Darth Maul Shadow Hunter

Set in 32BBY This was, what can I say, I'm a sucker for a Maul story, and this one was ok. Sure, had its moments, good and bad and some moments dragging too much, and some others which made me not care that much, especially for the main Padawan Jedi here, and I have to say at first the main "Solo" character here was interesting, but halfway through, this same motif kept pushing for the guy's agenda and he was constantly chit-chatting with his droid, which after awhile became tedious. Wouldn't be as much a problem if it wasn't for the Padawan in this one, Darsha? Sharla? Darla? I don't remember and I don't want to remember. She was boring and everything she said or thought was cringe-worthy at best. Maul was good. That's the good part, he wasn't out of character that much, besides some cringe-worthy stuff again, which made him look more of.. like.. Maul has empathy or respect for his enemies?! And I really really didn't like that. Especially if when I'm reading, the book is trying to make the good Padawan seem like she's so good that even Maul respects her and/or feels whatever that resembles feelings of respect. We're talking about a guy who was raised to hate, hunt and kill Jedis, not think about wow this jedi is a padawan but she's really tough, wow, respect, *smile* wow, she can fight, she has a plan, woah, good for her. Nope. That's not Maul. Dunno who that guy was those moments, but it wasn't Maul. And in the battle thinking all of that even though he's not going to lose (because duh, he's in the movie right after the book) and all these things felt pushed and thrown to the reader's face just so we can say how worthy of an opponent this nobody was. BAH! Other than that; what can I say, nice plot overall, good story, great fight scenes and depictions of places and whatnot, whenever Maul was on the scene, or Palpatine, or Obi-Wan, it was solid. That's what I liked, and also Lorn was fun to read half the time, and especially at the end. There's a twist which I really loved and you will definitely too, a couple wow moments too. I'd give this 2 stars for being an ok read, but right towards the end with the whole 3rd arc with Maul and Lorn, it kept getting better and much more fun to read. “You can at least meet your fate without groveling.” - Darth Maul TL;DR: You like Maul? Read it! Is it a must Star Wars read? I'd say no.