When I first began Queen’s Peril, I was interested and excited to learn about Padmé’s life leading up to her becoming Queen of Naboo. What I didn’t expect were bland pages filled with contrived struggles involving outfits, relationships, and sneaking out of the palace to attend a concert. None of this was remotely intriguing. The worst part of Queen’s Peril is that it makes Padmé boring, which defeats the purpose of this book. I couldn’t differentiate the handmaidens and didn’t care for any of them. The latter half of this novel is a bare-bones retelling of The Phantom Menace film, which is also drained of any excitement it had. Johnston writes incredibly simply, and doesn’t detail anything except clothing, so this whole novel felt like someone quickly narrating a movie they were watching rather than telling an actual story.