THE PRINCESS, the SCOUNDREL, and the FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken

 







Published in 2019 by Disney LucasFilm Press.

The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy is a YA re-telling of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. It is told from the perspective of three different characters: Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker - in that order.

The book starts out, like the movie, with the attack of Leia's ship and the fight as stormtroopers board it and stays with her through the destruction of Alderaan. The middle of the book starts with Han in the cantina looking at the results of Ben Kenobi's handiwork with a light saber. It stays with Han until they escape from the Death Star. At that point, it switches to Luke and stays with him until the end.

This is more than a simple re-telling of the movie, though. That book was already written by George Lucas (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster) a long time ago.

There are lots of direct quotes from the movie ("I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." "That's no moon..." "No reward is worth this." "I used to bull's-eye womp rats...") but the strength of the book is that it adds to the plot of the movie. We get background on the activist background of Princess Leia, Han Solo's secret desire to be part of something larger and more meaningful, more details on the little bit of training Kenobi gave Luke on the Millennium Falcon and the training that Luke got so that he could go from flying a T-16 to an X-Wing so well. 

All of the additions made sense and the story still flowed smoothly. I read the original novel at least 10 times back in the early 80s and I can't count the number of times I have seen the movie (so many times that my mind supplied the correct bits of musical soundtrack as I read along). This book was a lot of fun. I have no idea if this book would make sense to anyone who hadn't already seen the movie, but I enjoyed it.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE PRINCESS, THE SCOUNDREL, AND THE FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken.

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