This is definitely one of the better Star Wars books I've read. I was surprised by how much I liked it. Freed does an excellent job of showing us what the cost of war is, physically and psychologically. Star Wars stories seem to often boil down to good guys and bad guys, light vs. dark, so I appreciated how Freed showed that in war, at least when it comes to the soldiers fighting on the ground, there isn't really a right side and a wrong side; there's just people doing horrible and necessary things for survival. Soldiers die every few pages, people lose limbs and lives and sanity, and over and over this raw, gritty story impressed on me that this is what war looks like. Freed showed me a side of Star Wars I'd never seen before; there are no Force users swooping in to save the day here, no major players turning the tide of battle. The price of victory comes at the cost of ordinary people making terrible sacrifices, and some loose ends are never going to be tied because that's just not the way this world works.

I loved how Gadren's wisdom and compassion completely defied his appearance; Namir and Roach's sibling-like bond gave the story much-needed moments of humanity, and Freed skillfully made Challis as sympathetic as she was appalling. I particularly enjoyed the contrast of the main story with a subplot about an ordinary stormtrooper who truly believes in her cause; showing how each side views the other as enemies emphasized to me that no one is truly "right" in war, and no one is ever the winner.

The action scenes could get a little slow and drawn out at times, and I'm not sure I entirely understood why Namir decided Sullust was the worthier final battle than the original goal of Kuat. But overall, this was an engaging, nuanced story about how the actual wars in Star Wars are won and lost, and it added significant depth to how I think about the battles fought in the Star Wars universe.