plot was okay, there was some parts of the prose I liked, some I didnt. This book had so much hype, I feel like that was part of the reason it felt like such a let down.

Yes, I picked up <i>Lightlark</i>.

I was a little late to the party overall, since I didn’t really learn about it until the backlash. I then promptly requested it on NetGalley to see what all the serious negative hype was about—and then, just as promptly, forgot entirely about my request and slowly decided I didn’t really care enough anymore to learn what everyone was talking about (it helped that I’d gotten some insight via minimal-spoiler review).

Then <i>Lightlark</i> came in one of my book box subscriptions and, in process of selling it because honestly…I didn’t really care to own it, I decided to read the book.

<i>Lightlark</i> has a <i>lot</i> of problems, though many of them can reasonably be summed up with simply acknowledging the degree to which Aster truly is an immature writer. This, of course, isn’t in the context of being able to string words together. She’s alright at that. But everything else?

I only briefly want to acknowledge the prose—it’s not really the most important bit—because you can have repetitive writing with silly metaphors and still have a decent book. What really struck me about Aster’s immature writing was how utterly diminished the story was because she couldn’t figure out how to do essential things like functional world-building, genuine character development, and foreshadowing.

Let me put it this way: using all dialogue exposition and no foreshadowing to explain sense into your “plot twists” does not a good book make. Using dialogue exposition to “develop” your villain does not a good book make. Using dialogue exposition to breathe “nuance” into your characters and their love interests does not a good book make.

This would have all been bad enough, but there’s also the problem of seriously undervaluing and underdeveloping your female characters in favor of your male characters in what’s supposed to be an empowering “feminist” book.

I could not possibly care less about the backlash Aster received for being what basically amounted to a nepo baby as far as I understood it, nor do I really feel any animosity as a result of her stupid “lying to market the book” TikToks. Sure, all of that can be deeply annoying, but in my personal opinion, it really doesn’t affect how I feel about the writing of the book. It’s just an added layer that others can consider if they want.

When it comes down to it, though, it’s just a poorly written book at the end of the day.

I didn’t love this one at all. The writing is juvenile, as well as the characters themselves. In all honesty, with the way this book was marketed, I just expected so much more in every aspect.

Predictable, meandering, and the characters were just generic one dimensional cut outs of others who have been done better by countless authors.

Unable to provide feedback or was never given a review copy. Potential review to be added to socials if read at a later date.

An interesting read. This would likely have appealed to me when I was a young adult myself — it was reminiscent of lots of classic YA from my own childhood.

This was an interesting take on fantasy. Though some parts were repetitive, this was a pretty fun read, I enjoyed myself throughout. The story telling process and the detail in this was so much fun to piece together.

A pretty interesting read. It’s a ya fantasy novel and I throughly enjoyed it. I usually love and enjoy these types of books anyway. Alex aster is a mastermind in the making!

Lightlark by Alex Aster is a YA/NA (the main character is around twenty) fantasy about the rules of six cursed realms, who all compete in the once-a-century Centennial for the chance to break their curses, at the expense of one ruler's life/kingdom. This book has been hyped up a lot, especially on booktok, so I was especially curious to read it for myself.

Overall, I think this was a decent read. Some of the prose/word choice reads a bit juvenile, and I think it could have benefited from another round of editing, but there are also some sections, usually descriptions, that are written fairly well. The plot... drags a bit, especially near the middle, and I did predict some of the plot twists, but there were some that I didn't see coming. I think worldbuilding is one of Alex Aster's strengths—I enjoyed the scope of Lightlark, and I think Aster definitely thought through the background information, history, and geography of the world. Each of the realms feels distinct enough to be memorable. The characters are distinct as well, but some, particularly the side characters, felt a little flat and one-dimensional. I know some people find the main character, Isla, annoying, but I think she was realistic enough for a YA heroine. She does have a lot going on, and while she did feel a little Mary-Sue at times (i.e. unrealistic strengths), her personality flaws make her more realistic, which I enjoyed.

Overall, this feels like the type of YA fantasy that, while not wholly original or amazing, is enjoyable enough, especially for readers who really like this genre or these tropes.

DNF @ pg 60

The voice is very very middle-grade. Aster was a middle-grade author before Lightlark so it makes sense, but I think she should have worked on improving her writing voice for YA+. It reads very juvenile and ruins any of the class or maturity of the story.

What also doesn't help is the lack of creativity in naming. I mean, Moonling? Wilding? Skyling? It's unoriginal and piles on to the middle-grade voice. Also, our ancient love interest is named Grimshaw. I mean it simply falls flat and shows how little effort was put into our worldbuilding. Aster easily could have created unique names for her races of characters and their actual names but instead Grim won out.

Also, the writing. When I picked up the final copy I hoped the "yolky" and "thingy" was removed or at least heavily edited but it was not. To put it simply, the writing is highly immature and for an audience intended to be 13+, it just doesn't work. "Thingy" is not a word to use in a YA fantasy novel that is supposed to be gritty and dark, nor is "yolky" both words and other quotes were clunky and interrupted any flow of reading.

Overall, this book just needed more time. Time to edit and time for Aster to improve her YA voice.

I went into this book not expecting anything. I had never seen the authors tiktoks about her book, I tried to steer clear of tiktok commentary and I hadn’t read any positive or negative reviews before reading this book so I could make my own opinion on the story.
This book definitely has an audience, especially im the YA fantasy community im sure so many people are really going to like this book. Especially once the commentary dies down.
For me personally after having read so many good YA fantasy books this just wasn’t my cup of tea. The book was a little too slow 60% of the book, and then all the action only happens at the end setting up a sequel.
I liked Isle as a character to a certain extent but I’m also a little tired of the YA fantasy female protagonist tropes. I feel like as a fresh author she has the ability to really write something new and interesting but I’m over the age gap romance, the powerless protagonist who needs so much help from others.
Overall I enjoyed the last part of the book, it really kept me hooked but it was hard to get to the end when I felt like DNDfing way sooner.

I want to start with the fact that this isn’t as bad as I’ve seen some people describe, and I was a bit surprised by that - but it’s also not the best thing I’ve ever read. It’s just kind of average.

I’ve seen this book everywhere on TikTok, have followed all the low-rated reviews, and I knew I had to read it myself to see how it was. I went into this with average expectations, and I hadn’t seen all the TikToks about spicy scenes or lines. I haven’t even read most of the books that this novel is being compared to, except for The Hunger Games.

One of the biggest aspects this book lacks is some more exploration and world development. I found myself constantly asking questions about this world, like: What is beyond these few isles? Will we ever be able to see it? Is the default in this world being immortal? I would have liked to see a map of all the isles to get a better idea of how this world looks, as well. It could have used a bit more world building and creativity in naming (all the rulers’ realms were called “__ling”). “Thing” was used to describe a lot and wasn’t descriptive at all. I also have to mention Grimshaw’s name, because it sounds like it belongs in a Five Night at Freddy’s game. I liked his character well enough, though, even if he was very cliche-y.

Facts about the world were also explained so many times, over and over. Reminders here and there are necessary, but there were so many extra lines and words that just weren’t needed and were repetitive. It seemed as though the author was trying to get in as many words as possible, because characters would be called “the Starling” instead of their name, or thoughts would be strung out and questions asked. There were a lot of stagnant and short sentences that didn’t flow as well as they could have. So much of this book could have been edited down/cut, and it’s wild to me that it wasn’t. I really do think the story could have benefited from some more editing.

I will say that the story has potential, and did keep me reading to find out what happens next, which is really all I can ask for in a book. I liked the idea of the two outcasts working together and growing closer, and I found the character dynamics to be interesting. The betrayals and revealed secrets did add a layer to the plot that I appreciated. The whole egg yolk thing at the end was…interesting and I think it could have been written much better. And for much of the book, Isla didn’t really do much herself, but rather relied on Celeste and flitted about. I found a lot of her character to be contradictory, as she constantly vowed to win just to forget about that goal a moment later and then have another crisis and vow herself to the effort once again. She would have whole chapters where she just mused upon her circumstances without really doing anything. Her romance with Grim seemed almost too obvious and tropey, made to appease the BookTok crowd. To be honest, I liked her dynamic with Oro a lot more, because it’s more fleshed out, genuine, and interesting.

The ending was a bit confusing and messy, with reveal after reveal occurring. This book tried to accomplish too much at once, as if to get all the tropes in one fell swoop. I would love to see a timeline of this world to actually figure out what happens when, because now I’m so confused as to this world’s past.

I would say that teenagers are the main audience for this book, because it seems like the exact sort of story that would have fit into the YA dystopian craze back in the day, but since the author is also pushing “spicy” scenes into it, that audience pool has gotten a little muddled.

Despite some thin world building, this book did hold my attention and kept me interested most of the time. It occasionally dragged, and could have used some more editing, but I can’t really say that I disliked the reading experience. It was fine, if a bit confusing. Just, very average.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book; this review represents my honest opinions.

lightlark: an honest review.

4 stars.

let me start off by saying i stayed up until five in the morning to finish this book. and all of you one-star reviewers who hadn't even read the book, who almost had me backing out of reading this; i am so glad i didn't give up on this book.
no, it wasn't perfect – give me a bit of rant space and i will get back to you with all the details – but books rarely are. and this one did NOT deserve all that was thrown at it.
side note, though: i did not see any tiktoks on lightlark aside from the one alex posted at the very start of her journey, where she pitched the idea. i did not read this book for any quotes she posted, or tropes she mentioned, i went into this knowing near to nothing about it. so if you're disappointed about anything she said was in this story not being in the final version, i can't comment on that.

now. i said i would bring the details. here they are.

the worldbuilding was sloppy and hard to follow at first. i was so confused about this world for a good portion of the book, not because it worked so difficultly, but because it simply wasn't explained well enough. now that i've finished the book, i THINK i understand it now, but the fact i don't even know for sure really speaks for itself.

then: some things really don't make much sense, and i wish i could go into detail, but i can't without spoiling anything so i won't. but i'll say; if they don't make sense to ME, i definitely don't get how they make sense to the characters in this book. they should have questioned these things when they didn't; which is just odd considering they had centuries to think things through. only with the knowledge you get at the end of the book, do the puzzle pieces finally fit. or maybe it's just me actually still not getting it, in which case i kindly refer back to my previous point/paragraph.

finally; some things i didn't like were personal preference though i can't talk about them, because again, spoilers. there were some (major) characters and places i wish we'd learned more about, which i hope will be fixed in future books. we know almost nothing about this world aside from the island and the wildling realm; tell us more about everything. let us experience what this world has to offer. build it up.

and i'm sure i'm missing things, but the point of this review isn't to bash this story. sometimes you just read something and it's entertaining, and it transports you somewhere else, and you just want to stay in it. and sometimes that is enough. i loved this book, and that's on that. and if you didn't, that's fine too. but i cannot stand those of you who gave this one star without having read it at all. i will reread this for sure. i will read the next book. if you've been hesitant about reading this; give it a chance. you don't have to like it and you could always dnf, but don't let the goodreads rating scare you away.

if you've read all the way down here; sorry this was so long. i still haven't said all that i wanted to say. i barely touched on any of the things i DID like about this book. i'll just have you know i personally think this book was worth it for sure.

LIGHTLARK was an interesting concept, and recall to earlier YA novels that I enjoyed. For the nostalgia of it all. The worldbuilding was semi understandable; it took me about halfway through the novel to really understand everything that was happening and why it was happening.

Despite it being described as this high stakes novel, it never felt like I was being taken anywhere unfortunately. The more I read YA, the more I think maybe I have outgrown the genre.

If you follow the world of YA publishing at all, you may have heard of Lightlark, the YA debut from middle-grade author Alex Aster that is fairly reminiscent of the mid-2000s speculative fiction boom that gave us books like Divergent. A BookTok sensation, the novel has been on the receiving end of both significant hype and sudden criticism among readers online, all before its release date ever even arrived. Marketing materials have described the book as a mix of A Court of Thorns and Roses and the aforementioned The Hunger Games. Could the finished product ever live up to the idea of the book that seemed already firmly lodged in readers’ heads?

The answer is, of course, yes and no. To be clear: I enjoyed the heck out of Lightlark, which puts a fast-paced, entertaining spin on a familiar premise, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at its heroine as she struggles to break a curse and stay alive, and dropping a couple of bombshell twists in the novel’s final third that promise the inevitable sequel will be just as entertaining a ride. I may or may not have accidentally stayed up until 2 am one night finishing it. (I totally did.) Aster’s book is a melting pot of things you’ve read before but combined in such a way that nevertheless feels fun and propulsive. (And that is more than capable of covering up some of its more obvious flaws.)

I know there's been some drama surrounding this book, but to be honest, I don't care about any of that. I actually thought this sounded like a pretty great concept, and given how it blew up on tiktok, I was wondering why a publisher hadn't picked it up beforehand!

Once I started reading it, though, I understood. If I'm being honest, I didn't quite finish it. If I had to guess, I would say this was a case where a book was rightfully rejected by publishers because it just wasn't ready, but one ended up taking it one once they saw its potential fanbase. The thing is, the book doesn't really live up to that video (I only saw the original one, I haven't watched any of the subsequent tiktoks about it). I thought it was supposed to be some kind of "fight to the death until there's only one left standing," kind of like the Hunger Games, but nobody... died? And for a considerable portion of the book, they weren't even allowed to fight???

I might have been able to move past this if the plot was otherwise intriguing, but the world-building was SO confusing. There were too many logical inconsistencies to count, and I felt like I couldn't focus on what was happening because my brain was too busy going "?????" I'm genuinely bewildered, because I feel like these are the types of issues editors and proofreaders are meant to point out.

Rather than belabour the point, I will simply say: For a nearly-published book, everything felt underdeveloped and illogical. If it were a friend's draft, I would tell them it had the potential to be something great, but that it needed a ton of work. From an ARC, though, I just expect so much more??

I will say that I think Aster's writing voice/style is much better suited to middle grade, and I expect the quality of her existing series far surpasses that of LIGHTLARK. Even though I didn't reach the end, I'm giving it 2 stars because I feel bad that so many people are rating it poorly without reading it, but I would not recommend this book.

Reads very children-middle a bookish.
Did not keep with the world in dialogue.
Too much contemporary terminology.. tshirt.

I could not. The hype wasn’t real.
How disappointing

1.5 stars

***before i start this review, i want to clarify that i’m in no way hating on alex and this is just an honest review about things i disliked in lightlark.***

i didn’t go in expecting to hate the book and despite all the negativity, i went into this with an open mind. yes, i suffered through the entire book, and read every single page to form my own opinions and critiques about this. although i have many things to say, i’m gonna try to keep this as short as possible.

where to begin…
i guess to start this off, if you’re planning to read this because you’re expecting a dark, diverse version of the hunger games as promoted by alex… don’t waste your time. it’s just another generic white fantasy. there’s no “deadly game” as said in the blurb, no bloodshed or action, and no duel to the death. there’s nothing memorable about this book except the irritating magic jargon because it occupies 70% of the dialogue.

speaking of the magic… wildling, sunling, starling… am i being too critical if i say she could’ve thought of something a bit more creative? and don’t even get me started on starstick. it sounds like the name of a popsicle and you expect me to take it seriously. come on.

onto the plot… i don’t have too much to say except it was boring and predictable. the beginning of the book started with a major info dump on the lore and magic that was confusing and it was difficult to understand what the game even was since it wasn’t fully explained until 40% of the book. i literally had to smile and nod my way through the entire thing. The majority of the book was spent on the main characters searching for objects on the island and not on the game. it was a snooze fest.

the characters:
i was ready for a diverse group of complex characters but what i got was 5/6 rulers being white, the only POC wrote to be a background character, and all of them have the personality of stale bread. alex didn’t bother to develop any of them except isla, the main character, and she still managed to be the most annoying one. she was too rash and judgmental of people who hadn’t done a thing to her. i know she’s the MC but she had this irritating habit of making everything about herself and throwing a hissy fit when things didn’t go her way.

another small but profoundly annoying detail: the number of times i had to read the lines, “Grim grinned,” almost made me lose my mind. was that supposed to be funny or was it just bad writing? guess we’ll never know.

now about azul. it felt like alex added one POC as a last-minute thought and said yeah, that’s enough representation. i was so excited to see where azuls character went and imagine my disappointment when i finished and he had almost no lines, no development, and was basically like a cardboard cutout standing in the background the entire book. the MC didn’t even give him the time of day and he was always mentioned as an afterthought.
*MINOR SPOILERS* — to add to that, alex randomly decided to potentially give him a villain arc in the last 20% of the book that lasted for about one page and get this, he wasn’t even present for it. it was all in the pov of the MC and her delusional thoughts. this was a common occurrence throughout the whole book with azuls character. everyone seemed to talk about him but he never actually got to say anything himself. it wouldn’t have been that hard to give those lines to azul, alex. the diversity felt completely performative and i definitely feel like i was baited as a reader, was promised good representation, and then yet again was sorely let down.

to sum up the romance, all i can say is that the promoted ETL ship isn’t even ETL since the love interest made it known he's attracted to the mc before she even breathes in his direction. also, a lot of their scenes that were promoted by the author weren’t in the book or they were changed. don’t even care. moving on.

finally the ending. it was a series of poorly executed plot twists that were predictable and jumbled together with no structure. there were two chapters in the book where there were four betrayals back to back and it was meant to be surprising but it didn’t evoke any reaction from me because the characters weren’t developed enough for me to even feel betrayed.

i could say so much more about this book but i don’t want this to be super long so i’ll end it here. overall, this was extremely disappointing and i think it's safe to say i won’t be continuing this series if it ever gets a sequel. i can't say im certain asters writing will improve in the future but i think it’s clear that false advertising and baiting readers aren’t the way to go about promoting your book and i hope aster addresses the concerns everyone has about it.
until then, goodbye forever and STEER CLEAR OF THIS BOOK!

1.5 Stars

This seems like a concept that was published and picked up for a movie because it hoped to breathe life into a dying genre that once was very prosperous and gave us titles like: The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, etc. However it fell short. This had the potential to be the revitalization of a dystopian esque era but instead comes off like a culmination of other book plots and characters centering around one single idea with lack of substantial content to back its premise.

Let's talk about the plot...
It was pretty much the complete opposite of what I expected. I think I, like many others, went into this book thinking that it would be like the Hunger Games (as it was advertised...) where rulers would be fighting to the death. I quite honestly was confused for the first 50% because I kept thinking that the fighting would start soon and then it never came.

Advertising it as a game that happens every 100 years makes ZERO sense to me. It is not even close to a game. They are not playing, there are no stakes, they are working together to break curses they all have. There was hardly any 'betrayal.' It was a wild goose chase spurred by old texts that weren't even confirmed to be accurate or true.

The Writing
Look, it is definitely not the worst writing in the world. I have read worse books. But for all the hype - I think high expectations made the outcome feel very disappointing. From the beginning of the book the entire first 10% is just info dump after info dump and to make it worse the info dumps repeat. It almost feels like Aster thought the reader would be too dumb to remember everything she dumped in the first 50 pages so consistently throughout the book she rewrites the info as a reminder. Don't underestimate your reader no matter how old they are. For all the info dumping she did I struggled to even picture the islands.

Obviously in addition to this there is the use of words and phrases like: meanly, yolky, the sky cracked open like an egg, cliffy thing, the sun was a running yolk.

Isla is one of the most annoying FMC's I have had to read. I quite literally was rolling my eyes at every single thing she did. She is incredibly naive, places more importance on herself than necessary, and all around an infuriating character. Consistently acting like she knows best and that nobody else understands what's going on. The thing I think I hated most was her inability to just stop and think.

Yes she was sheltered her whole life. I don't blame her for that. But there are certain scenarios she chooses to be ignorant to the evidence given to her and rather than thinking logically just ignores all sense in favor of her own dumb ideas.

The romance was lackluster and boring. I hate love triangles. They didn't act like villains, I thought this was supposed to be enemies to lovers. Makes no sense to me how two men fell in love with her when all she does is almost destroy every realm and insult everyone.

For something that was advertised as being, "The Hunger Games mixed with A Court of Thorns and Roses, but written by a poc" I expected there to be more rep. The way I interpreted that is that there would be rep where SJM & HG lacked. And there was none of that. Every other character is white except Azul. And he gets the least amount of page time. I am not saying she needs to be the forefront of bringing representation to YA books, it's not her job, but if you're going to make it seem like there will be representation you need to back that. I felt sorely disappointed I didn't see myself in any of the characters.

Characters like Azul and Cleo could’ve been such good assets and interesting backstory’s to uncover but instead are pushed to the side in favor of reading about Grim’s greasy hair and flowing black cape.

I don't know how different a final book can be from an ARC but a lot of the missing scenes she claims are in the final draft or not directly as she stated. I think that we'll see when the final comes out but there wasn't possible variations of the scenes missing in the ARC so they would all have to be in the final.

Overall, I think that this was not the worst book I have read. However, having read it, I would never recommend it to anyone. I can see what the intention was with the plot but it didn't come through in the writing.

There is a lot of work and editing that I personally feel need to be done in order for this to reach the standard that was expected of it. More time and effort need to go into the world building and characters rather than the tropes.

all I will say is don’t buy into the TikTok hype. and that I don't think it's right to advertise this book as YA.

This book did not work for me. The writing was not the most polished, but that's something I could overlook if the story or the characters made a lot more sense to me. Unfortunately, neither worked well for me.