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

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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. 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. I can't imagine that it's translation to film will be good. I say that as a film reviewer who doubles as an avid reader. Things aren't looking good. 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. AND NO SPOILERS BUT THE FACT THAT EGGS AND YOLKS ACTUALLY ENDED UP BEING SIGNIFCANT IN THE CLIMAX OF THE WHOLE STUPID BOOK UGHHHHH

The Average Citizen. Isla actually talks to average citizens in this book, but they're all single minded and one note it feels weird. These people don't have interiority or conflicting feelings. They are simply on Isla's side or they are not. Sometimes they switch between the two, but yeah, there isn't much more beyond that. This is especially true when she meets her own Wildling people. I actually read the first two Throne of Glass books between reading Lightlark and Nightbane. It really is a huge aesthetic and tone inspiration, and the two feel very similar. It is true that the Lightlark series is attempting to occupy the same romantasy feel as ACOTAR, but the similarities do not stop there. I think, if the book is actually attempting to do anything, it'd be a proper romantasy.

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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 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! If you're here, you've probably already read, or know about the infamous Lightlark. I really didn't know what to expect going into the sequel. I mean, I don't think anyone expected a huge jump in quality, but it would be interesting to see what improvements the author made. Were there improvements? Sort of? I don't know. Once you’ve started building up an an interesting book collection, you’re bound to start noticing special editions on other peoples shelves. Where do people find these gems, you wonder? Maybe they talk about getting them through exclusive (albeit expensive) book clubs like Illumicrate or FairyLoot, or maybe they are investing in beautiful (although yet again, expensive) publishers like Folio Society or Easton Press.

We got significantly less "an x was an x thing". I still think the prose was not as terrible as everyone made it out to be to begin with, but there are construction issues and the entire thing is so poorly conceived and researched that it feels like there is. There were some neat metaphors in there. There were some less neat metaphors.while threatening a ghost] Isla pulled her new dagger from her waist and brandished it. “Don’t take another…float.” 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. Alex Aster’s intricate world expands after the riveting culmination of the Centennial games, delving more deeply into Isla’s memories of her past, as her future hurtles toward two possible fates. preread: “but i thought you were done taking book recommendations from tiktok?” shhhhhhhhh. just one more. 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.

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. 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 THATAnd despite my misgivings, I’ll probably read the sequel. I want to see how this messy, strangely addictive story ends 😂 Because the plot was so reliant on not only the reader understanding all the worldbuilding elements (which were often very convoluted; the MC jumps to a lot of random conclusions), but to care about them as much as the MC does, when the big reveal happened, I kept needing to rewind to make sure I got what was going on. I’m still not fully sure I did. Essentially, a lot of rules were created for this fantasy world plagued by curses, and one of the characters broke and twisted a bunch of the rules to ruin the lives of others. That’s it. So if you’re not super invested in the world created here, you’re likely to feel a bit disappointed in the whole thing by the end. If you fall in love with the world, you’ll probably really like the book.

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.BookTok phenomenon and award-winning author Alex Aster delivers listeners a masterfully written, utterly gripping YA fantasy novel.