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Lightlark #1
Lightlark
Ogni cento anni, l'isola di Lightlark appare per ospitare il Centennale, una sfida mortale a cui sono invitati a partecipare sei sovrani di altrettanti regni - Natura, Stelle, Luna, Cielo, Sole e Ombre della Notte -, che hanno così la possibilità di spezzare le maledizioni che da secoli schiacciano i loro popoli, conquistando un potere senza eguali. Ma a un prezzo: uno di loro deve morire. Tra i partecipanti del nuovo Centennale c'è Isla Crown, la giovane sovrana della Stirpe della Natura, un regno formato per la gran parte di donne guerriere, temute e odiate poiché condannate a uccidere chiunque si innamori di loro, e in cui l'amore è diventato col passare del tempo proibito. Isla è l'unica possibilità di salvezza per i Naturali ed è determinata a ottenere la vittoria a ogni costo, ma il grande segreto che custodisce può decretare la sua rovina, soprattutto quando il suo cuore inizia a battere per uno dei suoi avversari...
432 pages, Hardcover
First published August 23, 2022
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May 25, 2024
I rarely use GoodReads, but because I received an advanced copy of the book, I thought it best to distribute this review across all platforms where I have an account. Thanks for the arc btw!
Where to begin?
I picked up this book because of tiktok. This book got picked up by a publisher because of tiktok. This book is a tiktok success story, an amalgamation of all that tiktok has to offer, and by extension, all the books that are popular on tiktok before it. Calling it pastiche would be kind. Each scene felt very reminiscent of something out of another YA book. Many, many YA books. So much of this book is borrowed from ACOTAR that any differentiation from the plot of ACOTAR felt like a subversion of story even if it made perfect sense within Lightlark's narrative. Also, I can proudly say that any comparison to the Hunger Games is unwarranted. It's a terrible comparison that sets up false expectations. More accurately, it's ACOTAR meets the Selection. Yeah.
Before I really lay into this book, I'll say that I understand why people would like it. I understand the appeal. Some people like reading 100 different versions of the same kind of book. I get it. It's comforting. I am also that way with certain genres of books or types of movies. But comfort, familiarity, they're not tangible measures of storytelling quality. It's possible to be comforted and find excitement in something that suffers from flaws. So, make peace with that.
I'll work my way up.
The building blocks of story are prose. Aster's prose is not bad, but undercooked and sometimes repetitive. Unique metaphors are one-hit wonders, if you pull them out again, we will notice (hair like ink on his brow, buttery sunlight). It does not read like fantasy prose and feels entirely too modern. That was a problem deeper than prose, but certainly evident in the writing style. I had the privilege of consuming this novel on audiobook, and without the narrator, many writing faults would be more evident. (Also, I don't know how to spell any of these names because I read it on audiobook. So sorry for that.)
That being said, it is consumable. I could get through it. I feel like I had an okay sense of where the characters were spacially. I knew where they were mentally because the author would just tell us. It's a common vice in Young Adult. The blatant explanations of Isla's struggle in her internal monologue and the faux femininist ideology of this book that would've been standard in the early 2010s really highlighted Sarah J Maas' writing as inspiration. Which kind of sucks, because her prose isn't good either.
Now onto the premise. There are six rulers of six different realms trying to break their curses by competing in a Centennial, a game that takes place on an island that only emerges every hundred years. Simple enough? No it isn't.
Listen, I am a seasoned fantasy reader. More than that, I was a Supernatural fan in my heyday. I have made sense of many things that do not make sense.
This book did not make sense.
First and foremost, it's impossible to get a real grasp on stakes. These lands have been suffering with their curses for five hundred years. And some of the curses are gnarly! The wildling's curse is that they have to eat a human heart every month to survive. But then, the people here live to be very old? Which, presumably means that they don't have very many children. The population can't be that high, because it wouldn't be sustainable if people are living longer. So how do they have even a year's supply of hearts? It's explained to us that the wildlings are dying, that their realm is losing power, that they don't have enough hearts to sustain them, but it's so hard to have a good grasp on exactly what's going on because there are so many variables that are vaguely explained. Are they at half their power, a tenth? How big are they compared to other realms? How many people do they lose a year? We need to understand the stakes! Please!
For example, both of the love interests in this thing are over 500 years old. Yet, the starling curse is that their people don't live past the age of 25. How- I can't even wrap my head around it. In a world where people are living centuries, you give them a quarter of one, and barely explain its repercussions. Every single person in that realm was raised by teenagers. They're all young parents or teen moms. Saying that's the curse and that obviously it sucks and that's why their numbers are dwindling is not good enough, because I cannot understand the stakes. I don't understand how this was sustainable for 500 years and it's not anymore. I don't understand the ways the world has changed in a way that has material impacts on the average person besides "yeah they'll die early". Some of this stuff was touched on, but not developed. I feel like I'm missing something, but I'm reading it with other people who got the arc, and we're all missing something then.
Okay, slight tangent, but it's clear that this world was not thought about at all. Because, naturally, I feel like there would be more inter-realm interaction if they were all weakened? The wildling realm could get their hearts from starlings who die early. Starling would not be much of a realm of its own, but instead be an orphaned diaspora at risk of fizzling out. Other realms would take advantage of their naivete and lack of mentorship. And so on and so forth.
There was some bending over backwards to explain away magial heirs and create the stakes that if someone dies in the game, their realm dies. We don't find out until like 75% throughout the book that people begin to age when they have kids because of passing down magic and heirs and whatever. She mentions elders, but then what would an elder be? How old would they be? If someone can live to a thousand without having kids and still look like they're in their 20s, is that an elder? How long do people live after they have kids? I feel like naturally, that would disincentivize having kids which once again begs the question where tf are the wildlings getting their hearts? I read this book with someone who spent the majority of it convinced that [redacted] was Isla's father, which wouldn't have been possible if any of this was actually made clear. I also might have missed it, but maybe only the realm rulers live hella long. I doubt it though because it seems like everyone in this world connected to a realm has powers. The fact that I can't tell really just proves how convoluted the worldbuilding was. My confusion effectively killed the stakes for this book, and I could not find a foothold for the forthcoming tension.
I could keep going for like five pages trying to talk about how the worldbuilding was thoughtless and an active detriment to the story. Also how it feels ACOTAResque. I did not want to live in the Lightlark world. I don't even want to visit. I don't have a good grasp on how much magic is in the world, how they lived so long with the curses, how many people live there, or even what it looks like. I was imagining traditional fantasy stuff until homegirl mentions a bra and then I was like hold the phone. Hairclips and scrunchies don't even exist in this world, and she's out here with a BRA?
The main character, Isla, is insufferable, though I've read worse. Her entire thing is not having agency, but then she'll regularly let her emotions get the better of her and make the entire situation worse when she does make decisions. I did not care for her. I felt like a lot of internal character logic was warped for the sake of plot or love interest situations. Not a fan! It's somehow more frustrating than the miscommunication trope, and not in a good way! Small knit pick, but I hate how her name was pronounced Ice-lah. Like, if it's not gonna be pronounced like Isla, just spell it differently. Eisla. There. Fixed it!
The love interests. I have nothing else to say other than Grim is Rhysand from ACOTAR and Oro is Prince Maxon from the Selection if he was OP and had hella magic. That perfectly encapsulates both how their written and the extent of their dynamics. It's so reminiscent of ~other stuff~ it's difficult to see them as their own established characters, especially Grim. They're both like 500 years old and have a rivalry.
I don't know who finds the 500 year man and 18 year old girl romance appealing, but I'm so tired of it. It's laughable. Even if they look 20... seriously? Every time I remember the character's ages, and how they actually act in the book, I have to laugh. Even just the fact that she beats them both in combat. It's like... okay. Both of these men led their armies in a war against each other 500 years ago and have been practicing fighting since and they just got their asses beat by an 18 year old. She wasn't even doing anything new that they haven't seen or her puting her own spin on it. She just beat them. Funny. I know it's YA and the main character needs some quality that gives her worth like that, but it's just so jarring.
Grim's dialogue is attrocious. I can't even tell if the other dialogue in the book is alright, or if it just looks fine next to whatever comes out of his mouth.
Pacing of this thing was excruciating. It slows down a lot at the 30% mark, and doesn't pick up again until the 70% mark. Basically, the second act is a slog. Once you reach the midpoint, it feels like it should be the break into the third act, but it's not. A lot of this felt like filler. Aster could've combined scenes easily. The trials were boring to read, and felt like there were no real stakes or reasoning behind them. They were there to give structure to the book. I don't get why the centennial was pitched as a competitive game. All realms but one benefit from the curse being broken, so why would they all compete against each other so insularly? Realistically, yes, they would've competed but it would be more political intregue, alliances and whispering behind doors, and less of whatever this is... the Selection trying to be sold as the Hunger Games.
Now, the plot twist. This thing has been teased up and down. The plot twist! The plot twist! Does the plot twist make sense? Tecnically, after like 10 minutes of explanation, yeah. Is it good? ... No. I thought the plot twist would make us re-examine a lot of the relationships that the entire book spent cultivating. It would add new insight. It did play with our perception, but it felt really out of left field. A good plot twist adds nuance. This. This was not that. This book was so entrenched deeply in plot and love interests that it lost track of like... theme. And now the things that happen in the plot are meant to inform theme. How the plot twist should reflect on theme. Maybe I'm the dumb one here, but I just thought the twist was cheap.
In the hands of a more competent author, this could've been an intriguing high fantasy. Maybe it could've been written in multiple POVs and really intereacted with its characters as rulers of dying kingdoms, and the character motivations that go along with it. I want to see what Cleo's secret was! I wanted to see how Azul faced his fears! I wanted to see how the world's consequences and the rulers' motivations interacted and intersected and led to unlikely alliances and power plays. Or, at the very least I wanted to see some cool action scenes. Even within the context of what it is, as a female-led YA book, I would've wanted... something new. Something different. Something other than another sheltered girl who's really good at fighting and falling in love. Lean into the fantasy, lean into what makes this book different. Because it just feels the same. At least define the atmosphere to be unique or noteworthy, because for all that convoluted worldbuilding, nothing feels new.
MINOR SPOILERS//
I saved this paragraph for last because it has to do with the plot twist, so if you're avoiding spoilers, look away. I won't say exactly what the twist was, but I will say by the end of it, there are no morally good female characters in the book besides the MC and a servant girl who gets two lines. And when I say not morally good, I mean they're like straight up evil. Backstabbing betrayal. Any betrayal or misstep by a man is handled with miles more nuance and forgiveness than anything a woman does in this book. The women's motivations are cartoonishly handled, and in the end, the ones responsible for the MC's plight. Very, very boring. Very tiring. Their decisions don't even foil the MC. It doesn't inform theme. It's. I don't know. It's just... in 2022? Really? We're doing this? I'm gonna have to add more stipulations to the Bechdel test because come on.
I don't want to write a conclusion, so I won't. Thanks for the arc. My curiosity has been quenched. Tiktok will love this book.
Where to begin?
I picked up this book because of tiktok. This book got picked up by a publisher because of tiktok. This book is a tiktok success story, an amalgamation of all that tiktok has to offer, and by extension, all the books that are popular on tiktok before it. Calling it pastiche would be kind. Each scene felt very reminiscent of something out of another YA book. Many, many YA books. So much of this book is borrowed from ACOTAR that any differentiation from the plot of ACOTAR felt like a subversion of story even if it made perfect sense within Lightlark's narrative. Also, I can proudly say that any comparison to the Hunger Games is unwarranted. It's a terrible comparison that sets up false expectations. More accurately, it's ACOTAR meets the Selection. Yeah.
Before I really lay into this book, I'll say that I understand why people would like it. I understand the appeal. Some people like reading 100 different versions of the same kind of book. I get it. It's comforting. I am also that way with certain genres of books or types of movies. But comfort, familiarity, they're not tangible measures of storytelling quality. It's possible to be comforted and find excitement in something that suffers from flaws. So, make peace with that.
I'll work my way up.
The building blocks of story are prose. Aster's prose is not bad, but undercooked and sometimes repetitive. Unique metaphors are one-hit wonders, if you pull them out again, we will notice (hair like ink on his brow, buttery sunlight). It does not read like fantasy prose and feels entirely too modern. That was a problem deeper than prose, but certainly evident in the writing style. I had the privilege of consuming this novel on audiobook, and without the narrator, many writing faults would be more evident. (Also, I don't know how to spell any of these names because I read it on audiobook. So sorry for that.)
That being said, it is consumable. I could get through it. I feel like I had an okay sense of where the characters were spacially. I knew where they were mentally because the author would just tell us. It's a common vice in Young Adult. The blatant explanations of Isla's struggle in her internal monologue and the faux femininist ideology of this book that would've been standard in the early 2010s really highlighted Sarah J Maas' writing as inspiration. Which kind of sucks, because her prose isn't good either.
Now onto the premise. There are six rulers of six different realms trying to break their curses by competing in a Centennial, a game that takes place on an island that only emerges every hundred years. Simple enough? No it isn't.
Listen, I am a seasoned fantasy reader. More than that, I was a Supernatural fan in my heyday. I have made sense of many things that do not make sense.
This book did not make sense.
First and foremost, it's impossible to get a real grasp on stakes. These lands have been suffering with their curses for five hundred years. And some of the curses are gnarly! The wildling's curse is that they have to eat a human heart every month to survive. But then, the people here live to be very old? Which, presumably means that they don't have very many children. The population can't be that high, because it wouldn't be sustainable if people are living longer. So how do they have even a year's supply of hearts? It's explained to us that the wildlings are dying, that their realm is losing power, that they don't have enough hearts to sustain them, but it's so hard to have a good grasp on exactly what's going on because there are so many variables that are vaguely explained. Are they at half their power, a tenth? How big are they compared to other realms? How many people do they lose a year? We need to understand the stakes! Please!
For example, both of the love interests in this thing are over 500 years old. Yet, the starling curse is that their people don't live past the age of 25. How- I can't even wrap my head around it. In a world where people are living centuries, you give them a quarter of one, and barely explain its repercussions. Every single person in that realm was raised by teenagers. They're all young parents or teen moms. Saying that's the curse and that obviously it sucks and that's why their numbers are dwindling is not good enough, because I cannot understand the stakes. I don't understand how this was sustainable for 500 years and it's not anymore. I don't understand the ways the world has changed in a way that has material impacts on the average person besides "yeah they'll die early". Some of this stuff was touched on, but not developed. I feel like I'm missing something, but I'm reading it with other people who got the arc, and we're all missing something then.
Okay, slight tangent, but it's clear that this world was not thought about at all. Because, naturally, I feel like there would be more inter-realm interaction if they were all weakened? The wildling realm could get their hearts from starlings who die early. Starling would not be much of a realm of its own, but instead be an orphaned diaspora at risk of fizzling out. Other realms would take advantage of their naivete and lack of mentorship. And so on and so forth.
There was some bending over backwards to explain away magial heirs and create the stakes that if someone dies in the game, their realm dies. We don't find out until like 75% throughout the book that people begin to age when they have kids because of passing down magic and heirs and whatever. She mentions elders, but then what would an elder be? How old would they be? If someone can live to a thousand without having kids and still look like they're in their 20s, is that an elder? How long do people live after they have kids? I feel like naturally, that would disincentivize having kids which once again begs the question where tf are the wildlings getting their hearts? I read this book with someone who spent the majority of it convinced that [redacted] was Isla's father, which wouldn't have been possible if any of this was actually made clear. I also might have missed it, but maybe only the realm rulers live hella long. I doubt it though because it seems like everyone in this world connected to a realm has powers. The fact that I can't tell really just proves how convoluted the worldbuilding was. My confusion effectively killed the stakes for this book, and I could not find a foothold for the forthcoming tension.
I could keep going for like five pages trying to talk about how the worldbuilding was thoughtless and an active detriment to the story. Also how it feels ACOTAResque. I did not want to live in the Lightlark world. I don't even want to visit. I don't have a good grasp on how much magic is in the world, how they lived so long with the curses, how many people live there, or even what it looks like. I was imagining traditional fantasy stuff until homegirl mentions a bra and then I was like hold the phone. Hairclips and scrunchies don't even exist in this world, and she's out here with a BRA?
The main character, Isla, is insufferable, though I've read worse. Her entire thing is not having agency, but then she'll regularly let her emotions get the better of her and make the entire situation worse when she does make decisions. I did not care for her. I felt like a lot of internal character logic was warped for the sake of plot or love interest situations. Not a fan! It's somehow more frustrating than the miscommunication trope, and not in a good way! Small knit pick, but I hate how her name was pronounced Ice-lah. Like, if it's not gonna be pronounced like Isla, just spell it differently. Eisla. There. Fixed it!
The love interests. I have nothing else to say other than Grim is Rhysand from ACOTAR and Oro is Prince Maxon from the Selection if he was OP and had hella magic. That perfectly encapsulates both how their written and the extent of their dynamics. It's so reminiscent of ~other stuff~ it's difficult to see them as their own established characters, especially Grim. They're both like 500 years old and have a rivalry.
I don't know who finds the 500 year man and 18 year old girl romance appealing, but I'm so tired of it. It's laughable. Even if they look 20... seriously? Every time I remember the character's ages, and how they actually act in the book, I have to laugh. Even just the fact that she beats them both in combat. It's like... okay. Both of these men led their armies in a war against each other 500 years ago and have been practicing fighting since and they just got their asses beat by an 18 year old. She wasn't even doing anything new that they haven't seen or her puting her own spin on it. She just beat them. Funny. I know it's YA and the main character needs some quality that gives her worth like that, but it's just so jarring.
Grim's dialogue is attrocious. I can't even tell if the other dialogue in the book is alright, or if it just looks fine next to whatever comes out of his mouth.
Pacing of this thing was excruciating. It slows down a lot at the 30% mark, and doesn't pick up again until the 70% mark. Basically, the second act is a slog. Once you reach the midpoint, it feels like it should be the break into the third act, but it's not. A lot of this felt like filler. Aster could've combined scenes easily. The trials were boring to read, and felt like there were no real stakes or reasoning behind them. They were there to give structure to the book. I don't get why the centennial was pitched as a competitive game. All realms but one benefit from the curse being broken, so why would they all compete against each other so insularly? Realistically, yes, they would've competed but it would be more political intregue, alliances and whispering behind doors, and less of whatever this is... the Selection trying to be sold as the Hunger Games.
Now, the plot twist. This thing has been teased up and down. The plot twist! The plot twist! Does the plot twist make sense? Tecnically, after like 10 minutes of explanation, yeah. Is it good? ... No. I thought the plot twist would make us re-examine a lot of the relationships that the entire book spent cultivating. It would add new insight. It did play with our perception, but it felt really out of left field. A good plot twist adds nuance. This. This was not that. This book was so entrenched deeply in plot and love interests that it lost track of like... theme. And now the things that happen in the plot are meant to inform theme. How the plot twist should reflect on theme. Maybe I'm the dumb one here, but I just thought the twist was cheap.
In the hands of a more competent author, this could've been an intriguing high fantasy. Maybe it could've been written in multiple POVs and really intereacted with its characters as rulers of dying kingdoms, and the character motivations that go along with it. I want to see what Cleo's secret was! I wanted to see how Azul faced his fears! I wanted to see how the world's consequences and the rulers' motivations interacted and intersected and led to unlikely alliances and power plays. Or, at the very least I wanted to see some cool action scenes. Even within the context of what it is, as a female-led YA book, I would've wanted... something new. Something different. Something other than another sheltered girl who's really good at fighting and falling in love. Lean into the fantasy, lean into what makes this book different. Because it just feels the same. At least define the atmosphere to be unique or noteworthy, because for all that convoluted worldbuilding, nothing feels new.
MINOR SPOILERS//
I saved this paragraph for last because it has to do with the plot twist, so if you're avoiding spoilers, look away. I won't say exactly what the twist was, but I will say by the end of it, there are no morally good female characters in the book besides the MC and a servant girl who gets two lines. And when I say not morally good, I mean they're like straight up evil. Backstabbing betrayal. Any betrayal or misstep by a man is handled with miles more nuance and forgiveness than anything a woman does in this book. The women's motivations are cartoonishly handled, and in the end, the ones responsible for the MC's plight. Very, very boring. Very tiring. Their decisions don't even foil the MC. It doesn't inform theme. It's. I don't know. It's just... in 2022? Really? We're doing this? I'm gonna have to add more stipulations to the Bechdel test because come on.
I don't want to write a conclusion, so I won't. Thanks for the arc. My curiosity has been quenched. Tiktok will love this book.
January 12, 2023
I’M HOOKED. I have read this book 3 times since it was released. The second time was because the plot twist is massive (one of several) and the type that makes you immediately want to re-read to see how you could have missed it. The third time, I re-read because I missed the world. Also, because I learned this was going to be a movie, so I wanted to experience it again.
The middle is a tad bit slow, but once you get to the ending, everything makes sense. I highly suggest you finish before forming a final opinion. Many things I’ve seen talked about are people not finishing the book and making conclusions based on a partial read.
I recently saw that this book has been on the bestsellers list for like 6 months or something, and I am so glad people are still discovering this book. The romance was perfectly steamy, and kept you guessing until the end. The fantasy and action kept me reading well into the night. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book, because this is the next big thing. I cannot WAIT for this series to continue.
The middle is a tad bit slow, but once you get to the ending, everything makes sense. I highly suggest you finish before forming a final opinion. Many things I’ve seen talked about are people not finishing the book and making conclusions based on a partial read.
I recently saw that this book has been on the bestsellers list for like 6 months or something, and I am so glad people are still discovering this book. The romance was perfectly steamy, and kept you guessing until the end. The fantasy and action kept me reading well into the night. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book, because this is the next big thing. I cannot WAIT for this series to continue.
August 7, 2022
Since Lightlark is almost out, I wanted to write a short welcome note to readers, with an exciting announcement. I am thrilled to share that Lightlark is being made into a movie by Universal, and the producers of Twilight, The Maze Runner, The Hate U Give, The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Love, Simon, and many more of my favorite movies! The studio and producers read Lightlark pre-publication, and loved it, which is truly a dream come true.
Thank you for your support, and interest in this book—it truly means the world to me. I put all of my favorite things into Lightlark: fantasy, romance, mystery, magic, and adventure. 6 rulers have 100 days on an island that only appears once every 100 years to break their deadly curses. Each curse is uniquely wicked. Everyone has a secret. There are lies and liars all around you… Welcome to the Centennial. <3
Thank you for your support, and interest in this book—it truly means the world to me. I put all of my favorite things into Lightlark: fantasy, romance, mystery, magic, and adventure. 6 rulers have 100 days on an island that only appears once every 100 years to break their deadly curses. Each curse is uniquely wicked. Everyone has a secret. There are lies and liars all around you… Welcome to the Centennial. <3
August 31, 2022
yes i did enjoy this book and no, no one is forcing me to say this.
after reading this book. i can say lightlark’s target audience are adolescents. being 21 myself, i couldn’t connect with the story as a 14 year would have. and that’s perfectly ok.
that being said, i still think it’s a well written, easy to read, and enjoyable story. is it the most unique thing i’ve ever read? no. but it is to some teenager out there. i enjoyed it for what it gave me not for what i wish it did.
still, Aster included everything i loved in a YA fantasy in this book. i mostly enjoyed it for the nostalgia i felt reading it. with the enemies to lovers plot points, a lush story, and twist and turns i didn’t see coming…i’m excited to see where the rest of this story will lead and can’t wait for the sequel.
after reading this book. i can say lightlark’s target audience are adolescents. being 21 myself, i couldn’t connect with the story as a 14 year would have. and that’s perfectly ok.
that being said, i still think it’s a well written, easy to read, and enjoyable story. is it the most unique thing i’ve ever read? no. but it is to some teenager out there. i enjoyed it for what it gave me not for what i wish it did.
still, Aster included everything i loved in a YA fantasy in this book. i mostly enjoyed it for the nostalgia i felt reading it. with the enemies to lovers plot points, a lush story, and twist and turns i didn’t see coming…i’m excited to see where the rest of this story will lead and can’t wait for the sequel.
December 19, 2022
It's the Hunger Games on Love Island... but not in a good way.
So what went wrong?
❌World building- It's non existent. There's no clarity.
❌Characters- All of them are bland. There's no personality.
❌FMC- She is extremely weak.
❌Love interests- I swear don't ever disrespect Rhysand and Edward Cullen.
❌Writing- It's super messy. There's no life in it. Imagine eating cardboard as a salad, that's what this book is.
What went right?
✔️The cover
✔️The book ends
Whoever rated this three stars and above is absolutely 100% lying to you. It's the perfect recipe to put you in a reading slump.
So what went wrong?
❌World building- It's non existent. There's no clarity.
❌Characters- All of them are bland. There's no personality.
❌FMC- She is extremely weak.
❌Love interests- I swear don't ever disrespect Rhysand and Edward Cullen.
❌Writing- It's super messy. There's no life in it. Imagine eating cardboard as a salad, that's what this book is.
What went right?
✔️The cover
✔️The book ends
Whoever rated this three stars and above is absolutely 100% lying to you. It's the perfect recipe to put you in a reading slump.
August 12, 2022
Here’s my official blurb!
“If The Hunger Games was a dark fairy tale, you’d get the vicious and enchanting Lightlark. Get ready to be transported into a dazzling world where love is a death sentence and the romances between competitors are even fiercer than the curses plaguing the islands.”
“If The Hunger Games was a dark fairy tale, you’d get the vicious and enchanting Lightlark. Get ready to be transported into a dazzling world where love is a death sentence and the romances between competitors are even fiercer than the curses plaguing the islands.”
August 10, 2022
THIS BOOK LIVES UP TO THE HYPE.
I had my doubts, but omg this is one of the best written, best plotted books I’ve read this year. Maybe ever.
That ending?!??
Trust me. You want to read it.
I had my doubts, but omg this is one of the best written, best plotted books I’ve read this year. Maybe ever.
That ending?!??
Trust me. You want to read it.
April 27, 2023
nobody:
alex aster: DID YOU KNOW IM #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER?? DID YOU!? DID YOU ALSO KNOW MY BOOK IS BEING MADE INTO A MOVIE FRANCHISE BY UNIVERSAL AND THE PRODUCERS OF TWILIGHT????
well alex aster, DID YOU KNOW YOUR BOOK IS ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT??
alex aster: DID YOU KNOW IM #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER?? DID YOU!? DID YOU ALSO KNOW MY BOOK IS BEING MADE INTO A MOVIE FRANCHISE BY UNIVERSAL AND THE PRODUCERS OF TWILIGHT????
well alex aster, DID YOU KNOW YOUR BOOK IS ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT??
January 2, 2022
So we all came here from tick-tock
July 1, 2022
I haven't felt such joy, shock, and wonder reading a book in a very very long time. The hype is real. I can't wait for the sequel.
August 12, 2022
OMG. My love for fantasy has been RENEWED. Five easy stars (T⌓T)
(review to come...)
(review to come...)
August 10, 2022
Easily one of the best books of the year. Well done.
August 23, 2022
Final update 8/23/22:
The thing about this book is that people have gotten so caught up in the drama surrounding her privilege and connections and marketing that concerns/complaints about the actual quality of the book have taken a backseat.
If you take away everything else, this book is just poorly written and nonsensical. It’s bad. And not in a guilty pleasure sort of way, but in a “I’m offended that you thought you could sell this to readers” sort of way. And honestly, if I was the editor that was in the YAlit Reddit thread arguing with people in the comments, I would be embarrassed to admit that I edited this book. If this is the final product, I can’t imagine what a first draft looked like.
Updated again 8/16/22:
The discourse over Alex’s potential connections has exploded, and I just want to say that this book is bad enough to be dragged only for its quality and content, regardless of whether or not she had connections. Also!! Alex is now commenting on videos saying that people giving her 1 star reviews are doing it because they have something against her personally, and this infuriates me. No, it’s because this is a dumpster fire of a book that deserves the 1 star reviews it is getting. I saw a TikTok comment calling this the Fyre Festival of books and I’ve never seen something so accurate.
Updated again 8/15/22 to say that following the reviews for this book has taken over my life. I am obsessed with watching the ratings plummet and reading the 1 star reviews come in as people actually read this garbage book. It is very pleasing to my soul and I am eagerly awaiting the release date for when the masses can tear it apart.
Updated Review 8/12/22
I am also reading these glowing 5 star reviews and they are so over the top that I literally cannot believe they are real. I am 100% convinced that Aster's team has paid people to write these reviews in order to drum up more excitement. Even if you liked the book (somehow), the exaggerated ravings about the quality and content of the book just seem really off. Something's not right here.
*************
Before I begin, I want to make it clear that I only made it 25% into this book. Not because I was too busy or too lazy, but because I refused to give this book any more of my time than that. I am actually insulted that YA publishing thought they could get away with this. I’m angry, flabbergasted, and extremely disappointed.
I didn’t think I was even going to post my Goodreads review here because I figured you know, just because I DNF’d this book doesn’t mean other people wouldn’t like it. I thought I’d be nice and just not give it any attention at all rather than bringing a negative light to it. But I DNF’d this book a week ago, and every day I am more pissed off over it, so I just have to get this out there.
This book is something else. I only got 25% in but that was enough. Other reviews (I’ve linked a few below) have summed it up better than I could, but this book made no sense. The premise was held together by duct tape and a prayer, and it wasn’t enough. The curse was poorly explained and it just didn’t make sense. This is a YA book, and as a seasoned fantasy reader, I shouldn’t be struggling to understand what the curse was, why it happened, or what the point of the competition was. None of it made sense. I was constantly pausing the book (I listened to it) to try to figure out what I missed, because I just couldn’t make sense of why things were the way she said they were. I know it’s a fantasy book, but you do have to provide valid, believable explanations for things. The writing is terrible. It was juvenile and repetitive, and made for a lot of cringey moments. This book was billed as upper YA or even NA, and it read like middle grade.
Honestly I’m embarrassed for the YA publishing industry at this point. It feels like the genre has truly jumped the shark with this absolute train wreck of a book. This is a book that catered to a TikTok algorithm at the expense of any sort of quality or talent. I’ve been reading YA for many, many years, and the quality has gone to shit. It makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the industry, especially when you have successful authors blurbing this book and hailing it as 5 stars and acting like it’s the second coming of Jesus. Are they contractually obligated to do so? What do the publishers have on these authors, because I refuse to believe that any decent author could blurb this book with a straight face and sing its praises. There has to be more going on behind the scenes. I’m honestly half convinced this is some sort of social experiment.
If this is the future of YA publishing, it does not look good. I created the YAlit subreddit in 2011, in what I consider to be the golden age of YA. The Hunger Games had just been released a few years prior and was in the midst of its popularity, and within a couple of years we get titles like The Raven Boys, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Throne of Glass, Shadow and Bone, etc. I’m not saying those books are all perfect, because they’re not, but Lightlark is absolutely nothing compared to them. It’s insulting to even put them in the same category. I’m sorry, but it’s very sad to see this industry go from celebrating talented writers like Maggie Stiefvater and Laini Taylor to….this. It truly feels like Alex Aster is some sort of industry plant whose sole purpose was to sing and dance and perform for the masses in order to sell a trope-ridden book written specifically for the TikTok algorithm. I have to give it to her, she performed very well and served her purpose. But I look forward to watching the Goodreads rating for this book steadily decline once the book is released and people start to read it and realize they’ve been had.
I’m just so disappointed, honestly. In this book, in the publishing industry, in the millions of readers who will eat this up for no reason other than it’s a big title on TikTok. I wasn’t expecting this to be some sort of masterpiece, but I at least thought it would be decent. And it wasn’t even that. This book is nothing but a cash grab, and I think it’s actually insulting to readers.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents. I’m hoping that by putting this out there, I can finally gets some peace and stop thinking about this book.
If you want to read other reviews on Goodreads from people who read the entire book, I suggest these:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
You can also find me on Instagram (shannasaurus_rex_reads)
The thing about this book is that people have gotten so caught up in the drama surrounding her privilege and connections and marketing that concerns/complaints about the actual quality of the book have taken a backseat.
If you take away everything else, this book is just poorly written and nonsensical. It’s bad. And not in a guilty pleasure sort of way, but in a “I’m offended that you thought you could sell this to readers” sort of way. And honestly, if I was the editor that was in the YAlit Reddit thread arguing with people in the comments, I would be embarrassed to admit that I edited this book. If this is the final product, I can’t imagine what a first draft looked like.
Updated again 8/16/22:
The discourse over Alex’s potential connections has exploded, and I just want to say that this book is bad enough to be dragged only for its quality and content, regardless of whether or not she had connections. Also!! Alex is now commenting on videos saying that people giving her 1 star reviews are doing it because they have something against her personally, and this infuriates me. No, it’s because this is a dumpster fire of a book that deserves the 1 star reviews it is getting. I saw a TikTok comment calling this the Fyre Festival of books and I’ve never seen something so accurate.
Updated again 8/15/22 to say that following the reviews for this book has taken over my life. I am obsessed with watching the ratings plummet and reading the 1 star reviews come in as people actually read this garbage book. It is very pleasing to my soul and I am eagerly awaiting the release date for when the masses can tear it apart.
Updated Review 8/12/22
I am also reading these glowing 5 star reviews and they are so over the top that I literally cannot believe they are real. I am 100% convinced that Aster's team has paid people to write these reviews in order to drum up more excitement. Even if you liked the book (somehow), the exaggerated ravings about the quality and content of the book just seem really off. Something's not right here.
*************
Before I begin, I want to make it clear that I only made it 25% into this book. Not because I was too busy or too lazy, but because I refused to give this book any more of my time than that. I am actually insulted that YA publishing thought they could get away with this. I’m angry, flabbergasted, and extremely disappointed.
I didn’t think I was even going to post my Goodreads review here because I figured you know, just because I DNF’d this book doesn’t mean other people wouldn’t like it. I thought I’d be nice and just not give it any attention at all rather than bringing a negative light to it. But I DNF’d this book a week ago, and every day I am more pissed off over it, so I just have to get this out there.
This book is something else. I only got 25% in but that was enough. Other reviews (I’ve linked a few below) have summed it up better than I could, but this book made no sense. The premise was held together by duct tape and a prayer, and it wasn’t enough. The curse was poorly explained and it just didn’t make sense. This is a YA book, and as a seasoned fantasy reader, I shouldn’t be struggling to understand what the curse was, why it happened, or what the point of the competition was. None of it made sense. I was constantly pausing the book (I listened to it) to try to figure out what I missed, because I just couldn’t make sense of why things were the way she said they were. I know it’s a fantasy book, but you do have to provide valid, believable explanations for things. The writing is terrible. It was juvenile and repetitive, and made for a lot of cringey moments. This book was billed as upper YA or even NA, and it read like middle grade.
Honestly I’m embarrassed for the YA publishing industry at this point. It feels like the genre has truly jumped the shark with this absolute train wreck of a book. This is a book that catered to a TikTok algorithm at the expense of any sort of quality or talent. I’ve been reading YA for many, many years, and the quality has gone to shit. It makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the industry, especially when you have successful authors blurbing this book and hailing it as 5 stars and acting like it’s the second coming of Jesus. Are they contractually obligated to do so? What do the publishers have on these authors, because I refuse to believe that any decent author could blurb this book with a straight face and sing its praises. There has to be more going on behind the scenes. I’m honestly half convinced this is some sort of social experiment.
If this is the future of YA publishing, it does not look good. I created the YAlit subreddit in 2011, in what I consider to be the golden age of YA. The Hunger Games had just been released a few years prior and was in the midst of its popularity, and within a couple of years we get titles like The Raven Boys, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Throne of Glass, Shadow and Bone, etc. I’m not saying those books are all perfect, because they’re not, but Lightlark is absolutely nothing compared to them. It’s insulting to even put them in the same category. I’m sorry, but it’s very sad to see this industry go from celebrating talented writers like Maggie Stiefvater and Laini Taylor to….this. It truly feels like Alex Aster is some sort of industry plant whose sole purpose was to sing and dance and perform for the masses in order to sell a trope-ridden book written specifically for the TikTok algorithm. I have to give it to her, she performed very well and served her purpose. But I look forward to watching the Goodreads rating for this book steadily decline once the book is released and people start to read it and realize they’ve been had.
I’m just so disappointed, honestly. In this book, in the publishing industry, in the millions of readers who will eat this up for no reason other than it’s a big title on TikTok. I wasn’t expecting this to be some sort of masterpiece, but I at least thought it would be decent. And it wasn’t even that. This book is nothing but a cash grab, and I think it’s actually insulting to readers.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents. I’m hoping that by putting this out there, I can finally gets some peace and stop thinking about this book.
If you want to read other reviews on Goodreads from people who read the entire book, I suggest these:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
You can also find me on Instagram (shannasaurus_rex_reads)
May 8, 2023
you know when something is so bad that you just can’t look away? yeah, that was me with this book. and yes, it was as terrible as everyone said.
the author made lightlark sound a lot more interesting and action packed than it really was (it wasn’t, at all), and comparing it to the hunger games? a literal crime. they weren’t even allowed to try to kill each other until the 50th day.
you can tell that the plot twists were heavily relied on to make up for the shitty writing, and even those were ass. i predicted every single one of them, and none were shocking anyway? how r u gonna make the characters suspicious and then expect us to be surprised that they had their own agenda
then there’s the worst part of this book: the romance. it was so. bad. just thinking about the love triangle, instalove, 500+ year old love interests with huge power imbalances, and weird ass men that were supposed to be hot (“I’m not sure what I enjoy more. Seeing the way you grip a sword . . . or the way your dress grips you.” AND HIS NAME IS GRIM 💀💀) brings me pain.
pre-reading review: lowkey wasn’t gonna read this but now i’m counting down the days until it comes out 😭 i have to know if its as bad as everyones saying lmao
the author made lightlark sound a lot more interesting and action packed than it really was (it wasn’t, at all), and comparing it to the hunger games? a literal crime. they weren’t even allowed to try to kill each other until the 50th day.
you can tell that the plot twists were heavily relied on to make up for the shitty writing, and even those were ass. i predicted every single one of them, and none were shocking anyway? how r u gonna make the characters suspicious and then expect us to be surprised that they had their own agenda
then there’s the worst part of this book: the romance. it was so. bad. just thinking about the love triangle, instalove, 500+ year old love interests with huge power imbalances, and weird ass men that were supposed to be hot (“I’m not sure what I enjoy more. Seeing the way you grip a sword . . . or the way your dress grips you.” AND HIS NAME IS GRIM 💀💀) brings me pain.
pre-reading review: lowkey wasn’t gonna read this but now i’m counting down the days until it comes out 😭 i have to know if its as bad as everyones saying lmao
August 5, 2022
acotar sweetie you dont look so good 😔
August 29, 2022
Update: I was kindly given access to an audiobook on NetGalley and can now divulge a full, honest review! Fair warning, I was right about this being an ACOTAR ripoff with terrible prose. I feel thoroughly validated lmao
Are you ever so nosy that you willingly invest $16.99 in a pre-order sale? Because yeah, that's how we've ended up here. Giving me adult money was a mistake.
Anyhow, I have been lurking on Alex Aster's success story for a while now because it's remarkable how well she's marketed her book. From BookTok to a 6 figure deal and an impressive following, Aster has likely secured herself a spot on every bestseller list. It's commendable, genuinely, I am impressed with how she and her team have generated hype for this book. So much, that I was willing to pre-order and receive the 5 free chapters. Read all 52 pages in one sitting.
I have thoughts.
This book has been touted as this Hunger Games x ACOTAR fantasy and I need y'all to manage those expectations because the writing makes it plainly obvious that this book is a debut. In fact, the writing comes off as a second draft that would have benefitted from closer editing:
A lot of the story (from what I read) relies on telling rather than showing and it leads to a lot of info dump so far. We are told that there were six realms, with six respective rulers, and six specific curses. We are told that Isla had a restricted childhood, who the perceived villains are, how the curses impact the different realms...
And the funny thing is that even with all this telling, the world-building is very confusing. From what I've gathered, there are 6 realms and the realms are countries?? Isla mentions there are uninhabited countries that she could escape to, but the focus is on the Wilding, Skyling, Moonling, Starling, Nightshade and Lightlark. We are told that Lightlark is an island that appears every 100 years, but it was also at war with Nightshade; but then we are also told that Lightlark was inhabited with people from the other 4 countries (Wilding, Skyling, Moonling, Starling) but then the rulers of the realm got killed after getting cursed - and everyone thinks Nightshade is responsible for the curses? Am I losing anyone yet??? These 6 rulers are supposed to compete in a 100-day game/battle called the Centennial in which one of them must die - note, this system hasn't worked in the past 400 years, but they still keep doing the Centennial because...reasons.
I feel like the author just made the rules very convoluted and hard to follow without the logic that we saw in the Hunger Games. For instance, in the Hunger Games, we understood that children were selected as a way to lower morale in the districts; in Lightlark, the rulers are selected...but they have been competing for 400 years (Isla is the youngest realm ruler while the others are like 500 years old lmao) so I don't get what's different about each time? In the Hunger Games, the competitors are sent to the Capitol; in Lightlark they are sent to Lightlark, the original realm with power, but also the King of Lightlark is cursed so does he also compete? In the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta meet with fashion designers to demonstrate how the Capitol demands pomp behind the tragic killing; in Lightlark, Isla has an appointment with the tailor...just because? I'm not sharing these parallels to demand the author make a carbon copy of the Hunger Games, but if you are gonna comp with such an iconic YA dystopia, you need to follow through.
(Also this is a minor thing but from the character reveals we've had so far and the general Eurocentric fantasy world vibes, I'm sensing the book is gonna be very white/white-passing. I know Aster is Colombian so I give her kudos for being a WOC author in such a difficult industry. But I also can't deny that she is very white-passing and that does play a role in the diversity we might see in this book.)
We are told that Isla feels dread, that her people are dying, but I never felt an urgency in the atmosphere of the story. The fact that Isla has time to go on a chocolate-eating date with one of the other realm rulers makes me doubt the stakes of the Centennial.
SPEAKING OF DATE, y'all...the ACOTAR really jumped out. Remember when I mentioned the 6 realms, let me repeat them for you: Wildling, Skyling, Moonling, Starling, Nightshade, and Lightlark. If there's a villain (as the author has heavily hinted at "villain gets the girl") guess where he's from. Let me make it worse, his name is Grimshaw LMAOOO.
Might as well have stuck a "Hello, Isla darling" in that introduction because that character is literally Rhysand in a different font. Tell me I'm wrong! You may argue that 5 chapters aren't enough to get a read on a character but all of the characters lack depth, most of all our main character Isla. She's also very inconsistent. Isla is supposed to be trained in battle/swordplay but she almost trips off a cliff, then she always falls over a balcony because the sound of someone's clapping startled her. She is supposed to have been isolated her whole life, but she's also very good at reading people (you can argue that she snuck out of her room using the Starstick so she's well-traveled, but I would think her personality would have traces of her anti-social, subdued/secluded background, though she is certainly naive).
I can already predict that Grimshaw and Isla are endgame. Apparently, there are all these plot twists in the end so I would wager Grim betrays her for savior reasons and the next two books are about them being enemies to lovers. I also bet that Isla's second love interest is the King of Lightlark. The curses resulted from something between the Lightlark and Nightshade realms, or maybe from all the rulers contributing, idk I'm trying to guess at what would be so good that people are raving about the last 30 pages...maybe Isla's mom and dad had some kind of hand in the curses?? I mean I'm gonna find out in a month since I've preordered the book so we'll see if I was right.
Okay let's pick up since I got an ARC. Oh boy. So much to unpack.
Last time I wrote this, I was up to the start of the Centennial. Now my thing about the Centennial is that it's the dumbest concept despite instigating the sequences of events in this book. It's 100 days but in the first 50 days, all the rulers have to do demonstrations for the people of Lightlark to observe. It's supposed to be like the training days in the Hunger Games where the tributes show off their skills to secure donors during the games but the idea falls flat in Lightlark because the people who live on Lightlark don't...do anything. They watch? They attend parties? But their role is so unnecessary. Another component of these demonstrations is for rulers to scope out each other's powers but the "winning" isn't always straightforward. For Grim's demonstration, everyone had to battle it out, but the King of Lightlark, Oro, had a demonstration where everyone had the chance to show their greatest secret. Like?? Oro ends up being the winner of these demonstrations and is allowed to choose who to pair up for the next 75 days.
Oh right let me break down this timeline: 100 days on Lightlark; can't kill anyone until after the 50th day. By day 25 or 50 (I think) the rulers pair up to solve the prophecy to break their curses. It's so dumb this entire book is about searching for relics. First Isla and the Starling ruler, Celeste, are searching for this thing called the Bond Breaker, then Isla and Oro are searching for the heart of Lightlark. I think day 50 also has some kind of banquet while day 75 has a carnival event? Genuinely, none of the things that happen are important; it feels like Aster is trying to contrive situations where Isla can be hot (in a revealing dress), fierce (holding a knife to someone's throat), or whatever.
This feels like a good place to talk about how Aster has weird anti-woman, slut-shaming sentiments in the book. All of Wildling is described as being warrior women temptresses. Their curse is that they have to eat the heart of the ones they fall in love with (and they need to eat a heart every month...because reasons?) Anyways, Isla is supposed to go into the Centennial to seduce the king of Lightlark but she's so morally pure, she could never seduce someone - wearing tight clothes for her perfect body stresses her out! She's nothing like her realm (she also doesn't have powers because her dad killed her mom out of madness since her mom refused to kill him. Others have pointed out that this feels like a cop out where Isla can fall in love with both Grim and Oro and get this love triangle going). I also have to mention that Isla is fixated on Cleo (the Moonling ruler) being this evil villain; all of Cleo's interactions with her come off so cartoony. She's building a whole armada in Moonling and we never find out why. The final villain is also a woman with motivations that are so cliche (she cast the curses by accident while trying to get revenge on Oro's brother for not marrying her and falling in love with one of Isla's Wildling ancestors).
I think it's kind of funny that Aster is touting the 6 overlay campaign with the 6 realm rulers because Isla never has a conversation with anyone beyond Grim, Oro, and Celeste. Azul (the only Black character...who is also named after a color...giving Topaz vibes a la From Blood and Ash), never has a one-on-one conversation with Isla. She finds out from Oro that Azul is mourning the loss of his husband but we never get more depth into his character. It's beyond annoying that Isla only has scenes with her two love interests or her friend who [SPOILER] turns out to be the main villain after all. Isla literally ends this book with two love interests and a vague, unfounded dislike for Cleo.
But I digress. Where were we? Right, the stupid demonstrations, the endless chapters of Isla's searching, and then Act 2 is where we have Isla paired up with Oro. You would think, the time they spend paired up would give insight into Oro's character. Nope. Nuh-uh, friends, his character is so bland.
To be fair, all of them are:
- Oro (angry blonde hot guy with sun powers)
- Grim (bootleg Rhysand - seriously, he comes from a night themed realm/court and can read minds - but somehow, 13239x creepier. Every time he's mentioned he's "raking his eyes over Isla's scantily clad body." Not at all swoony. I would not trust this man to hold my drink.)
- Azul (token gay & Black character - a two for one - who does nothing for the plot. Is actually off screen for 67% of the book. ACOTAR equivalent is Tarquin but without the personality.)
- Cleo (bitch queen with vague water powers? #BiRep from one throwaway line)
- Celeste (Isla's bestie with star powers. Very magical anime girl until she isn't)
Isla rounds out all of them by being the ultra-pure, morally-pure realm ruler who is devastatingly beautiful, well versed in swordplay and battle, and if you thought she was unique for not having any powers, buckle up because the plot twist is that she has powers from not just Wildling but Nightshade as well. Oh right [SPOILER] her dad was a Nightshade.
I am so terrible at this, I keep getting off track. It's because I'm writing this like 3 weeks after finishing this book during which I did everything I could to forget this asinine world and its equally dumb characters. But the summary of this book is so easy to break down: Demonstrations finish, Oro wins. Oro picks which rulers are paired together, he pairs himself with Isla (despite her and Celeste wanting to be paired together). He tells Isla that the way to stop the curses is to find the Heart of Lightlark, which is a plant. And she's supposed to be the plant ruler, so yeah. Act 2 is him and Isla just searching for this heart, with guest appearances by Grim telling Isla he's a monster who can't be loved or some bullshit. Oro gets Isla to tell him her secret then betrays her and teams up with Cleo, then he turns away and says he did it to search Moonling without raising Cleo's suspicions. I really think that dumb plot point was so Grim could swoop and be Isla's confidante while she was mopey about the King. You would think his betrayal would trigger a new series of events and change the trajectory of the story but no. Like three chapters later, Oro and Isla make up, and then out of nowhere she's like "OH, I KNOW WHERE THE HEART IS."
DRUMROLL: the heart is an egg. Like an egg in the sky?? And it can be grabbed at daybreak?? I really don't know by that point I was numbed. Defeated, if you will, because this world-building is just vibes, 12-year-olds on Wattpad do more justice with their setting and prose. Isla goes to grab the egg and then she gets shot and Grim has to save her. On the world-building point, there's legit entire other species living on Lightlark, which I don't think is addressed at all in the marketing. Oro mentions these Ancient Ones and then he and Isla meet with like "winged people" ($50 it's some variation of the Illyrians from ACOTAR). There's also this entirely other faction of Wildlings who don't eat hearts living in Lightlark called the "Vinterlands" or something, I was on the audiobook and idk the spelling, but they shoot her for getting the heart. But we never address that in the aftermath?? Like Isla gets shot, wakes up to Grim sniveling over the idea of losing her, then she and Oro discuss which realm ruler needs to be killed now that they have the heart. I feel like the prophecy is also so dumb because someone must die because...reasons.
The book ends with Celeste revealing that she's actually Aurora the original curse caster who's been shapeshifting all this time. (Sidenote: in addition to their realm's powers some people have a super secret additional ability called a Flair. Watch Isla get a damned Flair in book 2). Celeste/Aurora has been manipulating Isla to find this thing called the Bond Break because she wanted to absorb all the powers of the realms. She can do that because in this world if people fall in love, you can access your significant other's powers...yeah...it read as stupidly in the book as it reads in this review. No surprise that this plan works because both Oro and Grim are in love with Isla. But then Isla unlocks something inside herself and it turns out she's had powers all along but her guardians have been hiding it because Aurora threatened them. She defeats Celeste and banishes Grim.
Why is Grim making a Rhysand-esque exit? Well you see, Isla had been using her starstick to teleport to all these places and one of them happened to be Nightshade. A year before the Centennial, she and Grim actually had a very passionate love affair but he erased her memories because he and Celeste wanted to take down Oro (because reasons) and they thought the best way to do that would be having Isla seduce Oro (despite her repeatedly expressing to the reader that she doesn't have a seductive bone in her body). Of course, Isla is heartbroken and super distressed by all this information and he really seals in his charm by sending her a creepy mind message that's like: you will come back to me! I'm telling you this character is so fucking weird, there is nothing intriguing or hot about his obsession with her. Not to mention his plan was the most contrived thing?? Why did he think it was a good idea to set his supposed love with his enemy??? Where is the logic??? Of course, Isla is gonna dump your sorry ass, you 500-year-old Grandpa!!!
So yeah that's where we leave off, Isla with Oro but deeply traumatized, which leaves everything perfectly set up for the ACOMAF sequence in Lightlark 2 (where Grim comes to swoop in and save her from the broody blonde man). Going back to my earlier predictions, I'm pretty pleased that I clocked the following:
- Isla saved Lightlark (obvs)
- Both Oro and Grim fall in love with her (duh)
- Isla and Grim were past lovers in some sense
- Grim was in bed with Aurora. Oh I didn't really talk about this but like, the whole reason Aurora/Celeste even managed to spin the curses was because she promised to sleep with Grim if he found her the heart of Lightlark. Yeah the heart that took Oro and Isla like 50 days to find?? Grim found it in one night in exchange for sexy times.
- I also suspected Isla's dad was probably Nightshade so I'm glad Aster came through on predictability there.
Final thoughts: this book is gonna do well on Booktok. It's literally catered to include everything people like on BookTok (enemies to lovers, women with swords, vague fantasy) but without any of the bite to deliver on those tropes. This whole thing reads like a first, maybe second draft and it's a shame that no one at any point stopped to say, "let's go back and edit this" because it has both juvenile prose and plot. Maybe the former could be forgiven for a debut, but the latter seriously makes this book unenjoyable. You never feel immersed in the book because the entire time, you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes at how stupid everything is made to be. I know everyone is talking about how Aster falsely advertised a lot of scenes and I can confirm: there's very little overlap between what she's been promoting and what made it into the final copy; the villain doesn't even get the girl in the end?? My bigger gripe though is the injustice done to tokenized characters like Cleo and Azul, what's the point of diverse characters when you don't even engage with them? Isla being a woman of color would actually send me into my villain era, that girl is a slightly tanned Feyra variant at best, an Alex Aster self-insert at worst.
Are you ever so nosy that you willingly invest $16.99 in a pre-order sale? Because yeah, that's how we've ended up here. Giving me adult money was a mistake.
Anyhow, I have been lurking on Alex Aster's success story for a while now because it's remarkable how well she's marketed her book. From BookTok to a 6 figure deal and an impressive following, Aster has likely secured herself a spot on every bestseller list. It's commendable, genuinely, I am impressed with how she and her team have generated hype for this book. So much, that I was willing to pre-order and receive the 5 free chapters. Read all 52 pages in one sitting.
I have thoughts.
This book has been touted as this Hunger Games x ACOTAR fantasy and I need y'all to manage those expectations because the writing makes it plainly obvious that this book is a debut. In fact, the writing comes off as a second draft that would have benefitted from closer editing:
"The snow villages of the Moonling new lands. The airy jubilees of the Skyling newlands. A few lands that hadn't been settled by any of the six realms at all."
A lot of the story (from what I read) relies on telling rather than showing and it leads to a lot of info dump so far. We are told that there were six realms, with six respective rulers, and six specific curses. We are told that Isla had a restricted childhood, who the perceived villains are, how the curses impact the different realms...
And the funny thing is that even with all this telling, the world-building is very confusing. From what I've gathered, there are 6 realms and the realms are countries?? Isla mentions there are uninhabited countries that she could escape to, but the focus is on the Wilding, Skyling, Moonling, Starling, Nightshade and Lightlark. We are told that Lightlark is an island that appears every 100 years, but it was also at war with Nightshade; but then we are also told that Lightlark was inhabited with people from the other 4 countries (Wilding, Skyling, Moonling, Starling) but then the rulers of the realm got killed after getting cursed - and everyone thinks Nightshade is responsible for the curses? Am I losing anyone yet??? These 6 rulers are supposed to compete in a 100-day game/battle called the Centennial in which one of them must die - note, this system hasn't worked in the past 400 years, but they still keep doing the Centennial because...reasons.
I feel like the author just made the rules very convoluted and hard to follow without the logic that we saw in the Hunger Games. For instance, in the Hunger Games, we understood that children were selected as a way to lower morale in the districts; in Lightlark, the rulers are selected...but they have been competing for 400 years (Isla is the youngest realm ruler while the others are like 500 years old lmao) so I don't get what's different about each time? In the Hunger Games, the competitors are sent to the Capitol; in Lightlark they are sent to Lightlark, the original realm with power, but also the King of Lightlark is cursed so does he also compete? In the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta meet with fashion designers to demonstrate how the Capitol demands pomp behind the tragic killing; in Lightlark, Isla has an appointment with the tailor...just because? I'm not sharing these parallels to demand the author make a carbon copy of the Hunger Games, but if you are gonna comp with such an iconic YA dystopia, you need to follow through.
(Also this is a minor thing but from the character reveals we've had so far and the general Eurocentric fantasy world vibes, I'm sensing the book is gonna be very white/white-passing. I know Aster is Colombian so I give her kudos for being a WOC author in such a difficult industry. But I also can't deny that she is very white-passing and that does play a role in the diversity we might see in this book.)
We are told that Isla feels dread, that her people are dying, but I never felt an urgency in the atmosphere of the story. The fact that Isla has time to go on a chocolate-eating date with one of the other realm rulers makes me doubt the stakes of the Centennial.
SPEAKING OF DATE, y'all...the ACOTAR really jumped out. Remember when I mentioned the 6 realms, let me repeat them for you: Wildling, Skyling, Moonling, Starling, Nightshade, and Lightlark. If there's a villain (as the author has heavily hinted at "villain gets the girl") guess where he's from. Let me make it worse, his name is Grimshaw LMAOOO.
"The face belonging to the man looking down at her was amused. And familiar, somehow. He was so tall Isla had to tilt her chin to meet his eyes, black as coal. His hair spilled ink across his pale forehead. Nightshade, no question. Which meant...
"Thank you Grimshaw," Isla said firmly."
Might as well have stuck a "Hello, Isla darling" in that introduction because that character is literally Rhysand in a different font. Tell me I'm wrong! You may argue that 5 chapters aren't enough to get a read on a character but all of the characters lack depth, most of all our main character Isla. She's also very inconsistent. Isla is supposed to be trained in battle/swordplay but she almost trips off a cliff, then she always falls over a balcony because the sound of someone's clapping startled her. She is supposed to have been isolated her whole life, but she's also very good at reading people (you can argue that she snuck out of her room using the Starstick so she's well-traveled, but I would think her personality would have traces of her anti-social, subdued/secluded background, though she is certainly naive).
I can already predict that Grimshaw and Isla are endgame. Apparently, there are all these plot twists in the end so I would wager Grim betrays her for savior reasons and the next two books are about them being enemies to lovers. I also bet that Isla's second love interest is the King of Lightlark. The curses resulted from something between the Lightlark and Nightshade realms, or maybe from all the rulers contributing, idk I'm trying to guess at what would be so good that people are raving about the last 30 pages...maybe Isla's mom and dad had some kind of hand in the curses?? I mean I'm gonna find out in a month since I've preordered the book so we'll see if I was right.
Okay let's pick up since I got an ARC. Oh boy. So much to unpack.
Last time I wrote this, I was up to the start of the Centennial. Now my thing about the Centennial is that it's the dumbest concept despite instigating the sequences of events in this book. It's 100 days but in the first 50 days, all the rulers have to do demonstrations for the people of Lightlark to observe. It's supposed to be like the training days in the Hunger Games where the tributes show off their skills to secure donors during the games but the idea falls flat in Lightlark because the people who live on Lightlark don't...do anything. They watch? They attend parties? But their role is so unnecessary. Another component of these demonstrations is for rulers to scope out each other's powers but the "winning" isn't always straightforward. For Grim's demonstration, everyone had to battle it out, but the King of Lightlark, Oro, had a demonstration where everyone had the chance to show their greatest secret. Like?? Oro ends up being the winner of these demonstrations and is allowed to choose who to pair up for the next 75 days.
Oh right let me break down this timeline: 100 days on Lightlark; can't kill anyone until after the 50th day. By day 25 or 50 (I think) the rulers pair up to solve the prophecy to break their curses. It's so dumb this entire book is about searching for relics. First Isla and the Starling ruler, Celeste, are searching for this thing called the Bond Breaker, then Isla and Oro are searching for the heart of Lightlark. I think day 50 also has some kind of banquet while day 75 has a carnival event? Genuinely, none of the things that happen are important; it feels like Aster is trying to contrive situations where Isla can be hot (in a revealing dress), fierce (holding a knife to someone's throat), or whatever.
This feels like a good place to talk about how Aster has weird anti-woman, slut-shaming sentiments in the book. All of Wildling is described as being warrior women temptresses. Their curse is that they have to eat the heart of the ones they fall in love with (and they need to eat a heart every month...because reasons?) Anyways, Isla is supposed to go into the Centennial to seduce the king of Lightlark but she's so morally pure, she could never seduce someone - wearing tight clothes for her perfect body stresses her out! She's nothing like her realm (she also doesn't have powers because her dad killed her mom out of madness since her mom refused to kill him. Others have pointed out that this feels like a cop out where Isla can fall in love with both Grim and Oro and get this love triangle going). I also have to mention that Isla is fixated on Cleo (the Moonling ruler) being this evil villain; all of Cleo's interactions with her come off so cartoony. She's building a whole armada in Moonling and we never find out why. The final villain is also a woman with motivations that are so cliche (she cast the curses by accident while trying to get revenge on Oro's brother for not marrying her and falling in love with one of Isla's Wildling ancestors).
I think it's kind of funny that Aster is touting the 6 overlay campaign with the 6 realm rulers because Isla never has a conversation with anyone beyond Grim, Oro, and Celeste. Azul (the only Black character...who is also named after a color...giving Topaz vibes a la From Blood and Ash), never has a one-on-one conversation with Isla. She finds out from Oro that Azul is mourning the loss of his husband but we never get more depth into his character. It's beyond annoying that Isla only has scenes with her two love interests or her friend who [SPOILER] turns out to be the main villain after all. Isla literally ends this book with two love interests and a vague, unfounded dislike for Cleo.
But I digress. Where were we? Right, the stupid demonstrations, the endless chapters of Isla's searching, and then Act 2 is where we have Isla paired up with Oro. You would think, the time they spend paired up would give insight into Oro's character. Nope. Nuh-uh, friends, his character is so bland.
To be fair, all of them are:
- Oro (angry blonde hot guy with sun powers)
- Grim (bootleg Rhysand - seriously, he comes from a night themed realm/court and can read minds - but somehow, 13239x creepier. Every time he's mentioned he's "raking his eyes over Isla's scantily clad body." Not at all swoony. I would not trust this man to hold my drink.)
- Azul (token gay & Black character - a two for one - who does nothing for the plot. Is actually off screen for 67% of the book. ACOTAR equivalent is Tarquin but without the personality.)
- Cleo (bitch queen with vague water powers? #BiRep from one throwaway line)
- Celeste (Isla's bestie with star powers. Very magical anime girl until she isn't)
Isla rounds out all of them by being the ultra-pure, morally-pure realm ruler who is devastatingly beautiful, well versed in swordplay and battle, and if you thought she was unique for not having any powers, buckle up because the plot twist is that she has powers from not just Wildling but Nightshade as well. Oh right [SPOILER] her dad was a Nightshade.
I am so terrible at this, I keep getting off track. It's because I'm writing this like 3 weeks after finishing this book during which I did everything I could to forget this asinine world and its equally dumb characters. But the summary of this book is so easy to break down: Demonstrations finish, Oro wins. Oro picks which rulers are paired together, he pairs himself with Isla (despite her and Celeste wanting to be paired together). He tells Isla that the way to stop the curses is to find the Heart of Lightlark, which is a plant. And she's supposed to be the plant ruler, so yeah. Act 2 is him and Isla just searching for this heart, with guest appearances by Grim telling Isla he's a monster who can't be loved or some bullshit. Oro gets Isla to tell him her secret then betrays her and teams up with Cleo, then he turns away and says he did it to search Moonling without raising Cleo's suspicions. I really think that dumb plot point was so Grim could swoop and be Isla's confidante while she was mopey about the King. You would think his betrayal would trigger a new series of events and change the trajectory of the story but no. Like three chapters later, Oro and Isla make up, and then out of nowhere she's like "OH, I KNOW WHERE THE HEART IS."
DRUMROLL: the heart is an egg. Like an egg in the sky?? And it can be grabbed at daybreak?? I really don't know by that point I was numbed. Defeated, if you will, because this world-building is just vibes, 12-year-olds on Wattpad do more justice with their setting and prose. Isla goes to grab the egg and then she gets shot and Grim has to save her. On the world-building point, there's legit entire other species living on Lightlark, which I don't think is addressed at all in the marketing. Oro mentions these Ancient Ones and then he and Isla meet with like "winged people" ($50 it's some variation of the Illyrians from ACOTAR). There's also this entirely other faction of Wildlings who don't eat hearts living in Lightlark called the "Vinterlands" or something, I was on the audiobook and idk the spelling, but they shoot her for getting the heart. But we never address that in the aftermath?? Like Isla gets shot, wakes up to Grim sniveling over the idea of losing her, then she and Oro discuss which realm ruler needs to be killed now that they have the heart. I feel like the prophecy is also so dumb because someone must die because...reasons.
The book ends with Celeste revealing that she's actually Aurora the original curse caster who's been shapeshifting all this time. (Sidenote: in addition to their realm's powers some people have a super secret additional ability called a Flair. Watch Isla get a damned Flair in book 2). Celeste/Aurora has been manipulating Isla to find this thing called the Bond Break because she wanted to absorb all the powers of the realms. She can do that because in this world if people fall in love, you can access your significant other's powers...yeah...it read as stupidly in the book as it reads in this review. No surprise that this plan works because both Oro and Grim are in love with Isla. But then Isla unlocks something inside herself and it turns out she's had powers all along but her guardians have been hiding it because Aurora threatened them. She defeats Celeste and banishes Grim.
Why is Grim making a Rhysand-esque exit? Well you see, Isla had been using her starstick to teleport to all these places and one of them happened to be Nightshade. A year before the Centennial, she and Grim actually had a very passionate love affair but he erased her memories because he and Celeste wanted to take down Oro (because reasons) and they thought the best way to do that would be having Isla seduce Oro (despite her repeatedly expressing to the reader that she doesn't have a seductive bone in her body). Of course, Isla is heartbroken and super distressed by all this information and he really seals in his charm by sending her a creepy mind message that's like: you will come back to me! I'm telling you this character is so fucking weird, there is nothing intriguing or hot about his obsession with her. Not to mention his plan was the most contrived thing?? Why did he think it was a good idea to set his supposed love with his enemy??? Where is the logic??? Of course, Isla is gonna dump your sorry ass, you 500-year-old Grandpa!!!
So yeah that's where we leave off, Isla with Oro but deeply traumatized, which leaves everything perfectly set up for the ACOMAF sequence in Lightlark 2 (where Grim comes to swoop in and save her from the broody blonde man). Going back to my earlier predictions, I'm pretty pleased that I clocked the following:
- Isla saved Lightlark (obvs)
- Both Oro and Grim fall in love with her (duh)
- Isla and Grim were past lovers in some sense
- Grim was in bed with Aurora. Oh I didn't really talk about this but like, the whole reason Aurora/Celeste even managed to spin the curses was because she promised to sleep with Grim if he found her the heart of Lightlark. Yeah the heart that took Oro and Isla like 50 days to find?? Grim found it in one night in exchange for sexy times.
- I also suspected Isla's dad was probably Nightshade so I'm glad Aster came through on predictability there.
Final thoughts: this book is gonna do well on Booktok. It's literally catered to include everything people like on BookTok (enemies to lovers, women with swords, vague fantasy) but without any of the bite to deliver on those tropes. This whole thing reads like a first, maybe second draft and it's a shame that no one at any point stopped to say, "let's go back and edit this" because it has both juvenile prose and plot. Maybe the former could be forgiven for a debut, but the latter seriously makes this book unenjoyable. You never feel immersed in the book because the entire time, you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes at how stupid everything is made to be. I know everyone is talking about how Aster falsely advertised a lot of scenes and I can confirm: there's very little overlap between what she's been promoting and what made it into the final copy; the villain doesn't even get the girl in the end?? My bigger gripe though is the injustice done to tokenized characters like Cleo and Azul, what's the point of diverse characters when you don't even engage with them? Isla being a woman of color would actually send me into my villain era, that girl is a slightly tanned Feyra variant at best, an Alex Aster self-insert at worst.
August 31, 2024
Grim??? 😭 Oro??? 🤨 jumping into book 2 ASAP
August 10, 2022
This book has it all. Suspense. Romance. Big twists. Incredible writing. I was wary of the hype, but I can see now why a studio loved it and picked it up. Definitely has franchise potential. Cant wait for the series to continue.
May 27, 2023
I will be perfectly honest: I read this book in order to properly hate it. Everyone said it was awful and all the marketing was a lie.
They weren’t wrong. It was bad. But it was also weirdly addictive.
Let me give the publisher’s blurb and then I’ll explain.
“Every 100 years, the island of Lightlark appears to host the Centennial, a deadly game that only the rulers of six realms are invited to play. The invitation is a summons—a call to embrace victory and ruin, baubles and blood. The Centennial offers the six rulers one final chance to break the curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. Each ruler has something to hide. Each realm’s curse is uniquely wicked. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die.
Isla Crown is the young ruler of Wildling—a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. They are feared and despised, and are counting on Isla to end their suffering by succeeding at the Centennial.”
Back in August, this book was going viral across booktube, booktok, goodreads, basically anywhere that books are talked about on the internet. People were saying that Alex Aster (the author) had lied in her marketing material about all the tropes and quotes, and that none of that stuff was in the actual book.
Well, I also noticed a lot of the negative reviews were for the ARCs. A lot of quotes that ARC reviewers said didn’t exist ended up being in the final copy (the one I read).
So I will provide my own, more neutral take: this book was objectively not good. But it wasn’t vomit-inducing horrific. Like I said in a status update, it felt like watching a fail compilation: bad and nonsensical at times, but ridiculously entertaining. Honestly, however, it really was just your average YA fantasy that just had ridiculous hype and false advertising.
That sad fact, however, will not stop me from roasting this book into oblivion.
*cracks knuckles*
PLOT.
I think the best thing I can say about the plot was that it was fast-paced.
Let’s just take a look at some of these quotes, shall we?
“Lightlark was a shining, cliffy thing.”
I looked it up and tell me how cliffy is an actual word.
“She glared at him meanly.”
What, are we in preschool now? What is this meanly?
(edit: meanly was said eight times I’m not even joking)
“It made the crowd’s cheers echo and braid together.”
“Isla’s stomach twisted into a braid.”
“They weren't chains at all. They were braided water, firm as a rogue wave and strong as the tide.”
I counted nine times where the word “braid” was used, all not in the context of hair.
[while threatening a ghost] Isla pulled her new dagger from her waist and brandished it. “Don’t take another…float.”
Isla, that is objectively a horrible comeback.
“Wildling, Starling, Moonling, Skyling, Sunling, and Nightshade.”
These are the most unoriginal names for realms and fantasy groups you could possibly think of. Also (and I'm being petty here), what was the issue with just finishing the pattern and saying Nightling? WHY THE ONE NON -LING ONE I DON’T LIKE THAT
Honestly, if you hate unoriginal names, don’t read this book. Isla is the ruler of Wildling, Celeste is the ruler of Starling, Cleo is the ruler of Moonling, Azul is the ruler of Skyling, Oro is the ruler of Sunling, and Grim is the ruler of Nightshade. And if that’s not enough: “Sky Isle for the Skylings, Moon Isle for the Moonlings, and Sun Isle for the Sunlings.”
HEAVEN FORBID WE FORGET WHERE THESE RULERS COME FROM PLEASE—
A lot of the plot felt very infodumpy. Something interesting would happen, and then it needed a whole page of exposition because the magic system wasn’t structured enough for us to just intuitively grasp anything. And then most of the time, the exposition wouldn’t make sense. Case in point, there’s one moment where Isla is attempting to explain the magic of Starlings: “Starlings channeled energy from the stars, allowing them to move objects.”
That objectively does not make sense. Maybe wind power would make objects move, but why star power?
The worldbuilding and magic systems were hazy at best. I had so many questions that never got answered. Let’s just take a little look at the Starlings (mild spoilers until the end of the paragraph): the Starlings’ curse is that they all die before they reach the age of twenty-five: are all the Starlings getting married at ten and having kids at fifteen? How are these children raised? How do they all know all the details of these prophecies if everyone’s dead AHHHHHH I DON’T GET IT
Other random questions: why do the rulers wear their crowns all the time? Like how the heck do they stay on with all this jumping and slashing and life risking these people do? (they are all constantly adjusting their crowns just take the stupid things off 🙄) Where is the map of this world? What happened to the Wild Isle? Why are none of these questions getting answered—
dude I have so many questions it’s not even funny.
I also need to complain about the word yolky. I have come to despise the word. The sun was called yolky TWICE.
TWICE.
TWO TIMES.
I APPARENTLY NEEDED THAT VISUAL TWO WHOLE TIMES.
AND NO SPOILERS BUT THE FACT THAT EGGS AND YOLKS ACTUALLY ENDED UP BEING SIGNIFCANT IN THE CLIMAX OF THE WHOLE STUPID BOOK UGHHHHH
Now, this book was touted on the author’s TikTok and in a stupid amount of marketing as enemies-to-lovers, villain-gets-the-girl. It had quotes, tropes etc. Some of the quotes I looked up were there, but I can totally see why people thought the tropes were all a complete lie. Isla has a little love triangle going on with two of the other realm rulers: 500-year-old love interests (bc of course they are) named Grim and Oro.
Here’s the tea y’all: the romantic tropes, stupidly enough, were advertised as belonging to ONE love interest. The tropes were ACTUALLY divided up among BOTH of them. So all that enemies-to-lovers, villain-gets-the-girl stuff? Yeah, the author means two different men.
I know. Horrible marketing.
CHARACTERS.
Isla Crown
Miss girl was honestly very dumb, but she and Oro were the most interesting characters in this whole book.
I liked how ambitious Isla was, but the most annoying thing about her was her obstinate stubbornness and then almost immediate opinion changes.
Gut wrenching betrayal? I hate you.
They have a reason? I forgive you immediately.
They've been kind for months? I think you’re amazing.
One thing that says otherwise? Traitor.
They’ve acted cold for months? You want to kill me.
A hundred hints that say they actually care about you? I still think you want to kill me and I refuse to consider anything else.
It got old quickly.
Love Interest #1: Grim (full name Grimshaw, like that’s an improvement) is your basic black-hair, morally-gray, Cardan-Greenbriar-and-Kaz-Brekker wannabe. He’s supposed to be this mysterious bad boy, but for the first time ever, I couldn’t get into it. That man is genuinely not it.
Love Interest #2: Oro, a mysterious, all-powerful golden king (“oro” literally translates to “gold” in Spanish), is 100% my favorite character. He honestly was the reason this book wasn’t a one star for me. This man knew what he wanted and was willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen. Like Isla, in a way, but he was better because he was smart about his decisions. And he actually RESPECTED Isla, unlike a CERTAIN SOMEONE WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH A G–
anyways.
also y’all i called the love triangle from the beginning hehe be proud 💜
So I’ve written for far too long and I’m going to wrap it up here. To be honest, y’all, I did enjoy this book. It was so weird and bad it actually became kind of enjoyable. I know this was definitely not the review I was expecting to write (I was thinking a lot more capital letters and a lot more ranting lol) but I think I kinda shared enough of my mixed feelings about this book.
And despite my misgivings, I’ll probably read the sequel. I want to see how this messy, strangely addictive story ends 😂
Ratings:
Star Rating: ★★☆☆☆
If This Book Was a Movie Rating: PG-13
Recommendations That Are Much Better Than This Book:
Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
The Darkening by Sunya Mara
They weren’t wrong. It was bad. But it was also weirdly addictive.
Let me give the publisher’s blurb and then I’ll explain.
“Every 100 years, the island of Lightlark appears to host the Centennial, a deadly game that only the rulers of six realms are invited to play. The invitation is a summons—a call to embrace victory and ruin, baubles and blood. The Centennial offers the six rulers one final chance to break the curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. Each ruler has something to hide. Each realm’s curse is uniquely wicked. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die.
Isla Crown is the young ruler of Wildling—a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. They are feared and despised, and are counting on Isla to end their suffering by succeeding at the Centennial.”
Back in August, this book was going viral across booktube, booktok, goodreads, basically anywhere that books are talked about on the internet. People were saying that Alex Aster (the author) had lied in her marketing material about all the tropes and quotes, and that none of that stuff was in the actual book.
Well, I also noticed a lot of the negative reviews were for the ARCs. A lot of quotes that ARC reviewers said didn’t exist ended up being in the final copy (the one I read).
So I will provide my own, more neutral take: this book was objectively not good. But it wasn’t vomit-inducing horrific. Like I said in a status update, it felt like watching a fail compilation: bad and nonsensical at times, but ridiculously entertaining. Honestly, however, it really was just your average YA fantasy that just had ridiculous hype and false advertising.
That sad fact, however, will not stop me from roasting this book into oblivion.
*cracks knuckles*
PLOT.
I think the best thing I can say about the plot was that it was fast-paced.
Let’s just take a look at some of these quotes, shall we?
“Lightlark was a shining, cliffy thing.”
I looked it up and tell me how cliffy is an actual word.
“She glared at him meanly.”
What, are we in preschool now? What is this meanly?
(edit: meanly was said eight times I’m not even joking)
“It made the crowd’s cheers echo and braid together.”
“Isla’s stomach twisted into a braid.”
“They weren't chains at all. They were braided water, firm as a rogue wave and strong as the tide.”
I counted nine times where the word “braid” was used, all not in the context of hair.
[while threatening a ghost] Isla pulled her new dagger from her waist and brandished it. “Don’t take another…float.”
Isla, that is objectively a horrible comeback.
“Wildling, Starling, Moonling, Skyling, Sunling, and Nightshade.”
These are the most unoriginal names for realms and fantasy groups you could possibly think of. Also (and I'm being petty here), what was the issue with just finishing the pattern and saying Nightling? WHY THE ONE NON -LING ONE I DON’T LIKE THAT
Honestly, if you hate unoriginal names, don’t read this book. Isla is the ruler of Wildling, Celeste is the ruler of Starling, Cleo is the ruler of Moonling, Azul is the ruler of Skyling, Oro is the ruler of Sunling, and Grim is the ruler of Nightshade. And if that’s not enough: “Sky Isle for the Skylings, Moon Isle for the Moonlings, and Sun Isle for the Sunlings.”
HEAVEN FORBID WE FORGET WHERE THESE RULERS COME FROM PLEASE—
A lot of the plot felt very infodumpy. Something interesting would happen, and then it needed a whole page of exposition because the magic system wasn’t structured enough for us to just intuitively grasp anything. And then most of the time, the exposition wouldn’t make sense. Case in point, there’s one moment where Isla is attempting to explain the magic of Starlings: “Starlings channeled energy from the stars, allowing them to move objects.”
That objectively does not make sense. Maybe wind power would make objects move, but why star power?
The worldbuilding and magic systems were hazy at best. I had so many questions that never got answered. Let’s just take a little look at the Starlings (mild spoilers until the end of the paragraph): the Starlings’ curse is that they all die before they reach the age of twenty-five: are all the Starlings getting married at ten and having kids at fifteen? How are these children raised? How do they all know all the details of these prophecies if everyone’s dead AHHHHHH I DON’T GET IT
Other random questions: why do the rulers wear their crowns all the time? Like how the heck do they stay on with all this jumping and slashing and life risking these people do? (they are all constantly adjusting their crowns just take the stupid things off 🙄) Where is the map of this world? What happened to the Wild Isle? Why are none of these questions getting answered—
dude I have so many questions it’s not even funny.
I also need to complain about the word yolky. I have come to despise the word. The sun was called yolky TWICE.
TWICE.
TWO TIMES.
I APPARENTLY NEEDED THAT VISUAL TWO WHOLE TIMES.
AND NO SPOILERS BUT THE FACT THAT EGGS AND YOLKS ACTUALLY ENDED UP BEING SIGNIFCANT IN THE CLIMAX OF THE WHOLE STUPID BOOK UGHHHHH
Now, this book was touted on the author’s TikTok and in a stupid amount of marketing as enemies-to-lovers, villain-gets-the-girl. It had quotes, tropes etc. Some of the quotes I looked up were there, but I can totally see why people thought the tropes were all a complete lie. Isla has a little love triangle going on with two of the other realm rulers: 500-year-old love interests (bc of course they are) named Grim and Oro.
Here’s the tea y’all: the romantic tropes, stupidly enough, were advertised as belonging to ONE love interest. The tropes were ACTUALLY divided up among BOTH of them. So all that enemies-to-lovers, villain-gets-the-girl stuff? Yeah, the author means two different men.
I know. Horrible marketing.
CHARACTERS.
Isla Crown
Miss girl was honestly very dumb, but she and Oro were the most interesting characters in this whole book.
I liked how ambitious Isla was, but the most annoying thing about her was her obstinate stubbornness and then almost immediate opinion changes.
Gut wrenching betrayal? I hate you.
They have a reason? I forgive you immediately.
They've been kind for months? I think you’re amazing.
One thing that says otherwise? Traitor.
They’ve acted cold for months? You want to kill me.
A hundred hints that say they actually care about you? I still think you want to kill me and I refuse to consider anything else.
It got old quickly.
Love Interest #1: Grim (full name Grimshaw, like that’s an improvement) is your basic black-hair, morally-gray, Cardan-Greenbriar-and-Kaz-Brekker wannabe. He’s supposed to be this mysterious bad boy, but for the first time ever, I couldn’t get into it. That man is genuinely not it.
Love Interest #2: Oro, a mysterious, all-powerful golden king (“oro” literally translates to “gold” in Spanish), is 100% my favorite character. He honestly was the reason this book wasn’t a one star for me. This man knew what he wanted and was willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen. Like Isla, in a way, but he was better because he was smart about his decisions. And he actually RESPECTED Isla, unlike a CERTAIN SOMEONE WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH A G–
anyways.
also y’all i called the love triangle from the beginning hehe be proud 💜
So I’ve written for far too long and I’m going to wrap it up here. To be honest, y’all, I did enjoy this book. It was so weird and bad it actually became kind of enjoyable. I know this was definitely not the review I was expecting to write (I was thinking a lot more capital letters and a lot more ranting lol) but I think I kinda shared enough of my mixed feelings about this book.
And despite my misgivings, I’ll probably read the sequel. I want to see how this messy, strangely addictive story ends 😂
Ratings:
Star Rating: ★★☆☆☆
If This Book Was a Movie Rating: PG-13
Recommendations That Are Much Better Than This Book:
Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
The Darkening by Sunya Mara
December 12, 2022
THAT ENDING
I can’t stop thinking about it. I need book 2 right now
(thank you so much to the publisher for sending me a free copy of this book!)
I can’t stop thinking about it. I need book 2 right now
(thank you so much to the publisher for sending me a free copy of this book!)
August 27, 2022
This is my completely honest and sincere review of this book.
Yes I have rated this book five stars. And no I am not lying. I read this book within 2 days and it genuinely surprised me. Imma be honest with y'all I did not think I would love this book. I went in not expecting much at all. But this book despite what many claim is very well written. The author went to one of the most prestigious writing and English programs in the world and has been working as a professional editor for years. The writing Is beautiful but still managed to be simple and easy to understand which I really really enjoyed. You're thrown right into the story and plot which I appreciate especially in fantasy books because often times at the start they can be hella boring.
Towards the middle of the book things do slow down and there are some filler chapters. That doesn't mean they were bad it just means that the pace of the book slowed down for a little bit. However it is the ending that earned this book its 5th star. I genuinely thought I had the book figured out and that I totally predicted what would happen. This confidence I had in my predictions made the countless plot twist toward the end even more shocking. It genuinely had me questioning reality. If you like young adult fantasy you should definitely consider giving this book a chance.
I have seen many people review and criticize this book as if it was meant to be the peak of literature. Alex Aster has not written the next game of thrones or lord of the rings. She has also not written the next great romance novel!!! I see so many reviewers who only read romcoms fiction or smut negatively rate this book. You all have to understand that this is a YOUNG ADULT NOVEL. This was not written for literary critic wannabes it was written for 13 year old kids. Of course it'll be a little cringey that's how these books are supposed to be written. If you go in expecting the next great literary masterpiece of course you will be disappointed. Also to the hundreds of people who rebel bombed this book even though they have not read it, fuck you. Please if you are into Y/A give this book a chance.
Yes I have rated this book five stars. And no I am not lying. I read this book within 2 days and it genuinely surprised me. Imma be honest with y'all I did not think I would love this book. I went in not expecting much at all. But this book despite what many claim is very well written. The author went to one of the most prestigious writing and English programs in the world and has been working as a professional editor for years. The writing Is beautiful but still managed to be simple and easy to understand which I really really enjoyed. You're thrown right into the story and plot which I appreciate especially in fantasy books because often times at the start they can be hella boring.
Towards the middle of the book things do slow down and there are some filler chapters. That doesn't mean they were bad it just means that the pace of the book slowed down for a little bit. However it is the ending that earned this book its 5th star. I genuinely thought I had the book figured out and that I totally predicted what would happen. This confidence I had in my predictions made the countless plot twist toward the end even more shocking. It genuinely had me questioning reality. If you like young adult fantasy you should definitely consider giving this book a chance.
I have seen many people review and criticize this book as if it was meant to be the peak of literature. Alex Aster has not written the next game of thrones or lord of the rings. She has also not written the next great romance novel!!! I see so many reviewers who only read romcoms fiction or smut negatively rate this book. You all have to understand that this is a YOUNG ADULT NOVEL. This was not written for literary critic wannabes it was written for 13 year old kids. Of course it'll be a little cringey that's how these books are supposed to be written. If you go in expecting the next great literary masterpiece of course you will be disappointed. Also to the hundreds of people who rebel bombed this book even though they have not read it, fuck you. Please if you are into Y/A give this book a chance.
May 31, 2022
LIGHTLARK is my new obsession.
It has everything I wanted to break my reading slump.
-a bada$$ FMC
-a brooding King with secrets
-a dark haired, snarky and HOT love interest
-HIGH STAKES
-an amazing world
-plot twists that will have you GASP
-and HEARTBREAK.
I reread it the day after I finished because I wanted to stay immersed in this world as long as I could.
Cannot WAIT for the second book!
It has everything I wanted to break my reading slump.
-a bada$$ FMC
-a brooding King with secrets
-a dark haired, snarky and HOT love interest
-HIGH STAKES
-an amazing world
-plot twists that will have you GASP
-and HEARTBREAK.
I reread it the day after I finished because I wanted to stay immersed in this world as long as I could.
Cannot WAIT for the second book!
September 25, 2022
haha no, the hype was definitely not worth it
(dnf @ 68% )
————————————
damn the tea surrounding this book is hot
also it fell like 2 stars down- 👀
(dnf @ 68% )
————————————
damn the tea surrounding this book is hot
September 7, 2022
preread: “but i thought you were done taking book recommendations from tiktok?” shhhhhhhhh. just one more.
update: the overall star rating for this not-even-fully-released-yet book is killing me. i will still be reading (because i’m nosey).
———
read: 🚨 WARNING: HOT TAKE ALERT. 🚨
i would like to make one thing clear- i am a hater first, and a human being second. i legitimately can not believe that i’m typing this review out in DEFENSE of a book. i’m almost repulsed.
that being said, even i (hater of the century) think that the hate on this book is uncalled for. is it a good book that i plan on rereading? absolutely not. and as far as i’m concerned, this is a standalone. but is it the exact same literary level as some of goodreads’/booktok’s favorite books? YES. there’s no way you guys are rating this one star and then eating up a book exactly like this one a day later. whether this is me trying to convert everyone to the hater agenda or not, i don’t know. but i had about seven different funny and negative one-liner reviews before starting this book, and now i can’t use a single one.
this is a widely predictable and ultimately forgettable fantasy with a million overused tropes that make my eyes roll to the back of my skull. HOWEVER, i say that about almost every YA fantasy i read. in the end, it’s just like every other book out there, and i’m going to need everyone to either shit on all of those books, or go back to normal, because the bandwagon on here is full and smells bad.
my point in this review is not that this book is good. i don’t think it is. it’s that comparatively, i find it unfair for y’all to shit on it but then go read (insert book) and sleep with it under your pillow every night.
again- i was prepared to shit on this book. the “guys, don’t hate on her book!” reviews were not going to be enough to stop me. but at the end of the day, i hate hypocrites more than i hate subpar YA fantasy, and had to keep it fair. now i’ve become something i hate (the mfs that support a book and don’t get to join in on the hate). you guys will not be seeing this side of me again.
-
recommend: if you want to read what everyone else is reading so you know what’s going on? yes. in any other context? no.
disclaimer: i never got catfished by the author’s tiktoks, so i don’t have a deep hatred for her like the rest of y’all and this might be why i’m cutting the book some slack. i saw one of her early promotional tiktoks and immediately added it to my tbr, but i feel like a majority of her hate is coming from marketing errors. this review also doesn’t mean that i don’t agree with any of the one star reviews (the one star review section is always my favorite one).
update: the overall star rating for this not-even-fully-released-yet book is killing me. i will still be reading (because i’m nosey).
———
read: 🚨 WARNING: HOT TAKE ALERT. 🚨
i would like to make one thing clear- i am a hater first, and a human being second. i legitimately can not believe that i’m typing this review out in DEFENSE of a book. i’m almost repulsed.
that being said, even i (hater of the century) think that the hate on this book is uncalled for. is it a good book that i plan on rereading? absolutely not. and as far as i’m concerned, this is a standalone. but is it the exact same literary level as some of goodreads’/booktok’s favorite books? YES. there’s no way you guys are rating this one star and then eating up a book exactly like this one a day later. whether this is me trying to convert everyone to the hater agenda or not, i don’t know. but i had about seven different funny and negative one-liner reviews before starting this book, and now i can’t use a single one.
this is a widely predictable and ultimately forgettable fantasy with a million overused tropes that make my eyes roll to the back of my skull. HOWEVER, i say that about almost every YA fantasy i read. in the end, it’s just like every other book out there, and i’m going to need everyone to either shit on all of those books, or go back to normal, because the bandwagon on here is full and smells bad.
my point in this review is not that this book is good. i don’t think it is. it’s that comparatively, i find it unfair for y’all to shit on it but then go read (insert book) and sleep with it under your pillow every night.
again- i was prepared to shit on this book. the “guys, don’t hate on her book!” reviews were not going to be enough to stop me. but at the end of the day, i hate hypocrites more than i hate subpar YA fantasy, and had to keep it fair. now i’ve become something i hate (the mfs that support a book and don’t get to join in on the hate). you guys will not be seeing this side of me again.
-
recommend: if you want to read what everyone else is reading so you know what’s going on? yes. in any other context? no.
disclaimer: i never got catfished by the author’s tiktoks, so i don’t have a deep hatred for her like the rest of y’all and this might be why i’m cutting the book some slack. i saw one of her early promotional tiktoks and immediately added it to my tbr, but i feel like a majority of her hate is coming from marketing errors. this review also doesn’t mean that i don’t agree with any of the one star reviews (the one star review section is always my favorite one).
October 22, 2024
3.5⭐️ Can I see why people don’t like this? Yes. Was it anything revolutionary? No. Did I predict the plot twist at page 9? Yes. Was the writing the best? No. Do I care about any of this even a little? No, no I don’t. Was I here for the vibes and a silly, fun, feet kicking good time? Yes. And that’s what matters to me. Its not that deep people.
I have to be honest… 3 of these stars are entirely for shadow daddy Grim. BUT HE’S THE VILLAIN AND HE BETRAYED HER???!! And? So? Your point is????? Guys I’m sorry (I’m not at all sorry) I didn’t even have the slightest urge to switch sides at the end of this. And people telling me I might change my mind in book 2…. It’s important to know I’m a Klaus Mikaelson girlie iykyk. There’s Simple’s no changing my mind. There’s simply no other team as far as I’m concerned.
For 45% of this book I literally thought Oro was a 60 year old man and can’t stop picturing him as President Snow. I mean this with zero judgement whatsoever (okay maybe a little) I’m genuinely so confused as to how there even is a team Oro. I’m sorry???? Isla girl, I know you need to have your temporary lapse in judgement and choose the nice blonder guy who’s “good for you” before going back to the dark and deadly morally grey one, but like COME ON????? The man is a snooze fest. I have more chemistry with my fucking WALL!!
Anyways. Team Grim until I die.
No this book will not be for everyone. The world building was essentially nonexistent and I found the Isla and Oro chapters quite boring, and yes it was predictable as hell. But despite its flaws I still really enjoyed it! I loved the trials aspect of this and the romance had me giggling and kicking my feet. I’m easy to please.
I have to be honest… 3 of these stars are entirely for shadow daddy Grim. BUT HE’S THE VILLAIN AND HE BETRAYED HER???!! And? So? Your point is????? Guys I’m sorry (I’m not at all sorry) I didn’t even have the slightest urge to switch sides at the end of this. And people telling me I might change my mind in book 2…. It’s important to know I’m a Klaus Mikaelson girlie iykyk. There’s Simple’s no changing my mind. There’s simply no other team as far as I’m concerned.
For 45% of this book I literally thought Oro was a 60 year old man and can’t stop picturing him as President Snow. I mean this with zero judgement whatsoever (okay maybe a little) I’m genuinely so confused as to how there even is a team Oro. I’m sorry???? Isla girl, I know you need to have your temporary lapse in judgement and choose the nice blonder guy who’s “good for you” before going back to the dark and deadly morally grey one, but like COME ON????? The man is a snooze fest. I have more chemistry with my fucking WALL!!
Anyways. Team Grim until I die.
No this book will not be for everyone. The world building was essentially nonexistent and I found the Isla and Oro chapters quite boring, and yes it was predictable as hell. But despite its flaws I still really enjoyed it! I loved the trials aspect of this and the romance had me giggling and kicking my feet. I’m easy to please.
August 18, 2022
thank god it’s over.
***
um okay, i suck at writing reviews. so im not even going to-
yeah i'll just start right away.
this was disappointing on SO many levels, i don't even know where to start. i almost screamed when i got the audio-arc thingy cause this was on my "anticipated releases" tbr and all, but now i regret even requesting this book on netgalley (it was probably an auto approve arc anyway lol). i've been following alex aster for a while now and she seemed like a really nice author, replying to my messages, and i have nothing against her but alex, really? i mean, come on. this book wasn't even good. hell, this book didn't even contain the TROPES and QUOTES that we were promised, you know, the ones she posted on tiktok for the purpose of PROMOTING her book. ironic, right?
this was the explanation alex made on tiktok when someone asked her why the quotes weren't in her book: "All those moments are in there. Either not word for word, but there, or only in the final copy not the arc." im sorry but that makes zero sense. why would you use the quotes that aren't in your book for the sole purpose of promoting your book??? and how would you not know which quotes are in your book when the book is right in front of you? one of the tropes that are mentioned in alex's videos that are allegedly in the book is the "forced proximity" trope. which means they are forced to be right next to each other at all times. this isn't even the case in the book, every character has their own rooms and they are only gathered together during games and stuff. another trope is the "villain gets the girl" one. so... which one of these characters is the villain? asking for a friend.
i listened to the whole thing with 3.5 x speed, and the narrator, bless their heart, kept going "andtheniliftedmydaggernjsbashfefbehachjadtowardshisthroatbchjsdvb" so i kind of feel like i need to appologize to them. i really do suck at writing reviews don't i? how'd we even get here?
grimshaw is supposed to be the "morally grey" guy with a tragic backstory but we were once again fooled! the book was so focused on the three characters (oro, isla and grim, the "love triangle" squad if that can even be called a love triangle) that we didn't even get to read about the other characters. like why are they even here? give me more of cleo, azul and celeste. but they're just props, who cares about them?
this book was REPETITIVE. i thought i was listening to the same chapter SEVERAL times ffs. if i see the words "centennial" and "100 years" again istg- LIKE OKAY WE GET IT. it felt like i was studying for the book the way you study for a test, repeating everything until it's buried into your brain. im tired okay? i don't know what im saying either. at least im not saying stupid shit like "she glared at him meanly".HOW ELSE WOULD SHE GLARE AT HIM? CHEERFULLY??? KINDLY???? glaring itself is an act of meanness dear and if it's an oxymoron of some sort, you're overusing it <3
and oh my god the booktok authors' reviews of this book?? those convinced me to request this book, meaning that their marketing strategy worked. marie lu, sabaa tahir, adam silvera, chloe gong and all those big names saying that this was the best book ever, who wouldn't be convinced to pick this book up right? i know i was. also i've read somewhere that new profiles were created on goodreads, rating this book 5 stars and saying that they "loved it" and stuff like that which is ridiculous & very unfair to all those hard working authors. my theory is that, once people started to ACTUALLY read the book, the average rating of the book fell drastically. the average rating was 4.0 something this morning, now it's 2.8 something, i think it's self-explanatory.
too long, didn't read: alex aster is an industry plant, she has a millionaire sis and connections in the industry. don't be fooled by her "success stories" that she posts on social media. also i feel so bad for all those people who preordered this book. at this point, did they even give you the page overlays that they promised they would? lmao.
***
um okay, i suck at writing reviews. so im not even going to-
yeah i'll just start right away.
this was disappointing on SO many levels, i don't even know where to start. i almost screamed when i got the audio-arc thingy cause this was on my "anticipated releases" tbr and all, but now i regret even requesting this book on netgalley (it was probably an auto approve arc anyway lol). i've been following alex aster for a while now and she seemed like a really nice author, replying to my messages, and i have nothing against her but alex, really? i mean, come on. this book wasn't even good. hell, this book didn't even contain the TROPES and QUOTES that we were promised, you know, the ones she posted on tiktok for the purpose of PROMOTING her book. ironic, right?
this was the explanation alex made on tiktok when someone asked her why the quotes weren't in her book: "All those moments are in there. Either not word for word, but there, or only in the final copy not the arc." im sorry but that makes zero sense. why would you use the quotes that aren't in your book for the sole purpose of promoting your book??? and how would you not know which quotes are in your book when the book is right in front of you? one of the tropes that are mentioned in alex's videos that are allegedly in the book is the "forced proximity" trope. which means they are forced to be right next to each other at all times. this isn't even the case in the book, every character has their own rooms and they are only gathered together during games and stuff. another trope is the "villain gets the girl" one. so... which one of these characters is the villain? asking for a friend.
i listened to the whole thing with 3.5 x speed, and the narrator, bless their heart, kept going "andtheniliftedmydaggernjsbashfefbehachjadtowardshisthroatbchjsdvb" so i kind of feel like i need to appologize to them. i really do suck at writing reviews don't i? how'd we even get here?
grimshaw is supposed to be the "morally grey" guy with a tragic backstory but we were once again fooled! the book was so focused on the three characters (oro, isla and grim, the "love triangle" squad if that can even be called a love triangle) that we didn't even get to read about the other characters. like why are they even here? give me more of cleo, azul and celeste. but they're just props, who cares about them?
this book was REPETITIVE. i thought i was listening to the same chapter SEVERAL times ffs. if i see the words "centennial" and "100 years" again istg- LIKE OKAY WE GET IT. it felt like i was studying for the book the way you study for a test, repeating everything until it's buried into your brain. im tired okay? i don't know what im saying either. at least im not saying stupid shit like "she glared at him meanly".
and oh my god the booktok authors' reviews of this book?? those convinced me to request this book, meaning that their marketing strategy worked. marie lu, sabaa tahir, adam silvera, chloe gong and all those big names saying that this was the best book ever, who wouldn't be convinced to pick this book up right? i know i was. also i've read somewhere that new profiles were created on goodreads, rating this book 5 stars and saying that they "loved it" and stuff like that which is ridiculous & very unfair to all those hard working authors. my theory is that, once people started to ACTUALLY read the book, the average rating of the book fell drastically. the average rating was 4.0 something this morning, now it's 2.8 something, i think it's self-explanatory.
too long, didn't read: alex aster is an industry plant, she has a millionaire sis and connections in the industry. don't be fooled by her "success stories" that she posts on social media. also i feel so bad for all those people who preordered this book. at this point, did they even give you the page overlays that they promised they would? lmao.
August 23, 2022
Happy pub day to Lightlark, Alex Aster & and all of the weirdos who review bombed ! 💕
Edit 8/18/22 — It’s kind of amazing how quickly the book community can turn what started as an interesting conversation about privilege in publishing, paired with some critique of how a specific author marketed her book online, and derail it so completely that it has now lost its meaning and original goal for the sake of some cheap social media engagement.
Review bombing is not a constructive solution to any of the potential issues raised about Aster or her book. It’s petty, counterproductive and mean-spirited. You can dislike a book after reading it; I can’t and wouldn’t want to stop anyone from giving their honest thoughts after the fact. But that’s not what the majority of these one-star reviews are doing. Most of you saw the controversy on Twitter or Tiktok and immediately jumped over to the book’s Goodreads page to take part in the spectacle.
Did you notice that the top negative reviews by users have asked others to stop going after the author personally? Or how social media posts by people trying to talk about larger industry problems are being overshadowed by ones that are hehehe-ing over Lightlark’s low rating? I’m not going to argue over the precise wording of a quote from her book or if she framed her publishing journey as more triumphant that it was. Of course she presented her book in the best light possible; that’s marketing. It’s also how most books are sold to consumers by publishers. But it would be insane to carpet-bomb the ratings of every book that failed to live up to its Circe or Get Out comparisons.
Alex Aster is an easy target for many larger problems and, apparently, several nonexistent ones. It’s easier to go after a single person instead of a company, a person who’s more accessible and frequently posts about accomplishments that most people will never have access to. Maybe you just think the author is annoying, which is fine. Despite popular belief, being annoying online is not a moral offense that deserves a public shaming. I’d also ask you consider why so many on this page and in other book spaces seem to be demonstrating so much unrestrained glee at the downfall of a young Latina woman who’s found some success in her writing career. Did she really do anything that hasn’t been done a hundred times over by some of your other fave authors?
Whatever justification you try to come up with for rating this book without reading it—just know that it’s bullshit. Everyone here can tell that it’s bullshit, including industry professionals who may reach out to Aster in the aftermath. If your goal was to see less of her and her work, you may have just achieved the opposite, so congratulations. And to anyone giggling behind your keyboard at the sight of this book’s rating tanking nearly overnight, please do everyone on this goddamn app a favor and log off. Or just remove it from your GR shelves like a fucking normal person.
_________________
With maybe one of the most interactive cover reveal processes ever (letting readers vote on TikTok and then revealing the winner on a Times Square Jumbotron), it’s probably safe to assume that the early hype around Lightlark is going to be enough to propel it to the top of many people’s TBRs. But these kind of super popular YA Fantasy books are usually hit or miss for me, so I went into Alex Aster’s debut excited, while also managing my expectations.
Five hundred years ago curses were placed on the six realms, limiting their powers and blighting each realm in specific and horrifying ways. This year on the fifth Centennial, Isla Crown will be visiting the island of Lightlark to compete for the first time. In order free her fellow Wildlings from their continuously brutal fates, not only will someone need to break the curse, but it will have to be done this year. And it will have to be her that does it.
Sorry in advance for the lack of specific information and some of this review being hidden under spoiler tags, but the author and pub have intentionally not released many details and I’m going to respect that. Isla has a little bit of that YA fantasy heroine thing going on, where she’s almost too perfect and universally desired, but since the Wildlings are essentially Sirens of the forest that’s at least somewhat understandable. I do wish we got a little more from the supporting characters in this book, but I’m guessing based on the ending that they’ll play more substantial parts in the story down the road.
I think my biggest problem is going to be with the Centennial itself. Plainly, almost all of the constructs of the Centennial are arbitrary and unnecessary.
***BEGIN SPOILERS***
They serve no real purpose outside of trying to force a competition format, and the performances for an adoring crowd distract from the rulers’ actual goal of trying to ‘solve’ the prophecy. The demonstrations come off as side quests to a larger storyline, and that larger storyline is…..guessing where things are and then going to look for them. It can get repetitive and feel as though the plot is stalling, and during those slowed-down periods you keep wondering things like, ‘So why did nobody try working together to free themselves before?’ or ‘What was the point of making official alliances if people can just ignore them?’ or ‘Why are the townspeople cool with hosting all these balls for the aristocrats who can’t seem to solve, like, one (1) riddle?’
Then there’s the logistical issues, such as a half a dozen bridges connecting these islands made of rope (???) that people have to cross on foot (??????) and where exactly these foreign realms that people fled to actually are. And sorry Skylings, Imma let you finish, but your curse being that you can’t fly anymore when Starlings drop dead at 25 and Wildlings have to do cannibalism is absolutely INSANE. Maybe I missed the second part of their curse, but they seem kinda chill with the whole arrangement on the whole.
***END SPOILERS***
“‘I gave it an honest effort,’ he said. ‘But it turns out…I’m not that honest.’”
I don’t really get too invested in most book romances, but since people always ask about them I will include some of that in my review. There is romance, plus a few popular tropes, though I feel like revealing the specific tropes may be considered a spoiler, so I will refrain. I think because the events are spread over several months the romance(s) don’t appear to be an insta-love situation but instead something that has developed organically. My understanding is that all of the characters involved are adults (some have a kind of Edward Cullen age thing going on), so though Aster doesn’t take it as far as she could, none of their interactions feel sanitized for a younger audience.
And though there’s a good amount of romance present, the emotional center of the story is rooted in friendship. It’s a meditation on trust, loyalty and betrayal that is cleverly layered to where you feel the eventual stings just as fiercely as the characters do. The curses, outside of a couple exceptions, are positively despicable. I also love how they pair with each realm’s powers, and on the whole the magic system is pretty cool. Could it use some elaboration? Sure, and that’s something I expect down the road in the sequel. But despite all of my spoiler-y critiques (DO NOT LOOK BEFORE YOU READ), I do think a bunch of you are going to go absolutely feral for this, and that’s enough of a reason to pick it up yourself.
**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!
Edit 8/18/22 — It’s kind of amazing how quickly the book community can turn what started as an interesting conversation about privilege in publishing, paired with some critique of how a specific author marketed her book online, and derail it so completely that it has now lost its meaning and original goal for the sake of some cheap social media engagement.
Review bombing is not a constructive solution to any of the potential issues raised about Aster or her book. It’s petty, counterproductive and mean-spirited. You can dislike a book after reading it; I can’t and wouldn’t want to stop anyone from giving their honest thoughts after the fact. But that’s not what the majority of these one-star reviews are doing. Most of you saw the controversy on Twitter or Tiktok and immediately jumped over to the book’s Goodreads page to take part in the spectacle.
Did you notice that the top negative reviews by users have asked others to stop going after the author personally? Or how social media posts by people trying to talk about larger industry problems are being overshadowed by ones that are hehehe-ing over Lightlark’s low rating? I’m not going to argue over the precise wording of a quote from her book or if she framed her publishing journey as more triumphant that it was. Of course she presented her book in the best light possible; that’s marketing. It’s also how most books are sold to consumers by publishers. But it would be insane to carpet-bomb the ratings of every book that failed to live up to its Circe or Get Out comparisons.
Alex Aster is an easy target for many larger problems and, apparently, several nonexistent ones. It’s easier to go after a single person instead of a company, a person who’s more accessible and frequently posts about accomplishments that most people will never have access to. Maybe you just think the author is annoying, which is fine. Despite popular belief, being annoying online is not a moral offense that deserves a public shaming. I’d also ask you consider why so many on this page and in other book spaces seem to be demonstrating so much unrestrained glee at the downfall of a young Latina woman who’s found some success in her writing career. Did she really do anything that hasn’t been done a hundred times over by some of your other fave authors?
Whatever justification you try to come up with for rating this book without reading it—just know that it’s bullshit. Everyone here can tell that it’s bullshit, including industry professionals who may reach out to Aster in the aftermath. If your goal was to see less of her and her work, you may have just achieved the opposite, so congratulations. And to anyone giggling behind your keyboard at the sight of this book’s rating tanking nearly overnight, please do everyone on this goddamn app a favor and log off. Or just remove it from your GR shelves like a fucking normal person.
_________________
With maybe one of the most interactive cover reveal processes ever (letting readers vote on TikTok and then revealing the winner on a Times Square Jumbotron), it’s probably safe to assume that the early hype around Lightlark is going to be enough to propel it to the top of many people’s TBRs. But these kind of super popular YA Fantasy books are usually hit or miss for me, so I went into Alex Aster’s debut excited, while also managing my expectations.
Five hundred years ago curses were placed on the six realms, limiting their powers and blighting each realm in specific and horrifying ways. This year on the fifth Centennial, Isla Crown will be visiting the island of Lightlark to compete for the first time. In order free her fellow Wildlings from their continuously brutal fates, not only will someone need to break the curse, but it will have to be done this year. And it will have to be her that does it.
Sorry in advance for the lack of specific information and some of this review being hidden under spoiler tags, but the author and pub have intentionally not released many details and I’m going to respect that. Isla has a little bit of that YA fantasy heroine thing going on, where she’s almost too perfect and universally desired, but since the Wildlings are essentially Sirens of the forest that’s at least somewhat understandable. I do wish we got a little more from the supporting characters in this book, but I’m guessing based on the ending that they’ll play more substantial parts in the story down the road.
I think my biggest problem is going to be with the Centennial itself. Plainly, almost all of the constructs of the Centennial are arbitrary and unnecessary.
***BEGIN SPOILERS***
They serve no real purpose outside of trying to force a competition format, and the performances for an adoring crowd distract from the rulers’ actual goal of trying to ‘solve’ the prophecy. The demonstrations come off as side quests to a larger storyline, and that larger storyline is…..guessing where things are and then going to look for them. It can get repetitive and feel as though the plot is stalling, and during those slowed-down periods you keep wondering things like, ‘So why did nobody try working together to free themselves before?’ or ‘What was the point of making official alliances if people can just ignore them?’ or ‘Why are the townspeople cool with hosting all these balls for the aristocrats who can’t seem to solve, like, one (1) riddle?’
Then there’s the logistical issues, such as a half a dozen bridges connecting these islands made of rope (???) that people have to cross on foot (??????) and where exactly these foreign realms that people fled to actually are. And sorry Skylings, Imma let you finish, but your curse being that you can’t fly anymore when Starlings drop dead at 25 and Wildlings have to do cannibalism is absolutely INSANE. Maybe I missed the second part of their curse, but they seem kinda chill with the whole arrangement on the whole.
***END SPOILERS***
“‘I gave it an honest effort,’ he said. ‘But it turns out…I’m not that honest.’”
I don’t really get too invested in most book romances, but since people always ask about them I will include some of that in my review. There is romance, plus a few popular tropes, though I feel like revealing the specific tropes may be considered a spoiler, so I will refrain. I think because the events are spread over several months the romance(s) don’t appear to be an insta-love situation but instead something that has developed organically. My understanding is that all of the characters involved are adults (some have a kind of Edward Cullen age thing going on), so though Aster doesn’t take it as far as she could, none of their interactions feel sanitized for a younger audience.
And though there’s a good amount of romance present, the emotional center of the story is rooted in friendship. It’s a meditation on trust, loyalty and betrayal that is cleverly layered to where you feel the eventual stings just as fiercely as the characters do. The curses, outside of a couple exceptions, are positively despicable. I also love how they pair with each realm’s powers, and on the whole the magic system is pretty cool. Could it use some elaboration? Sure, and that’s something I expect down the road in the sequel. But despite all of my spoiler-y critiques (DO NOT LOOK BEFORE YOU READ), I do think a bunch of you are going to go absolutely feral for this, and that’s enough of a reason to pick it up yourself.
**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!
May 5, 2023
SPOILERS for the invested
the publisher and netgalley were really just passing the audiobook arc around like a blunt at a party (thank you to them for real tho) but that meant i have some friends who also got to read this, who i had to pester with questions the entire time i read this book because wow. incomprehensible. 😚✌🏽 may god have mercy on your soul.
i’m gonna bitch about the worldbuilding first because i had in fact heard of this from tiktok (before i made my daring escape in the night) and the tiktok kinda led me to believe the world was completely different. the vibes we were picking up was that the island of lightlark is abandoned and inaccessible to the six far flung realms and that it only appears once every 100 years so the rulers can compete to break their curses. it turns out that no, the island can be accessed by our protagonist isla through her fun teleportation wand, and that it’s actually fully inhabited and a couple of the realms are actually still on the island somehow?? i don’t know how tf that works but i like my idea better. i also thought that five of the six competing rulers had to die and that only one could win, turns out that’s inverted so the stakes are much lower (especially considering the romance). also one of the rulers of the realm is also the king of lightlark which also really puts a damper on the way i thought that lightlark was separate from the realms and a kind of neutral competition ground. but whatever. we ball i suppose.
ok also the other two female realm rulers are basically identical when you look at their character art. they’re both white and very pale with light hair and their realms are night sky based. their names also both begin with the letter C. idk why you would do that. the curses attached to all of the realms are uneven and silly and the mechanics needed to break all of them are absolute gobbledygook. i had my friends explain the rules to me like five times, which is bad considering i got all of the mistborn worldbuilding while listening to the audiobooks too.
in general i consider myself a fantasy reader and while i’m not immune to a good love story, at the very least i’m immune to the edgy, dark-boy fantasy love interest that populates the genre’s most popular offerings (think rhysand, casteel?? crescent city guy, cardan, whoever that is in fbaa, that character named wrath??) if you’re similarly immune, i regret to inform you that grimshaw is exactly that type. it’s simply excruciating to read about him. his dialogue is awful, he’s taken with isla from his first introduction and then just skulks around the periphery because oh yeah, this is a love triangle! oro was fine, he’s the betty to grim’s veronica. i had not a strong feeling about him, nowhere to be seen! if you look at their character art they’re giving very much nikolai and the darkling which is dumb bc mal supremacy. let’s move on, the romance was underdeveloped and didn’t engage me.
anyway the prose was bad but didn’t distract me the way it probably would if i had to look at the words instead of listen to them. lotta adverbs in this one. i think aster is just trying too hard to be lyrical and vivid, she’s writing the idea of good fantasy prose instead of focusing on craft and construction. this can be improved with a good editor if the writer is receptive. not to be a bitch but idk if alex aster is. remains to be seen.
the rest of the plot just meanders around the comically big island, we poke in and out of different libraries like a point and click cd-rom game looking for the bond breaker (victoria aveyard ass term) which isla thinks can break the curses (even tho oro who lives here tells her that if there was a magical breaker they would’ve found it by now) and the heart of lightlark, another potential curse breaking loophole. or maybe it isn’t. i honestly don’t know.
the plot twist that isla and grim were a thing but he wiped her memory is almost a serve but it’s also so. basic? i’m certain it’s been done before and done better, you’re not the innovator you think you are bestie. it probably doesn’t hit because i don’t give a shit about either of them. sad. it’s all just really dated and shallow. gonna make an awful movie. i’ll bet the sequel is gonna undo all the relationship stuff with oro and isla like acotar before it. so curious to see what normal people think of this thing.
the publisher and netgalley were really just passing the audiobook arc around like a blunt at a party (thank you to them for real tho) but that meant i have some friends who also got to read this, who i had to pester with questions the entire time i read this book because wow. incomprehensible. 😚✌🏽 may god have mercy on your soul.
i’m gonna bitch about the worldbuilding first because i had in fact heard of this from tiktok (before i made my daring escape in the night) and the tiktok kinda led me to believe the world was completely different. the vibes we were picking up was that the island of lightlark is abandoned and inaccessible to the six far flung realms and that it only appears once every 100 years so the rulers can compete to break their curses. it turns out that no, the island can be accessed by our protagonist isla through her fun teleportation wand, and that it’s actually fully inhabited and a couple of the realms are actually still on the island somehow?? i don’t know how tf that works but i like my idea better. i also thought that five of the six competing rulers had to die and that only one could win, turns out that’s inverted so the stakes are much lower (especially considering the romance). also one of the rulers of the realm is also the king of lightlark which also really puts a damper on the way i thought that lightlark was separate from the realms and a kind of neutral competition ground. but whatever. we ball i suppose.
ok also the other two female realm rulers are basically identical when you look at their character art. they’re both white and very pale with light hair and their realms are night sky based. their names also both begin with the letter C. idk why you would do that. the curses attached to all of the realms are uneven and silly and the mechanics needed to break all of them are absolute gobbledygook. i had my friends explain the rules to me like five times, which is bad considering i got all of the mistborn worldbuilding while listening to the audiobooks too.
in general i consider myself a fantasy reader and while i’m not immune to a good love story, at the very least i’m immune to the edgy, dark-boy fantasy love interest that populates the genre’s most popular offerings (think rhysand, casteel?? crescent city guy, cardan, whoever that is in fbaa, that character named wrath??) if you’re similarly immune, i regret to inform you that grimshaw is exactly that type. it’s simply excruciating to read about him. his dialogue is awful, he’s taken with isla from his first introduction and then just skulks around the periphery because oh yeah, this is a love triangle! oro was fine, he’s the betty to grim’s veronica. i had not a strong feeling about him, nowhere to be seen! if you look at their character art they’re giving very much nikolai and the darkling which is dumb bc mal supremacy. let’s move on, the romance was underdeveloped and didn’t engage me.
anyway the prose was bad but didn’t distract me the way it probably would if i had to look at the words instead of listen to them. lotta adverbs in this one. i think aster is just trying too hard to be lyrical and vivid, she’s writing the idea of good fantasy prose instead of focusing on craft and construction. this can be improved with a good editor if the writer is receptive. not to be a bitch but idk if alex aster is. remains to be seen.
the rest of the plot just meanders around the comically big island, we poke in and out of different libraries like a point and click cd-rom game looking for the bond breaker (victoria aveyard ass term) which isla thinks can break the curses (even tho oro who lives here tells her that if there was a magical breaker they would’ve found it by now) and the heart of lightlark, another potential curse breaking loophole. or maybe it isn’t. i honestly don’t know.
the plot twist that isla and grim were a thing but he wiped her memory is almost a serve but it’s also so. basic? i’m certain it’s been done before and done better, you’re not the innovator you think you are bestie. it probably doesn’t hit because i don’t give a shit about either of them. sad. it’s all just really dated and shallow. gonna make an awful movie. i’ll bet the sequel is gonna undo all the relationship stuff with oro and isla like acotar before it. so curious to see what normal people think of this thing.
February 8, 2024
this book triggered my trypophobia with the amount of plot holes it had
October 7, 2022
why should you read lightlark?
1. its so BORING you will not believe it unless u read it.. no seriously think of the most boring book you've read. done? there is 90% chance lightlark is still wayy boring
2. you might hate love triangles but here u will find a new thing to hate - love triangle where all the development occurs in author's mind and nothing on the pages and in the end you will be manipulated into thinking that there infact was a love triangle going on all along.
PS it will get awkward since author doesn't really know how to manipulate
3. one pair in the love triangle (isla and oro) has less chemistry than me and the chewing gum i was chewing yesterday
4. you might be tired of reading great fantasy with great fantasy names like daenerys, cardan and might want to clear your platter by reading awful fantasy with awful fantasy names like grim, isla crown, oro.
as a bonus you might get sentences like - Isla crown flicked oro's crown and he flicked isla crown's crown right back
(i mean it happened even if she never described it like this)
5. it might be a while since you shouted at a book " how dare u compare yourself to THE HUNGER GAMES when u suck at action or even ACOTAR when ur pacing never fucking got better" or just shouted at a book in general
6. you might want to burn a book
7. you might want to cry while reading a book. oh don't get me wrong. you will not get emotional reading this you will cry for it to end though
8. you might be tired reading about great FMCs and might want to read about a FMC who always follows other people's plans, who is always saved by someone else, and who thinks "im so smart!!" but is dumb af
9. the plot twists would give you " i am a genius" moment because they are predictable.. really predictable
10. you might be a masochist and want to read torture in book form
bonus -- author has an egg/yolk obsession
"When the sky cracked open like an egg."
“The yolk . . . is the sun.”
"The sun had fallen. It was just a yolky thing"
why should you not read lightlark?
it is not "haha funny bad" it is "good god STOPP 😭 awfully bad "
br with fidhaa (best br partner) and your rants are better than the book againn
1. its so BORING you will not believe it unless u read it.. no seriously think of the most boring book you've read. done? there is 90% chance lightlark is still wayy boring
2. you might hate love triangles but here u will find a new thing to hate - love triangle where all the development occurs in author's mind and nothing on the pages and in the end you will be manipulated into thinking that there infact was a love triangle going on all along.
PS it will get awkward since author doesn't really know how to manipulate
3. one pair in the love triangle (isla and oro) has less chemistry than me and the chewing gum i was chewing yesterday
4. you might be tired of reading great fantasy with great fantasy names like daenerys, cardan and might want to clear your platter by reading awful fantasy with awful fantasy names like grim, isla crown, oro.
as a bonus you might get sentences like - Isla crown flicked oro's crown and he flicked isla crown's crown right back
(i mean it happened even if she never described it like this)
5. it might be a while since you shouted at a book " how dare u compare yourself to THE HUNGER GAMES when u suck at action or even ACOTAR when ur pacing never fucking got better" or just shouted at a book in general
6. you might want to burn a book
7. you might want to cry while reading a book. oh don't get me wrong. you will not get emotional reading this you will cry for it to end though
8. you might be tired reading about great FMCs and might want to read about a FMC who always follows other people's plans, who is always saved by someone else, and who thinks "im so smart!!" but is dumb af
9. the plot twists would give you " i am a genius" moment because they are predictable.. really predictable
10. you might be a masochist and want to read torture in book form
bonus -- author has an egg/yolk obsession
"When the sky cracked open like an egg."
“The yolk . . . is the sun.”
"The sun had fallen. It was just a yolky thing"
why should you not read lightlark?
it is not "haha funny bad" it is "good god STOPP 😭 awfully bad "
br with fidhaa (best br partner) and your rants are better than the book againn
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