So. I'm sure you've all heard of Lightlark by Alex Aster and are probably aware of the controversy and all the review-bombing around it. Naturally I couldn't help myself and my morbid curiosity pushed me to read it for myself.
Is this the worst book I've ever read? No. Is this the best book I've ever read? Not even close. Certainly not worthy of a six-figure paycheck and a movie deal before release... there are far more deserving books out there. My rating is 1.5 stars.
My biggest gripe with this book is the lazy naming. It'sso bad that I got the impression that Aster used these names as place-holders in her draft but never bothered replacing them with actual names. Here's what I mean:
Our Mary-Sue royal MC who spends the entirety of the book on an island - Isla Crown
Leader of a kingdom that draws their power from the stars - Celeste
Leader of a kingdom that draws their power from the sun - Oro (gold)
Leader of the Night Court, sorry, the shadow lands - Grim
Leader of the kingdom that draws their power from the sky - Azul
And the only leader who seemingly isn't named after her kingdom - Cleo... some tell me if the name Cleo is related to the moon somehow because I wouldn't be surprised
The names of the kingdoms... I'll let you guess from what each of them draw their power from - Wildling, Moonling, Sunling, Starling, Skyling, aaaand Nightshade (couldn't stick with the -ling suffix, huh?)
The stick-shaped relic that allows Isla to teleport through portals made of stars? Why that's the starstick of course!
Also the general writing choices... Aster seems to be obsessed with yolky eggs and also likes to describe objects/places using this template: adjective-y thing. Ex. The sun was a yolky thing, it was a cliffy thing, a temptress thing, a gleaming thing. Remember how in high school we were taught to avoid using the word "thing" in our writing? Yeah... guess Aster skipped that class.
Plot-wise... we were promised a mix of ACOTAR and The Hunger Games. Uhhhhh no. This is a rehash of Three Dark Crowns.
The only hint of ACOTAR you get is the copy-paste (but change the name) version of Rhysand that is Grim... and I have a sneaking suspicion Oro will turn into Tamlin in the sequel.
The Hunger Games element? Completely absent. There's no fight to the death... in fact it's made very clear that no one who's participated in the competition in the past 500 years has actually died and it's likely no one will die this time round either. The entirety of the book is spent following Isla walking around the islands looking for a relic that clearly doesn't exist. Massive waste of time.
I really wish we got to follow Celeste or Cleo. Their curses were far more interesting. The ocean dragging people to their death every full moon or cursed to die by the age of 25? Much more interesting than being cursed to kill your true love (I mean come on how many times has that plot been used in fantasy fiction?)
Another instance of lazy writing was the over-abundance of plot convenience. There's not one conflict that wasn't resolved through some magical relic/power/person never mentioned before.
Oh and if you hate the villain monologue trope... prepare yourself.
And of course the flase-advertising everyone has been on about. I didn't see any of Aster's tiktoks promising certain tropes (except for one where she gets overly-excited over a snippet of tepid dialogue that was indeed in the book), so I'll just stick to what we're promised in the synopsis and blurbs.
As mentioned before, this isn't ACOTAR meets THG. It's Three Dark Crowns with some changes to the political system and number of rulers.
Lightlark doesn't only appear every 100 years, it's always there (people live on it ffs) but the rulers of each kingdom can only visit every 100 years... I think. Idk it wasn't made very clear because Oro is the king of Lightlark and the starstick brings Isla anywhere so it's all very ambiguous.
Romance is a sub-plot and the love triangle came out of nowhere. I don't mind the lack of romance but as romance was promised and toted by Aster and all the authors that blurbed the book, it's misleading. I heard a lot of the tropes that were promised and didn't appear in the book were romance-related so just keep that in mind.
Most importantly: diversity. Bitch where? You get your token black character and token gay character all in one. And that's it. Bone app the teeth I guess.
Anyway, to me this book was low-stakes, lazy, and uncreative. I'm surprised I managed to finish it because I seriously considered DNFing it at the 30% mark, the 50% mark, and the 70% mark but I didn't want the rabid fans swarming my review and telling me I'm not allowed to have an opinion because I dIdN't ReAd It or that I dIdN't GiVe It A cHaNcE.
I read it. I finished it. It sucks. Goodbye.
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