, and Entertainment to assess which of these labels most aptly fits. The book will then be given that moniker and placed in the Official Youtini Reading Order to best help you continue your Star Wars reading journey.
We hope that this system will help celebrate the beauty of all Star Wars novels while best respecting the time and dedication of our entire community, because you never know if your next novel will, in fact, be your next Masterpiece.
