• Published by: Delacorte Press
• Read: November 28, 2019- November 30, 2019
• Rating: 4.5 Stars

“Their heads are heads of rock, their hearts set upon rock. Set your sights on something higher. Something more grand.”

-BRANDON SANDERSON

This is not a book I would of normally picked up. As soon as a book mentions aliens or space I tend to walk away from it. I was never a big sci-fi reader, or watcher. There is honestly one sci-fi book I have ever fallen in love with it, and honestly I forgot it was sci-fi half the time…. that book is the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown for those wondering. I now have another book to add to that list. Brandon Sanderson did something only one other person has done, he made me love sci-fi.

Skyward is about a seventeen year old girl named Spensa who wants to be a pilot, but has trouble after her father was branded as a coward. Her whole life Spensa has had to live with the fact that everyone thinks her father died a coward, and now it’s her time to become a pilot and redeem herself and her father, but they won’t make it easy for her. With the help of a few caring people, and a wrecked talking ship she found, she will fight for her right to be a pilot. Along with answering the questions she always had about her father, and the biggest question of all, what’s among the stars.

I won’t lie, the beginning of this book somewhat bored me, but it was all necessary. It showed us Spensa’s life since her father was branded as a coward, and her as a character. Then it takes us to her in flight school with her squad. A lot of the beginning is getting the reader used to the world and it’s characters and showing us what flight school is. It’s a little boring, but the dialogue makes up for it, and it is a necessary part of the story.

I don’t exactly remember how long it took for the book to get interesting(to me at least)… actually I do, but it includes spoilers so about a little over a quarter of the way through, which wouldn’t seem so bad but the hardcover is 510 pages(according to goodreads anyway), so it does take a while. Or at least it did for me. That’s when the book started to hook me, when it got REAL interesting to me was closer to seventy percent way through the book. That’s when things started to unfold and as I said, got REAL interesting.

I will go into more important details, but I wanna talk about some of the characters first, since they are the most important part of the story usually. Now there is a lot of characters and I’m not going to talk about a lot of them, only the ones who are really important to know.

Spensa- There was times were Spensa got annoying, BUT I liked that, which is not something I would ever really say. Spensa is a seventeen year old girl who never got anything handed to her in life. She had to fight her way to get treated like the others. She’s been society punching bag for ten years, so of course she is going to act that way she acts. She is wrathful, but because of defense. When is isn’t having to defend herself or her family, she’s friendly and jokes around with everyone else. She has her flaws though. She’s narrowed minded. She only cares about being a pilot, and not a coward. This causes many problems with her friends and herself. We also see Spensa go through ALOT within the short time she is in flight school, and the whole time we are watching her change. I loved Spensa, and I loved watching her grow.

M-Bot: I love robots so M-Bot comes next. When I saw that the book had a talking ship in it I thought it was weird but when I met M-Bot I fell in love with him. I thought he was going to have a bland personality, because it’s a ship, but boy was I wrong. M-Bot is best boy. He wins all the awards. He was funny, adorable, and did his best. He deserves as many mushrooms as he wants. Out of all the characters, M-Bot was easily the best.

Jorgen – All of the kids of the pilots from a previous war get an easy ride in life, and Jorgen is one of these kids, and he is also the flightleader of Spensa’s flight squad. Jogen is one of those character I found annoying in the beginning, but as I read more of him I like him more. I don’t love him yet, but I don’t find him annoying. I understand him. He’s very uptight and is like a robot half the time, not because he lacks emotion, but because what he says sounds like something he was programmed to say. He tries really hard though and I hope he gets more time in the next book so I can love him.

Cobbs- Cobbs is the instructor for Spensa’s flight squad, and also her dad’s old wingmate. I loved Cobbs. He is one of my favorite type of mentors in books. He is hard on them, but you can see that he truly cares about all of them.

Admiral Ironsides- She is, of course the Admiral. She is an antagonist, not world wise, but towards Spensa. She tries very hard to not let Spinsa be a pilot. One of my favorite parts of Ironsides is reading her side through her point of view. (She is the only character so far with their on POV, but only at certain times) By the end of the story it’s easy to understand why she does what she does.

The Krell- The Krell are THE antagonist of the story. They are the alien forces that try to kill and destroy whatever the humans build. The Krell is why pilots are needed and why they are stuck on the planet they are stuck on. Not much is known about the Krell. No one has even seen one. Just their ships.

Easily, I found the best part of this book to be character development. We see all of the characters change along the way, but especially Spensa. As each event unfolded we got to see her process it and how it affected her. There is no question of whether these characters devlop or not. The Spensa at the beginning of this book, is not the same Spensa at the end. Within one book she has changed so much. She isn’t the only one that changes either. Watching each character change as they faced real problems for the first time in their life was my favorite part of this book. It was like watching a flower blossom. You saw what it looked like when it was closed off to the world, but watched as slowly, it opened up and became something beautiful, getting to truly experience the world.

There is a lot to love about this book. M-Bot is one, Doomslug the other. I read this book, solely because of it’s author. The first book I read when stepping into the adult type novel world, was Mist Born by Brandon Sanderson. It easily became one of my favorite books and I fell in love with his characters and the worlds he builds. This book did that. I loved the world, and I loved the characters. I loved the dialogue. It felt real, and funny. It would actually make me laugh and it was believable. I’m pretty sure half of my notes in the boot were parts I found funny. It was a really fun read, not to mention that ending. I’m pretty sure within a few chapters we somewhat get the gist of what’s going to happen at the end, but actually reading it… masterpiece.

Another thing I would to note, the eyes. Most people probably didn’t or don’t have this same reaction, but I have a fear of deep space and the vast unknown, so when I got the spot about the eyes, (you’ll know when you get there.) I actually got scared. I won’t say anymore about that. Just had to mention that.

As someone who avoids sci-fi like it is a horrible disease, I can say I LOVED this book and can’t wait till I can relax and read it’s sequel…which will probably be in a few minutes to be honest. Towards the end I couldn’t put it down. It was late, and I knew I needed to go to bed, but I couldn’t. I HAD to finish it and know how it ended. The thing I found when it comes to books, shows, anime, manga, is that there is usually a genre we don’t like, but there’s exceptions to those rules. I hate mecha anime, but I love Gurren Lagann. When something has good writing, you can’t help but throw away your opinions about a genre and just devour it. I don’t like sci-fi, but I love this book. This book is my exception(along with Red Rising). Brandon Sanderson is a creator of masterpieces, and this is another example of his beautiful work.

“Good night, sweet prince.” M-Bot whispered as the junk crashed to the ground. “Or princess. Or most likely genderless piece of inanimate space junk.”

bRANDON SANDERSON

I had to include a quote from M-Bot. I couldn’t just not show why I love him. That would be wrong.