Lightlark

3.25/5 stars

I just love having opinions, which is why I read this book ASAP, because you can't form a solid opinion without doing research (contrary to the beliefs of my family on Facebook). And to be honest, I was expecting to come out of this read with my very own pitchfork and burning torch. I just love the Beauty and the Beast villager aesthetic.

But do you know what (much to my dismay)? This wasn't horrible. I'm not in love with it, and a lot of the book I did hate, but like myself at age 2, there was so much potential. Will that potential also get wasted like mine did? Probably, but I'm gonna be optimistic.

Because while yes, the worldbuilding wasn't sturdy and it took almost the entire book for me to become somewhat attached the characters....and the writing was annoying at times...and there was no build up between scenes and plot points, but I expected much work. There are fantasy series that are much worse and we as a book community should be spending our energy on hating on them instead. cough Gild cough

Shout out to my boy Oro for carrying most of this book, he's the true VIP.

1.5 ⭐️
i will say it wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be but tiktok hypes this up WAY too much. it was not amazing. wasnt even great! not even sure i could say it was good. so many parts of this felt like stolen portions of different media that was then all mashed together. a main character in a book about an island and rulers named isla crown..are you serious? and apparently she pronounces it eye-sla....girl.

alex threw SO many plot twists in towards the end it was just confusing and frustratingly hard to keep up with. Not to mention the fact that it felt like it got fairly rushed toward the end. we spent how long reading about days 1-50 and then all of a sudden the days just started flying by. not that i wanted this train wreck to go on any longer. it was actually quite boring and then everything started happening at once. it feels like she just tried to throw every trope she could think about into this book.

i love our one gay character who lost the person he loved and is sad. don't you just love when a gay character is thrown in for the purpose of suffering? i mean why make him gay at that rate, just so you can shout diversity? lets not forget i believe he also happens to be the one poc character in a book where the author claimed diversity.

the names of the realms..wildLING, sunLING, starLING, moonLING, skyLING...oh and nightshade. have some originality i beg.

and lets also discuss the fact that the main character is what like around 20? and of course both love interests are over 500 years old. of course! she has no chemistry with either of them. the one she supposedly had chemistry with erased her memory yet she still fell in love with him out of nowhere. and oro..they have NO chemistry at all. literally he saves her a few times, she saves him. boom they're in love?? okayy. whatever you say babe.

alex can go on and on about how shes a new york times bestselling author and has a movie deal all she wants but that means nothing when your book is just awful.

i also just feel like a lot of stuff about this damn island makes no sense but whatever.

i originally was going to read the second one just for the sake of knowing how it continues but now im not even sure i want to put myself through that.

The rulers of the six realms have been called to Lightlark for the Centennial. It's a competition to see if they can break the curses that were cast on the realms centuries ago. If they can figure out how to break the curses, everyone will win, except for the realm that will cease to exist.

I don't read as much YA as I used to. They all seem pretty much the same. The blurb for this was so intriguing that I had to read it. I'm happy to say that this is fresh and unique. Each realm has a different curse and different powers. I loved the different magics. Isla and the king are my favorite characters.

I really enjoyed listening to this narrator. I highly recommend the audiobook.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an early copy.

Was very excited about this book when I 1st found out about it. However, reading it it felt somewhat slow. I had parts that were really interesting & the pages flew by & then I other parts that were agonizing to read. Still love the concept regarding the battle/competition & powers but the way it was written could've been done better. I cannot stand Isla (FL/ main character) during many parts of the book.

I am not a huge consumer of modern trope-y fantasy literature, but I did cut my teeth on Sarah J Maas' entire bibliography at the end of last year, because my wife loves all of it.

Fans of ACOTAR (like my wife) will probably like this a lot. For me, it's solidly “so okay it's average”. That said, Bean's exhaustive review is also 100% correct in substance so I won't repeat it here, just to say go read that review.

My biggest gripe though, has to be one of the core conceits around the main character. Namely [early plot spoilers] why would you give us a main character who grew up in a savage amazonian realm where the people eat hearts and can grow flowers with blood and are tragically fated to kill anyone they fall in love with so they're basically badass wendigos with nature powers... and then have said main character affected by exactly none of those unique and cool and interesting factors? It's literary cowardice. We could have had so many cool logistical conflicts, but now it's all replaced by a few throwaway lines about pretending to have those conflicts. Pulling a stunt like this doesn't make the main character unique, it makes her generic. The eventual reveal ([major ending spoiler]"Oh she had powers all along it was just cloaked by the other powers she also had all along, but somehow none of the curses that go with those powers?!") reads more like post-hoc justification for a poor character design choice.

Anyway, not a terrible book. But certainly a flawed one, which is unfortunate because it could have been really interesting if it wasn't so intent on checking all the genre boxes.

OH MY GOD! I am in love with this book! The world building and character development was beautiful. The twist and challenges throughout were so good. The ending had me gasping. Like wtf. She has KNOWN Grim for an entire year and she does remember because he removed her memories because Celeste, aka Aurora, suggested it was best for her. Also Celeste that back stabbing bitch she deserved to die. And Oro sweet never told a lie Oro

Very intriguing book. I found it because of bookstagram, thought it was interesting, and added it to my TBR list. Then it wouldn't leave my mind and when I found it in Target randomly, I knew I had to get it. I really liked the story. The twists kept me on my toes the whole time. I was thinking for a moment about how Isla's powerlessness keeps making her a damsel in distress for other people to save and how it was starting to get annoying, but then a few pages later I took back that thought. The ending was a great setup for a sequel, which I'm excited to read. The world building did get confusing at times because it was so much that needed to be created by Alex Aster, clearly communicated, and understood by the readers, but it all made sense eventually. Glad I read it.

3.25 stars

oh she COOKED.

ngl book was a fucking snoozefest until 60% in. started to ramp up after that and honestly the last 10% saved this book. if not for that ending, this would've been 2 stars. and even now i'm being generous with the 3.5 bc the book is so fresh. writing was garbage but i had fun halfway through.

CONFLICTED BETWEEN GRIM AND ORO. I NEED GRIM TO GROVEL IN BOOK 2 PLEASE.

This was not near as bad as people had suggested, it wasn't a one star read nor was it a 5 star read. To me, it was about 3 stars. It was interesting enough to keep my attention but it was certainly very far from being a favourite of mine.

I completely understand why she couldn't end up with Grim but the thing that makes zero sense is why she HAD to end up with Oro. It was unwarranted and will cause many more issues in the future. Isla couldn't even kiss Oro without thinking about Grim, she hears Grim in her sleep and thinks about what he has said to her.

Everything Grim did was terribly selfish but he was also brainwashed by Aurora while being blinded by his love for Isla. I feel bad for him because of this but that doesn't excuse him not talking everything through with Isla before going through with his plan. Isla understood why he did what he did and still condemned him.

Oro is a pain, don't like the guy. To me he is just a grumpy 500 year old whose whole existence included searching for a damned flower. Him falling in love with Isla made zero sense. There was no chemistry between them and most of their conversations were superficial. He knew she was lying to him yet still somehow “liked” her. Then there's the fact that she told him she was powerless, I bet that made him over the moon for who knows what reason.

Like Oro compared to Grim in terms of their love for Isla, none made sense mostly because we don't know much about Isla and Grims past. But it makes sense much more than with Oro. If I could say anything about it, it would have been that Grim was totally accepting of Isla's lack of power probably mostly because she was part Nightshade, even powerless. He loved her enough to goade her into beating him, to protect her, and to make sure she knew nothing was wrong with being powerless at all. And in that case their love makes sense, it was likely built on equality and mutual respect while Isla constantly knew she was lesser than Oro in practically everything. She may have lacked power but I'm almost 100% certain that Grim didn't care about that because of her physical strength.

At first, I was skeptical because for some reason I've seen A LOT of bad reviews on social media about this book... But I actually enjoyed it a lot and got hooked. Especially after reading Nightbane, I reread all of Lightlark again lol I think it's because I LOVE stories that have a completely different meaning after finding certain details / plot twists out. Kinda like the movie Arrival is a new story when you watch it a second time because of what you now know from watching the ending. What you thought was happening is actually completely different. Lightlark has a plot twist at the end, but Nightbane has an even bigger plot twist that impacts how I viewed certain characters and relationships in Lightlark. I love it.

1/4 stars

I'm so glad I didn't buy this book. I could not get through this book. I had to DNF at around 20%. I have zero interest in knowing how this book ends. The writing style wasn't for me. I kept rereading paragraphs in order to fully grasp what was actually happening. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

I don't understand why this is getting such a bad rep. Is it groundbreaking? No. Is it innovative and new? Also no. But it's still really enjoyable! Maybe going into it with low expectations has helped my enjoyment? But I loved it. 
Predictable? Kind of.  Convenient? Yeah. Every plot device is wrapped up pretty quickly. Isla seems to find things, and be rescued pretty easily.  Is Isla annoying? Ugh yes. She never listens to anything anyone says, and only focuses on herself for like 75% of the book. She's also CONSTANTLY putting herself in reckless situations and getting her hurt/almost killed unnecessarily. She says she can't trust anyone multiple times and then proceeds to do exactly that and convince herself to hell with it let's see what happens! Which often bites her in the ass, but it's YA that's kind of to be expected! I feel like everyone is being so critical, when we should really just take it for what it is. It doesn't have to be that deep. It was an enjoyable read even if it wasn't perfect!
I do kind of wish that it hadn't been set up to be a series though. I feel like without that last chapter (or if we had explored that avenue earlier in the book) it could have been such a good standalone fantasy. Even without finding out about the ending in this book I feel like it was tied up pretty nicely and I'm not sure if I even want to read the next one. I'll be interested to read the premise and see how I feel. 

If you have you ever thought, “Man, I wish the Hunger Games was ridiculous and took place in a poorly-defined world of unexplained supernatural beings,” then this book is for you! I saw it in a Walmart at the beach, if that tells you anything.

Age range: 14-16
Too much romance for younger readers. Too much romance for older readers. Also, the quality of writing might be a deterrent for the latter.