YMMV / Star Wars: Queen's Peril

• Continuity Lockout: The parts of the book set during The Phantom Menace tend to skip over a lot of information setting up major events and generally requires the reader to be familiar with that film to make sense of things.
• Narm: Padmé and her handmaidens inadvertantly cause a potential diplomatic incident that requires them to employ the decoy trick and ends up straining Padmé and Sabé's friendship. The cause of this serious incident? Padmé got covered in glitter after she snuck out to attend a concert and can't wash it off, so Sabé must take her place to avoid offending the ambassadors. Padmé is mistaken for Sabé by a girl she'd been flirting with and accidentally offends her, causing the girl to cut contact with Sabé, and it's this that causes Sabé's rift with Padmé. While they are teenagers, these particular teens are presented as being mature and resilient enough to run a planetary government, so the whole situation can come off as a ludicrous case of Skewed Priorities.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Palo Jemabie, Padmé's First Love when they were both in the Legislative Youth Program, never appears or is even mentioned, despite this being a perfect opportunity to explore his character and Padmé's relationship with him in more depth; expanded material reveals that he created posters for Padmé's inauguration as queen, so they seemed to be on good terms and this could've been used as a way to introduce him seeing as Padmé's coronation is featured in the plot.
  • The novel had an opportunity to reintroduce King Veruna, the corrupt monarch succeeded by Padmé; he could've served as a potential adversary to Padmé and they could've explored him being involved with the Trade Federation and Sith (as he was in Legends) in a way that ties in with the new Canon. It would've also put added pressure on Padmé to prove herself seeing as her predecessor was such a dumpster fire. However, Veruna never even gets a mention and Padmé's immediate predecessor is retconned as being a never-previously-mentioned queen, which ends up causing some continuity errors.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Captain Panaka tends to be portrayed here as an overly stern stick-in-the-mud, who is too hard on Padmé and her handmaidens for sneaking around behind his back, keeping things from him and being rebellious; when Panaka is furious with them for sneaking out to attend a concert, Mariek says he should expect them to rebel because 'they're teens'. However, Padmé and her handmaidens aren't ordinary teens; they're in charge of running an entire planet and therefore are expected to behave in a more mature and responsible manner. Panaka's job is to keep the Queen of Naboo safe, which they're actively making more difficult, so it's hard not to sympathize with his frustrations.

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