Right off the bat, the writing style is very sub-par. It took me a long time to get into the story enough to (mostly) ignore, but then it would just jab at me with awkward or inefficient phrasing. Things like: "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air, careening drunkenly across the Myrrann rooftops - it zigzags herkily-jerkily out of sight." 
 Yeah. 
 The characters themselves were fine. They were pretty stock and didn't exactly have emotional range, but I figured that was something that didn't evolve in the Star Wars universe until after the events of the original trilogy anyway (with a few very rare sparks here and there). 
 For the most part, the characters have Backstory and Function, and then are otherwise left to just fulfill the needs of the plot. Which isn't a terrible thing if the plot can carry it and - for me - it did. Not that it was spectacular or anything, but stuff happened, there were fights, there was action, there were explosions... I wasn't exactly expecting a Star Wars version of McEwan's Atonement. 
 One thing I really liked - and loved in the recent movie as well - is that the galaxy feels much more full than it did with Lucas at the helm. With the original trilogy, all characters (with the very welcome exception of Mon Mothma) are male unless the role demands otherwise. This left men as the default, and women as the sex slaves, maternal figures, or the love interest. Lucas seemed to try to fix this in the prequels, but fell quite short of success. 
 With the recent franchise, women have been much better distributed. They pop up in the background, they lead Stormtroopers, they're around. It's been so refreshing to finally, after thirty years of being a fan, to see the galaxy have room for someone like me. 
 Aftermath does the same, but takes it one step further - it writes women back into the original trilogy. Norra, our main character, was a pilot in that final battle - a pilot who was never onscreen but, now, has a story and a place. And I am willing to overlook quite a bit for making me - finally - feel welcome in a franchise that I've adored my entire life. 
 Unfortunately, the writing style is pretty terrible. With all the money and resources at their disposal, I sincerely wish that Disney had selected a better writer to handle this book. In most other ways, they seem to take the franchise seriously, and to want us to take it seriously as well. They seem to want to mainstream Star Wars fandom on a level that it hasn't been before. But I think that the first step needs to be to give these books to authors who will be able to tell the stories with the care they deserve.