Lightlark by Alex Aster
★★
*SPOILERS BELOW*
Vibe Check: If draft one of The Hunger Games met draft one of From Blood and Ash.
Let me start by saying this book has been one of the most confounding reads I’ve ever experienced. I first heard of Alex Aster and Lightlark late last year during a dual interview featuring her and Jennifer L. Armentrout. Suddenly I started seeing Alex all over TV, BookTok, and IG. With all the hype, I turned to BookTok to do some digging. The number of women who sang Lightlark’s praises in addition to learning Universal optioned the rights to a movie before the book was even published had me itching to crack it open! However, when I googled the author (which I typically do post-read to remain unbiased) I found a flurry of negative reviews about the book and the author herself. So which was it?! Was it the greatest book I’d ever read or a total miss as the internet would have me believe? I’m not here to bash anyone so I won’t dish on the details about the author. I will say she went viral for a video discussing the plot of her manuscript and was then picked up by a publisher. Look her up if you’re curious to know more :)
Lightlark focuses on Isla Crown, ruler of the Wilding land. Unlike the other five rulers in Lightlark, she was born without powers. The story begins with Isla attending her first Centennial, a sort of Hunger Games/power display that occurs between the six rulers every 100 years in an attempt to break the curses put on all of Lightlark’s citizens and rulers hundreds of years prior. The curses invert the rulers’ and therefore citizens’ power sets inadvertently draining their respective lands along with the island of Lightlark itself. All the lands and their people will die if the curses aren’t broken during this Centennial. Isla attends the Centennial with two plans. The first is set by her guardians in Wildling to seduce the king and then share his powers (a byproduct of two rulers falling in love) and the second is set by Isla and her bbf Celeste to win the Centennial and break the curses using magical relics. Isla has to navigate being “powerless” amongst a group of powerful rulers while trying to break the curses, heal her lands, and gain some measure of power for herself. There are demonstrations, lies and liars, a hunt for special artifacts, parties, and palace intrigue…
“The Centennial was many things. A Game. A Chance at breaking the many curses that plagued the six realms. An opportunity to win unmatched power. A meeting of the six rulers. A hundred days on an island cursed to only appear once every hundred years.”
— Isla Crown
This book took me 21 days to read… It wasn’t until the final 40 pages that I couldn’t put it down and I’m not sure if that’s because the pacing sped up or because I could finally see the finish line. The flaws in this story lie in the surface-level detail regarding the world-building, character development, and verbal repetition. The world felt like it wasn’t fully realized. It’s based on a disappearing island that is inaccessible for 99 years. It’s only during one year every century that people can travel to and from freely. Each of the different lands has different magic all stemming from nature. This is fascinating and yet it wasn’t :( The main characters were the typical archetypes down to the love triangle between Isla (Poppy from FBAA), the golden boy (Tamlin from ACOTAR and ACOTAR only), and the dark, grim man (his name is literally Grim! aka Rhys from ACOMAF). Lastly, Isla’s internal dialogue, our main source of exposition, was incredibly repetitive. Certain phrases were repeated so many times I could see them coming a mile away. Isla called herself powerless about 35 times and referred to herself as a fool over 50 times. Yes, I searched on my Kindle app. I don’t love a story where the main character, whose thoughts we’re privy to, talks down to herself for the entirety of the story.
I’m not the type of reader to get stuck on a typo, editing misstep, or a lack of intentional editing. I read all of Jennifer L. Armentrout’s FBAA books and was able to get past these. And yet I couldn't help thinking multiple times during this read that the hype surrounding this book and the rushed publishing job severely hindered the editorial process. There’s a whole conversation going on about how the internet, specifically BookTok, has directly affected the publishing industry. More on that later. This felt like draft one and I needed to read draft four to be enthralled. There is a second book that I just purchased. Yes, I purchased it after saying how boring book one was. As a completionist, I need to see if the story improves! I’m hoping it does. Stay tuned, I’ll follow up…
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Lingering Thoughts
This book felt like fantasy trope soup. Every familiar fantasy trope I’ve read was here.
To be trained in fighting and court politics her entire life, Isla manages to screw up every potential political maneuver and get injured multiple times.
I read somewhere the producers of Twilight were spearheading the adaptation and that does not give me confidence in the film’s ability to improve this story!
The names in this story aren’t very imaginative. Grim is dark, Oro is bright, Azul has sky powers.
