Defiant by Brandon Sanderson
Blurb:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson comes the final book in an epic series about a girl who will travel beyond the stars to save the world she loves from destruction.
Spensa made it out of the Nowhere, but what she saw in the space between the stars has changed her forever. She came face to face with the Delvers, and finally got answers to the questions she's had about her own strange Cytonic gifts.
The Superiority didn't stop in it's fight for galactic dominance while she was gone, though. Spensa's team, Skyward Flight, was able to hold Winzik off, and even collect allies to help with the cause, but it's only a matter of time until humanity--and the rest of the galaxy--falls.
Defeating them will require all the knowledge Spensa gathered while in the Nowhere. But being Cytonic is more complicated than she ever could have imagined. Now, Spensa must ask herself: how far is she willing to go for victory, if it means losing herself--and her friends--in the process.
Review:
It's been a good long while since I’ve written a review, regrettably, so I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies (no I don’t). Now, getting to it.
Skyward is one of my favorite YA or sci-fi series, if not my favorite. It was really my introduction to sci-fi books, and its been close to my heart for a very long time. Because of that, I was very excited to see what happened in the final book in the series. Part of me feels fulfilled, another part is…disappointed. Let me explain.
But first, what happens? Spensa Nightshade is finally out of the Nowhere and needs to figure out what the #&%! Is happening with the Superiority. Since her absence, the political conniving has only increased, but her allies have been missing their secret weapon; her. Thus ensues a long journey to sabotage the Superiority, overthrow Wiznik, and restore peace and order to the cosmos. Simple stuff, really.
I love everything Spensa and co gets up to, and with the 1st person POV, we got a very intimate look into how she thinks and feels about everything, really dragging us into the story. When she feels something, so do we, and say what you want about how Sanderson writes, but that is something he excels at, and Defiant is no different. She expertly leads us through the stars against the Superiority, working hard as she can to keep the humans and races of the cosmos free from his grip, alongside all of the companions we know and love.
Her relationship with Jorgen progresses, yes, but a lot of the times its a bit of a headscratcher. Maybe I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff in between reading books 3 and 4, but their relationship didn’t feel quite as normal as it used to be. Though that might just be a me issue. Also present are other great relationships, but my favorite is the one Spensa has with GranGran. Her grandmother is a firecracker and a blast to hear from whenever she appears, which isn’t as often as I would like, but probably as often as she ought to be.
Due to the scope of the story, a lot of the characters are in and out, but that's fine, a lot is going on. What I DID have an issue with, was the introduction of POVs. Now, I’ve said I loved all the characters, true. But this was a story told by and through SPENSA, and only Spensa, for three full books (excluding the novellas). The decision to all of a sudden include other POVs really didn’t make much sense to me, especially because it wasn’t necessary the rest of the series, and it probably wasn’t necessary here, either. But, an even bigger problem I had was that THE NEW POVS WERE TOLD IN 3RD PERSON??? Going from 1st to 3rd randomly, with NEW POVs was very jarring and took me out of the story at times. This was really the main thing keeping me from giving this story a much higher ranking for me in the series, and for sci-fi and fiction in general.
Another aspect was the ending. Did it resolve everything? Yes, very well. But in other series (Mistborn #1 and 2), Sanderson expertly showed us where the characters were going, even after the story ended. The epilogues were great, and a necessary reprieve from the torment he put us through. We didn’t really get that here, and I really wish we did.
Otherwise, I loved it. Great cast of characters, high stakes, a lot of fun, and told in a way only Sanderson could. This book takes a lot of inspiration from Ender’s Game (said by Brandon Sanderson himself) and it shows, but I didn’t connect to Ender as much as I did to Spensa. If you loved Ender’s Game, I’m willing to bet you’d love this one too. Really, if you’ve read Mistborn or Stormlight, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this one too. A must for all Brandon Sanderson fans.
