Friday, October 8, 2021

Review: SUNREACH by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I loved this audiobook novella way more than I expected to, although I’m not sure why I didn’t expect to love it in the first place. I have given 5 stars to Skyward, Starsight, and Cytonic, and Brandon Sanderson is my favorite author.

Sunreach, co-written with Janci Patterson, is told from the point-of-view of FM, one of the members of Spensa’s flight crew. While Spensa is off on her own adventure in Cytonic, her friends have important missions to accomplish back on Detritus. Brandon recommends reading this novella before Cytonic, but I read it after and I don’t think it makes a difference. But absolutely don’t read it before Starsight because the entire plot (and the synopsis) majorly spoils the end of Starsight.

FM was really fun. She is strong but also soft, and I enjoyed getting to know her better as a character and learn the origin of her callsign. 

There is a nice little romance going on between FM and another member of the flight crew, and this is the biggest area where I noticed Janci’s hand in the story. The romance had a bigger focus here than in Brandon’s other books and the lead-up to it felt more obvious than how Brandon writes his romance. These scenes also just didn’t feel like his writing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that as I loved every aspect of the story, but I thought it was worth pointing out. 

In every other aspect of the novella, I couldn’t tell which scenes were written by who, and I liked it that way. The story felt genuine and I think it fits in perfectly into the Skyward series. My favorite scenes were the scientific investigations and training surrounding the taynix. That was all so cute and so much fun to read. 

Even though reading Sunreach isn’t necessary to understanding the full-length novels telling Spensa’s story, I absolutely recommend it as it helps to create a richer world and give character depth, plus it’s just plain fun. 

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