Lightlark by Alex Aster
Warning: this review contains strong language. Readers under 13, please do not interact
I thought, with all the drama and such surrounding the author and the book, I would give it a shot. Spoiler: I kind of regret it but alas, can’t get back 2 days of my life so I’ve got to live with it (lol!). I did read this for a vlog and while some points will be the same, this will be a more extensive review (I wanted to make like a really chill vlog for this one and also show work stuff).
So, here we go:
The premise is interesting and that’s what got me slightly interested before all the book drama happened (as a rule, I do not trust booktok. Ever. and I will continue not to trust booktok after this mess). Basically, every century, an island called Lightlark appears for something called the Centennial - essentially a tournament of sorts, and for 100 days, the 6 rulers have to work together in order to fulfill the prophecy and get rid of the curses.
There are 6 realms: Sunlings, Skylings, Moonlings, Starlings, Wildlings, and Nightshade (based on those names, take a wild guess who that supposed bad guys are)
Each realm has its ruler (obviously) and each realm has a curse.
Sunlings: can’t be in direct sunlight
Skylings: Can’t fly (but the ruler apparently still can)
Moonlings: Every full moon, the sea takes those on the water
Starlings: None of them live past 25 years old
Wildlings: They have to kill the person they fall in love with and they must eat hearts to stay alive
Nightshade: They can’t feel the energy of the night
So in regards to the curses, the least affected seem to be Moonlings and the most affected are Wildlings. There are also so many mentions of Wildlings all being seductresses and temptresses and I just…I was getting so annoyed with it. I genuinely thought we left the “Main character is effortlessly flawless and is so seductive despite being a literal idiot” in the YA books of the 2010s and also we have the “not like other girls” trope because Isla isn’t just a Wildling a.k.a the most hate human but heck, she’s also powerless. Yes, dear reader, you read that correctly. The big secret is that Isla is powerless despite being the ruler of Wildling AND she is also immune to the curse and doesn’t need to eat hearts to stay alive.
The next big plot twist about Isla “miss perfect” Crown? Her mother was a Wildling, yes, but her father (who killed Isla’s mother moments after Isla was born and then unalived himself) was a Nightshade.
So, that concludes with a) the curse not being passed down because Isla’s mother refused to kill Isla’s father AND b) Isla doesn’t have the power of just the Wildlings. Oh no. It’s never that simple. She has the power of the Nightshades as well but her Nightshade power masked her Wildling power, leading Isla to believe she was powerless her whole life (to be fair, it seemed convenient because, in the end, Isla won because she was so used to not having power unlike the other rulers - she had fighting skills, which, to be honest, is a totally different conversation, and so she used that to her advantage).
Oh and we continue on with the characters. Besides Miss Crown very much having a holier-than-thou attitude, especially in regards to Wildlings being “temptresses” (take a shot every time you read that and I guarantee you, you won’t even get halfway through the book) and being “oh I am the most beautiful but hey, others are beautiful too” to having the token queer character such as Azul who then disappears for 90% of the book and to the other supposed token queer not token bitch Queen Cleo, ruler of the Moonlings, we are supposed to hate everyone except Isla, Celeste and Grim. Oh, Celeste is the Starling leader, she’s the only other ruler who is young alongside Isla whereas everyone else is 5 fricking hundred years old. Cause that definitely makes sense, doesn’t it? Celeste is also supposedly Isla’s BFF and her only friend, to be honest, considering how insufferable Crown is. Grimshaw? I think Aster was going for enemies-to-lovers vibes but really, it wasn’t there. It was like enemies-to-lovers but when you’re a literal child and can’t actually think of proper insults so you call the other “Demon” meanly. You want true enemies-to-lovers? Read Six of Crows. Helnik is the blueprint (I said what I said!).
Oh, I guess I forgot to mention one more, kinda important, the least insufferable character which is Mr. Oro, ruler of the Sunlings and…king of Lightlark? So, my big question is when Lightlark isn’t like available to the other rulers, where does it go? Like does it go underwater or is it just that the storms are too violent and too dangerous to be able to get onto the island safely?
Another thing I didn’t really understand, in a sense, is the romance. You’re telling me that the first encounter we get with Monsieur Grim (according to some readers, he’s like Rhysand 2.0) and there’s an instant connection and Isla instantly goes all heart eyes but no, she doesn’t actually because she’s obviously trying to guard her heart but then like she literally plays around with him and actively flirts with him or at least Aster was trying to show some kind of flirting and specifically enemies-to-lovers flirting. And then you have Oro winning some of the games/tournaments/whatever and he’s like “I choose Isla to be my partner” and then he conveniently pairs Celeste with miss bitch queen Cleo a.k.a Isla’s mortal enemy #1. Isla hates him for a while, then she understands his somewhat tragic backstory (as I am typing this review almost a month after finishing the book, I don’t remember if there ever really was a tragic backstory lol). All that to say Isla hates Oro, finds out his backstory information and then she starts becoming friendly with him and then, wouldn’t ya know, she chooses him over Grim in like not even the last 100 pages of the book but the only real reason she chose Oro instead of Grim is that he was manipulating her from the start and he ended up actually low-key having stabbed her in the back.
Also, can we just take the fact that they are constantly pitted against each other, Isla and Cleo that is? Like you have little miss Perfect Isla Crown and her BFF Celeste and then the moment another female character, a powerful female character mind you, appears, Isla constantly starts absolutely going off. She, right off the bat, targets Cleo (sorta justifiable plot wise but she doesn’t even think about any of the other characters as evil, except maybe Grim but that’s a given simply because he’s a Nightshade.)
Listen, this is one heck of an essay - I understand why people like this book. It was fun, minus the obvious plot holes and uh not very fleshed-out characters, world-building or plot to be honest but it could be seen as one of those books that could be used as a palate cleanser. I know that people do use the blurbs of authors they love to see if a book is worth it or not but personally, I don’t do that very often. I was very hesitant to get into this one even though it had been blurred by some big, big names such as Chloe Gong and Sabaa Tahir, both authors I love but I was equally hesitant because I don’t trust booktok in general and a lot of Aster’s marketing came from the booktok community. I’m also not sure if claiming that you had 10 years of rejection and then getting a book published that’s so…bland and not very well written in general. The plot points in this story don’t add up either but, I digress.
So, if you got to the end of this rambling review that really went nowhere and everywhere at the same time, I truly applaud you. I don’t know when my vlog for this will be up but make sure you’re following my Instagram as well as subscribed to my Youtube channel to be notified! And while you’re doing other things, I am going to go hunt down the footage for this blog…
Rating: 2/5 stars
Love,
Mila
