Star Wars: Padawan

By: Kiersten White

Narrated by: Gary Furlong

The #1 New York Times Bestseller about the iconic character Obi-Wan Kenobi and his time as a teenage Jedi in training.

Obi-Wan was an insecure teenager?

Who'd have thought it? But it's another facet to my favorite Jedi Master! I really enjoyed the story, and the narration was great. The plot wasn't particularly complex, but I hadn't realized it was a YA novel. I would still recommend it, because it delves into the relationship between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. As far as I know, only the Clone Wars really showed the day-to-day between Jedi and their padawans, and I found it interesting. I have since seen a few other novels focused on these two, and I plan on reading them.

Frustrating inner monologues

Star Wars : Padawan venting my frustration

Listening to the Padawan audio book and I really enjoy the story beats as a whole, and the voice acting and production values are all top notch but the first half, or maybe even two thirds, of the book it felt like every single chapter had to regurgitate the exact same insecure monologue thoughts over and over and over again, like maybe 15 or 20 times and I can’t help but feeling like this otherwise wonderful book could really have used a little constructive criticism from the editor to eliminate some of the more egregious repetition….

But then I was curious about whether or not this is a common practice in YA fiction as the target audience may need some points hammered home more than standard novels audiences.
It’s been a while since I was a young adult, but I am a huge SW fan and completionist so now that there are no standard novels left I have not read, I have been hitting the YA books that escaped my net at release date. (i.e. Padawan , queens hope, queens shadow, free fall) I am curious if this type of consistent revisiting of the protagonist’s inner monologue is something I should be preparing myself for across the genre or not.

You’ll get your Obi Wan fix, not a bad story

My favorite SW stories are the ones that include Kenobi. Seeing as this book is almost entirely Obi Wan focused I should’ve loved it more but it was just ok. After reading master and apprentice I was hoping for more interaction between Obi Wan and Qui-Gon but the later is featured very little in this story, nor is their master/padawan relationship explored in any real depth. Mostly the author repeatedly hammered on Obi Wans insecurities as a teenage padawan and fears over failing to connect with the force. Far too much inner dialogue and far too little actual story. This could’ve easily been half the length and conveyed the same message and character development.

The narrator did a fairly good job with the exception of Qui-Gon. Liam Neeson’s voice is so iconic to the character that all his dialogue in this performance took me out is the story because it’s just so off. I guess in that sense it is a good thing Qui-Gon had only a few speaking parts in this story.