An Author's Portfolio

Fairy Night Awards

Hosted and judged by Ravendipity

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The Best Protagonist Category

"The Mandalorian and the Jedi: Book One of the Mandalorian Series"

Finished in 2nd place out of 10 competitors.

Review by Ravendipity:

     I've been on record saying I like Star Wars, and of course, that means I've watched The Mandalorian. So I had background knowledge going into this which gave me the opportunity to really focus on Kyra. And let me say, I was pleasantly surprised. Back when I used to read Star Wars fanfics on other sites, many of them had overpowered and overly sassy female leads that were Mary Sues. However, when Kyra is introduced, I was surprised by how she made the mistake of oversleeping again. And not just oversleeping, she overslept by two nights. I know that seems like a small thing, but opening her character with her making a mistake, let alone a mistake that takes two nights away from her, is not what I expected.

     You already subverted my expectations in that sense, then it's further backed up by showing her struggling with a probe. While she does destroy it, we're shown her running away and trying to get a better angle for a better attack. And, lastly, when she interacts with Mando for the first time, she's not overly sassy or trying too hard. She analyzes the situation, has clear dialogue, and approaches the situation calmly. Yes, Kyra is still sassy at times, but not to the point where it ever gets annoying or feels like she's trying too hard. Kyra is awesome so far, and I also like how she's genuinely kind and helps people, like in chapter 5. Or near the end of chapter 5 where she gives genuinely great compliments to Winta. It's refreshing to see a character who is genuinely nice and wants to help people. In the books I read in my free time, many of them have really rude characters or they're nice characters who are never actually shown being nice, so this book having a nice character and you taking the time to show us the niceness was very... nice (pun intended).

     Along with that, Mando himself is very well written. Mando is meant to be almost like a blank slate for the audience. Literally cause he has no face. But despite him having not much personality to work with, you give him a lot to do, especially in the scenes with Kyra. Their dialogue feels believable and fun to read, which is an essential part of learning about the characters.

     Overall, Kyra was a very pleasant surprise, and the story is far different from what I would have expected. You subvert expectations in a natural way and give both of your protagonists fantastic character work that's easy to follow and fun to read. This was an entertaining read, and I think you did a great job!

     The main recommendations I have don't have too much to do with the protagonist, but it can help readers digest the story and attach themselves to what's going on. The two recommendations I have are to break up your paragraphs more and use less sentences with "as" in them. You use "as" quite frequently in your sentences, and while it isn't a big deal, diversifying your sentence structure can give the readers new structures and words to imagine and think about. For example, if you reread the prologue, you'll see a lot of sentences with "as" in them.

     As (no pun intended) for the paragraphs, there's nothing wrong with large paragraphs. I myself write them, so I get it. However, there are a lot of long paragraphs back to back, and many of them are unnecessarily long. Not because the info isn't needed, but because there are times you have multiple main ideas in one paragraph, so the paragraph is more like two or three paragraphs put in one.