By Cynthia Ayala
Lexa was never part of the Elders’ grand plan in evacuating the Garde and sending them to Earth. But when the Mogadorians came, destroying her world around her, an ally rescued her, giving her the chance to save herself and others with her piloting expertise. Lexa was the key no one knew about, saving her friend, a pack of Chimæra and a Cêpan named Crayton who had the tenth Garde Ella, tucked away in his arms. But the darkness followed them on their journey to Earth and their journey was met with sorrow and heartache, leaving Lexa all alone.
Published as an ebook on April 21, 2015 by HarperCollins, The Navigator is the 11 novella in the Lorien Legacies: Lose Files series that takes minor characters within the series and blows up their backstories in quick burst.
The Navigator is a tale of Lexa who goes by the online persona GUARD that helps the Garde in her own special way, hacking away to cover up their tracks and keep tabs on them, all in the hopes of helping them someday within the shadows. Truth be told, she’s not the most vibrant of characters but that helps her stand out from the crowd because everyone else is so vibrant and alive that it’s nice to have a character to deals in realism. In many ways, she’s similar to John’s (Number Four) Cêpan Henry from the novel that started this series. With that in mind, she’s also very broken but her sadness and heartbroken attitude gives her the drive that pushes her to live, highlighting her strength of character and the way she works very hard to stay hard in her resolve to survive and fight the enemy.
This is short tale, a hundred pages, but each page packs a punch. From the very beginning, readers are drawn in, not by soft words but with a bang of emotions and thoughts. That is when readers really first meet this side note character who has about a handful of lines in the last novel, The Fate of Ten. To be fair, readers have already met this character through the view point of Mark in the previous novella’s, so readers know a little bit about her, but this story really gets down into what makes this character GUARD, all the elements that turned her into a shadow hero, someone who works behind the scenes. There aren’t enough stories about the people who work behind the scenes and this tale focuses on her journey and the small evolution of her character. She’s a very closed off character, but still relatable because of her resolve to live despite everything she has lost in the world.
It’s not a fast paced tale because it is very story oriented and focused on building this character’s past, the important parts anyway. We are given enough information to understand this character. This novella also serves as a chance to really focus on the character outside of the Lorien Legacies series. It’s short, it’s (bitter)sweet an a well told story. She’s a hacker whose a hero and there’s just not enough stories out there about people like that while additionally giving the character a well-rounded and down to earth personality. (★★★☆☆ | B)