Defiant
Spensa has made it out of the Nowhere, but what she saw in the space between the stars has changed her forever. She came face to face with the Delvers, and finally got answers to the questions she’s had about her own strange Cytonic gifts.
The Superiority didn’t stop in its fight for galactic dominance while she was gone, though. Spensa’s team, Skyward Flight, was able to hold Winzik off, and even collect allies to help with the cause, but it’s only a matter of time until humanity–and the rest of the galaxy–falls.
Defeating them will require all the knowledge Spensa gathered while in the Nowhere. But being Cytonic is more complicated than she ever could have imagined. Now, Spensa must ask herself: How far is she willing to go for victory, if it means losing herself–and her friends–in the process.
The final book in the Skyward series will free humanity, or see it fall forever.-Goodreads
Title: Defiant
Series: Skyward #4
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Page Count: 420
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 4.75/5.0
Date Read: October 29th, 2024
Opening
I don't read a lot of Young Adult or younger books but the Skyward series by Brandon Sanderson quickly became one of my guilty pleasures a couple of years ago and that has continued since. I've had Defiant on my list to read now for almost a year and I finally got the chance in October.
For anyone keeping up with my reads for the past few weeks now, I have been in a bit of a recovery mode from deep, long epic reads. Since I had both the audiobook and a physical copy of Defiant I figured this would be another good fit to read during this period of recovery.
Pacing
The pacing is slightly on the faster side of things but I think that has become expected as I assume the majority (not all) younger readers enjoy this type of read more so than epic novels. I do have to be honest that it took me a good hour or so into this audio to remember where things left off from my previous reads in the series. The fact that Suzy Jackson continues to give a great performance with this series, certainly helped me settle in for another space adventure following Spensa and the team.
It isn't always easy to find editing issues in general when focusing on an audio listen but at this point in time I think the Sanderson team locks down most if not all of these issues before they release a product which even though is expected is still greatly appreciated from a reader's point of view.
World Building
The world building continues to strengthen this story in the fourth and final official read in the Skyward series itself. I did read at the end of this one that the adventure will continue in the future with more form this world and I think that was going to be in the future if I am understanding correctly. In this story though we did get some additional information on the history of things before the end that I thought provided a nice bow to wrap things up in Defiant.
Character Development
The character development was probably the greatest strength this time around. Not only do we see Spensa's arc come to an end for now in this series specifically. But we also get to see her Grandmother's story shine for a bit as well which was awesome to experience! Even on the Superiority side of things there is some really good potential to see some things come about for those characters and I was happy with where things ended up for these characters as well.
Closing
As mentioned already this series officially comes to a close with Defiant and I have really enjoyed this series over the last couple of years now. I do still have a couple of shorter reads left to get to which I do knock one of those out right after finishing Defiant.
I will be keeping my eye out for the next series based in this world whenever it kicks off as I'm sure to continue these as one of my guilty pleasure reads in the future.
Scoring
Pacing 4.5 / 5.0
Worldbuilding 4.75 / 5.0
Character Development 5.0 / 5.0
