I grew up on the Young Jedi Knights books, and when I was older, I think I read the Thrawn trilogy all the way through maybe a dozen times as a teenager. That was the best of the EU, as far as I'm concerned.

NJO was awful. I've never been as invested in Star Wars since I put down the ninth NJO book and decided I just couldn't do it anymore. The stages of grief that most Star Wars fans went through with Disney Star Wars, from denial through anger through bargaining to the end result of not giving a shit: I went through all of that already with the NJO. I was already pretty much alienated and disengaged years before The Force Awakens came out.

The way they treated the deaths of major characters, including characters who'd been built up as the sort of "next generation" of Star Wars heroes that would fill Luke's shoes, only to be snuffed out like they never meant anything, pissed me off to no end.

On top of that, the Yuuzhan Vong had no place in the Star Wars universe. Up to that point, Star Wars was the perfect blend of sci-fi and fantasy: a futuristic, high-tech universe centered around a fundamental, mystical Force that holds the whole thing together. To introduce a species of James Cameron-inspired BDSM fetishists who weren't affected by the Force didn't just disrupt that integrity: it demolished it.

And for what? What audience were the Vong supposed to appeal to? Adults? No, too childish. Kids? Well, if that was the target, that's a little suspicious. Warhammer fans? 40k does the whole grimdark thing a hell of a lot better.

The only people the Vong were designed to appeal to were the resentful, impotent, angsty teenaged Millennial edgelords who were already burgeoning sexual fetishists, and who eventually grew up to be exactly the sort of nihilistic wokists who are now on a crusade to subvert every cultural phenomenon that used to provide people with a sense of inspiration and moral direction. I would argue that Star Wars isn't just another victim of that phenomenon: it was the first.