obviously it's not even worth it to talk about the story. in the end rise of skywalker is an ill-conceived mess of a movie that relies much more on tropes and easter eggs than on telling a compelling story. but this novelization is really spectacular. it does tie a lot of the loose ends together and brings out the parts of ros that had promise. also, every star wars audiobook ends with the main theme and it always tricks me into thinking the whole thing was so much better than it was even at 2x speed.

ben solo is a new kind of stupid though. like he's really a class a idiot.