Skyward by Brandon Sanderson : Audiobook Review

Spensa’s world has been under attack for decades. Now pilots are the heroes of what’s left of the human race, and becoming one has always been Spensa’s dream. Since she was a little girl, she has imagined soaring skyward and proving her bravery. But her fate is intertwined with that of her father’s—a pilot himself who was killed years ago when he abruptly deserted his team, leaving Spensa the daughter of a coward, her chances of attending Flight School slim to none.

No one will let Spensa forget what her father did, yet fate works in mysterious ways. Flight school might be a long shot, but she is determined to fly. And an accidental discovery in a long-forgotten cavern might just provide her with a way to claim the stars

Anyone who knows me could probably tell you that Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors of all time and that I would normally sit down and start reading any new release of his the moments I could get my hands on it. So it might come as a surprise to some that it actually took me a few weeks to start listening to Skyward once I had purchased it. While I think Brandon Sanderson is one of the best authors in the genre, I’ve often struggled to get through his YA books in the past was worried that the same thing would happen with this book as well.

Happily, that wasn’t the case here and I found Skyward to be a nearly perfect example of what a great YA book should be. In this book, Sanderson has once again taken what could easily have been a weird and ridiculous story concept and turned it into an amazing story. I love the idea of sentient or living ships and thought the entire concept was executed extremely well in Skyward. I honestly can’t wait for the next book in the series because I’m dying to know about the history of this world and these ships.

More than anything else though, I think I would say that the best part about Skyward would be all of its great characters. I think I can honestly say that Spense has become one of my favorite Brandon Sanderson characters of all time. I found her to be such a believable character and so easy to empathize with that I think I may have gotten angrier about the way she was treated in this book at times than she ever did. It wasn’t just her that was so good though, I found every character, whether they were the good guys or the bad and whether they were human or weird sentient ship. It made it almost a little too easy to just get completely lost in the story and lose track of time.

A lot of credit for how much I enjoyed this book should also go to the narrator Suzy Jackson. I thought she did an amazing job giving each character their own unique voice and bringing a lot of emotional depth to her narration. I’m always a bit worried when I buy an audiobook with a narrator that I’ve never listened to before, so I was glad that Suzy Jackson was so good. I’m looking forward to listening to her read the rest of the books in this trilogy.

All in all, I found Skyward to be a fun read full of great characters and a lot of exciting action. I would have no problem recommending this book to anyone looking for something new to read.