Lit Is The Force Awakens Novel Worth Reading?

I just watched a few Snoke theory videos (saving my remarks) and one of them featured a passage where Snoke talks about why he chose Kylo Ren. I really had no idea that there was any additional dialogue like this. Is there a significant amount of extra information in TFA novel? Is it worth reading?

 

Its up to you.

For me, I think Aftermath, Lost Stars and Bloodline are enough for me.

 

No. It's a complete waste of time. It has a few extra scenes that are fun --- Leia at the Resistance Base at the beginning of the novel, Poe Dameron waking up from the TIE fighter crash --- but otherwise it's just the movie script on page with little to no extrapolation or character introspection. Possibly the worst and most pointless of any of the film adaptations. Skip this one.

 

What Jeff_Ferguson said. For me it was very hard to get through, especially towards the back half. I have no desire to reread it and that's saying something considering I've read the other adaptations several times.

Maybe just google the added dialogue bits so you're in the know.

 

Here is the scene your talking about.

 

Read it at least once but it definitely doesn't compare to the movie imo.

 

There are some ok parts, but otherwise yeah, of all the novelizations it follows the original film almost 1:1 without much in addition.

One thing it has going for it is that Foster seems to favor the third person limited narrative voice (not always, but often), meaning you'll have one character's perspective on a scene and the events. That gave Foster a chance to reveal things that might have been a little more ambiguous in the film, such as what Han was thinking throughout the showdown with Kylo. However, on the other hand, it reveals what Foster was allowed to give away and what he was clearly barred from exploring. That takes away a little more of the mystery -- for instance, using the Han example again, Han's not playing a double-game when he confronts Kylo; he makes the decision spur-of-the-moment because he'd he'd feel guilty otherwise when he returned to Leia and said he didn't try to persuade him to come home. Not that most of us thought Han was playing something, but still, it seemed silly Han of all people would just go out there and be fooled into getting himself killed by his obviously angsty wayward son.

So for that reason, the novel sometimes puts a... different... slant on things. Or at least reveals certain elements of the plot while clearly indicating what can't be explained yet.

 

I've flipped through it and it does none of the expanding on the films that the ROTS and ROTJ novelizations do. Nah, not really worth it.

 

Actually, that's kind of what I like about Foster's writing. The book covered no new ground, so I think if you've seen the film, there's no need to read the book. But I do enjoy Foster's prose--at least, I enjoy it here and in the adaptation of ANH. For some reason, his writing style feels different to me in Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It's been a while since I've read The Approaching Storm, so I can't comment on that, but I think his approach to adaptation is more artistic.

All that said, I prefer the ANH adaptation. Would not recommend reading TFA novel to anyone except completists.

 

It's too bad, because I would like to read it, despite the general consensus. But my reading time is valuable, and there's so much out there to read without taking time out to read something that's almost exactly like what I've already watched, several times. I skimmed through bits of it enough to see that it's even worse at pacing the action than usual; oh so deliberate early on and ridiculously rushed at the end...same old Alan Dean Foster.

 

its not essential reading and doesn't really add much was disapointed in it myself. but it does have a few extra scenes