Lightlark (The Lightlark Saga Book 1) (The Lightlark Saga, 1)

Product Information

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.

I knew very little about this book’s origins before I started reading it. All I knew was that it had blown up on TikTok and was being made into a movie.

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: 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. 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. 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.

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.Lightlark logic. Like the first book, it felt like rules were bent and added on and multiplied on top of each other to make certain things possible, and ignored to make certain things possible. You can't think too deeply about anything in this thing. I was punished for remembering worldbuilding from the first book. This situation could been a constructive conversation about the quality of a book, privileges, the highly commercialized state of publishing, the influence of tiktok, or false advertising, and instead we’re having NONE of those. Do not invalidate anyone’s identity. This is unproductive and invasive speculation. Focus on actions, on stuff that’s actually happening. C’mon, be real. the plot twists would give you " i am a genius" moment because they are predictable.. really predictable 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.

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?Having finally published her first novel, Alex Aster was feeling disheartened. The book had tanked during the pandemic and she had been dropped by her literary agent. Then, on 13 March 2021, she decided to take to TikTok, asking her followers if they would: “read a book about a cursed island that only appears once every 100 years to host a game that gives the six rulers of the realm a chance to break their curses.” One of the rulers must die, the short video revealed, “even as love complicates everything” for the heroine, Isla Crown. Her romance with Grim just felt like an old man grooming a teenager and then trying to get in her pants. He was an ancient being, centuries old and Isla was maybe in her early 20s. Grim was a creep! He felt like a sexual predator and often made unsolicited comments on her body (i.e. how her dresses fit tightly, how he had wet dreams about her/thoughts about her). The bond between them felt artificial (it's sort of explained later in the book, but it's a cop out for the insta-love from Grim's side, & there's little foreshadowing). At least with Oro there was more bonding with the search for the heart and even then I think Oro served better as more of an older brother figure than romance. 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. 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. You can find me over on the storygraph, username bean. Thanks for the arc btw! one pair in the love triangle (isla and oro) has less chemistry than me and the chewing gum i was chewing yesterday

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. 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.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. Sequel is called Nightshade (duh, Isla is half Nightshade because her dad was some Nightshade general and all signs point to Isla x Grim endgame) Some of the book subscription boxes do sell individual titles. (Their subscription books are also fantastic, but I tend not to find a use for all the added merch they come with, so they’re not super cost effective in my case.) Some of the most popular subscription services include: