Lightlark 3.5.... ORO & GRIM!! This FRIDAY! 7pm (UK GMT)! 3 hours 30 minutes long....!
This is a premiere, so the whole video will run once before replay is allowed (text will go up immediatly)- but lightlark is always a fun thing to hold a premiere for and hang out in the live chat. swing by if you can!
(Oro & Grim are two novellas released late last year. They feature a small amount of prequel backstory for each of the Lightlark love interests, and a lot of POV retelling of the previous books.)
could you figure out which font is used as the titles for the “lightlark” series of books? terrible books, good covers. there’s some obvious customization done to certain letters for flair reasons but i’m pretty certain theres a font used by default somewhere. cheers!
Controwell (2018). The customizations are actually mostly built-in to the font.
I'm back from the coal mines. And by the coal mines, I mean the sorta latest Alex Aster book, Grim & Oro.
Honestly, she's putting out these books faster than I can gather up the courage to snark about them. I still need to read Crowntide, and I eagerly await the day Starside and her new YA Barbie book is out on shelves. That's not even the latest grift in her hustle. We need to talk about the Asterverse.
Unfortunately, I can no longer joke about Aster's body of work being the "Asterverse" because that's the new branding for her author website. And by author website, I mean her official fan club with a paid membership tier. Yeah, check it out for yourself. Graphic design is her passion. The fan club's membership is $8 a month, which is more than I pay for a lot of things I actually need. There's a merch store that is all 100% print on demand. It's really a thing of beauty.
The real selling point for the paid tier is a special monthly newsletter with even more bonus material like coloring book pages and extra scenes. This more or less functions like a Patreon, which plenty of authors in the past have used to keep themselves afloat. But this is a paid newsletter. Isn't that a weird choice?
Only if you don't know who Daniella Pierson is.
Pierson is Aster's twin sister. Her Wikipedia page is also a thing of beauty. Check out her summary paragraph:
I couldn't have written it funnier if I tried.
You can read the Forbes article here; Pierson is more or less the typical entrepreneur bullshitter who tried to fake it until she (didn't) make it. The important part is that Pierson's start-up, Newsette, specialized in marketing newsletters, much like the one Aster is using.
This whole paid newsletter reeks of her sister's handiwork. I accidentally stumbled on proof when trying to access the first 50 pages of Starside that was being shared on the newsletter's unpaid tier. Myself and the the poor people unwilling to pay $8 for this were sent out a Docsend link, which asked to verify an email address:
Oh, hi Daniella!
That wasn't a mystery that needed to be solved. I have a brain. I could deduce the truth for myself, but it's very nice of you to give me the evidence outright.
I just think you shouldn't be taking money advice from someone who pissed off Forbes enough for them to label you a fraud. Do you know what you have to do to make Forbes of all publications walk back any kind of endorsement?
But, hey. Aster has made is very clear that she's in it to maximize profits. If she needs a silly paid newsletter scheme, a poorly designed website, and to put out no less than three subpar books a year to do it-- who am I to judge? It's a tough world out there for authors. Make that dough.
Which brings us back to little old Grim & Oro.
This is two novellas, each about one of the titular Lightlark men falling in love with Isla, written from their point of views. The book has a fun little gimmick where the novellas are printed on reverse sides that you have to physically flip the book over to read.
The novellas are more or less scenes you have already read in other Lightlark books, artificially bloated to include Oro and Grimshaw's narrations. It's excessively over written. Everything any character has to say comes with some inner monologue about how devoted Grim/Oro are to the most beautiful and special woman to ever exist.
Even if you can get past how annoying bloated the narration is, you're still left with the unfortunate fact that Isla from anyone else's point of view is the most boring character, ever. At least Isla's point of view reveals her to be selfish and painfully naive. Both Grimshaw and Oro fall in love with her at first sight because of how beautiful she is. In their eyes, she doesn't have much of a personality beyond being an unknowing temptress. They seemingly don’t mind the lack of character, either. When pressed to give a specific example of what singular personality trait Isla has that is so attractive, both Grim and Oro separately reminisce how much they love her excessive questions. Once is a character quirk, but twice is unoriginality.
Maybe I'm too ugly to fall for the fantasy. I can't accept this as self-indulgent wish fulfillment when I know that no man will ever be that obsessed with my body, or whatever. Writing from their perspectives proves that they have no interests or hobbies outside of their devotion to the most boring woman on the planet.
Generally, the thoughts and feelings of the romantic interest in a love story is the same as the monster in a horror movie-- whatever the reader imagines the romantic interest is thinking will always be more satisfying than whatever the author can give. I had so much ironic faith and hope for Oro, and having that knowingly misplaced faith dashed was really annoying.
I will pay authors to stop writing multiple points of view. None of you are doing it right. I'll give it back when you guys can actually do something interesting with perspective.
Broadly speaking, Oro's novella has the most new content in that Aster had to not only establish his entire friend group (which was still done poorly) but also plug up some plotholes from Lightlark. However, as boring and repetitive as Grim's novella was, it was at least 50% less excruciating to read.
Ultimately, if I were to pick parts of the overarching Lightlark story to write from their points of view, I wouldn't choose them falling in love with Isla. For Grim, I would want his point of the Centennial and the whole memory-erasing thing. For Oro, I want to see his crash out during Skayshade.
But, who cares? Grim & Oro is barely even a Lightlark book. It's a blatant money-making scheme. I have no right to judge it as a book.
I hope you made big bucks, Aster. Whatever Faustian deal you made to become a successful author probably should get reviewed by a lawyer. See if you can change the terms of that one.
Just don't get your sister involved.
📖Grim & Oro (Lightlark #1.5) by Alex Aster
📝Genre: YA, romantasy
⭐Rating: 1/5
Anyway, now that we're through with the review, here is a short list of eclectic dumbshit from both novellas:
Oro refers to Grim as Grimshaw in narration, which is validating as fuck to me and my ongoing bit of referring to Grimshaw exclusively by his full Christian name.
Oro also complains about Grimshaw being very talkative which has led me to realize that Oro is the real silent brooding ML, he just has the wrong motif
Oro basically falls in love with Isla at first sight (weird when we’re very imprecise about what she looks like, except she’s just generally “hot”) and he’s really mad about it. Like his entire inner monologue is Mr Darcy’s first proposal where he’s like “I love you and I don’t know why because I’m so much better than you but I am compelled fuck my stupid baka life”
Vitally, Grimshaw and Oro used to be besties and Grimshaw went from being chained up in Oro’s basement to being his roommate for several centuries. Oro stresses that this bromance was significant to him on a very emotional level.
Then in Grimshaw's POV, the roommate thing is barely mentioned. Ouch. I feel embarrassed for Oro now.
Aster has been really pushing for Grimshaw and Isla's version of the Fault In Our Stars "okay? okay?" thing to be infinite. But when Grimshaw first uses infinite in relation to Isla, it's always in conjunction with her touching his dick.
During the Centennial, the Sklings-- the kingdom with the democracy-- somehow voted to sacrifice themselves and kill their (gay) leader should we reach the end of Centennial and not have the curse broken yet. Which, I cannot emphasize enough, is not something that any popular vote would produce. Even if you could get the majority of your people to vote for their own deaths, there would have to be a vocal minority who would think "fuck that shit" and try their best to kill some other leader to save their own asses.
(My friend also brought up some very good additional ethical concerns, such as a) does a majority vote have the right to determine if the minority vote should also die, b) do children also get to vote or are they victim to the whims of their parents, c) do you ever get to change your vote, and d) did the population get enough time to consider their options before voting?)
Oro's novella also has an early contender for my annual Worst Line of the Year Award:
She squints. "Have you ever felt like a bird in a cage?"
Constantly.
[...}
I've never heard anyone phrase it that way...
So you’re telling me that you, Oro, have never heard someone compare their personal feelings of entrapment to a caged bird? Not once? Not anytime before? You’ve never heard anyone phrase it that way????? DO YOU WANNA THINK ABOUT IT FOR A MOMENT LONGER??? I'LL WAIT! TAKE YOUR TIME!!!!
Y'all are out there turning books like Powerless and lightlark into movies/series BUT WHAT ABOUT CARAVL??? Like caraval is the most perfect choice if you want to make a live action out of fantasy series.
So I just finished Oro's POV from the new Duelling Crowns book, and I have thoughts -- actually, rants -- about how Oro is not the main love interest, because this man is literally a walking green flag.
You don't understand -- I literally picked up this series when in my shadow-daddy era, ready to be a Grim girly with all the publicity this series got that I got absolutely whiplashed when I found out that Oro was not only not the main love interest, but he is also not the favoured love interest. (I did not know the names of the love interests, only brief outlines of the plot; and idk that there were 2 LIs, I just thought that the second ship was with some kind of secondary character that people preferred over the main. I do not like spoilers)
Anyway, to right this injustice of Oro being constantly sidelined (dude was in like 20% of book 3 and somehow still carried the whole plot. Insanity -- even coming from an Oro stan), I have decided to compile an argument on why I believe, undoubtedly, that Oro is the better love interest:
Spoilers below, obviously.
The slowburn is real. There are so many parallels, so many connections and build-up in Oro and Isla's story. a) Her shooting and flicking his crown only for him to give it to her at the end of Book 1. b) Him saving her when she fell of her balcony and healing her head, then her saving him when he got exhausted and fell, dragging him into a lake so that he can heal himself. c) Him saving her from the vines and refusing to leave her to deal with the thorns alone, then her saving him when he was injured and bringing him into a cave and staying with him until the sun went down. d) Him hating his gilding powers then her getting him to use it on her dress, and then having their symbol be a gilded golden rose. e) Her looking at her wedding gown's gloves and immediately thinking about when she was shooting at Oro during one of their early encounters. The whole build-up in Book 1, when they slowly learned to trust one another and work together, and then them being so domestic in Book 2, was just pure endgame energy. You can really see the journey these 2 people took, from skeptical enemies to actual lovers. Meanwhile, Grim was just so handsy and touchy the entire time. I mean, I get that they were together for a whole year prior, but they aren't anymore (wholy his fault) so why does he keep trying to grab her whenever he is an arm's length from her? Also, everytime I try to read Isla's flashbacks in Book 2, it is just overrun with scenes of kissing and touching. Like, that scene in the hot air balloon could've been sweet, but then BAM, his hands are on her and they are in his room again. Everytime Grim begs Isla to "remember our love", I have to squint HARD at the pages because where is the love? I can't find it. *picks up megaphone* will the love please identify yourself in this room? Is it in the room with us? All I see are his hands and lips on her. That's not love, babe, that's lust in a trenchcoat waving candy at your horny ass. I read someone mention before that Isla was basically a lonely, touch-starved barely-adult when she left her room and "fell in love" with the first hot guy she saw and there really is no disputing that claim. But, please, dear Grim-stan reader, try.
Boundaries exist. In all my years of reading, there are few fictional men with Oro's levels of boundaries. I mean, Isla literally threw herself at him several times, but he never faltered, never gave in to his pants, and always took care of her. Remember when Isla wanted to sleep with Oro because she was plagued by dreams of Grim? She was down to her underwear, ready to replace the thoughts of Grim with thoughts of Oro instead. Yet Oro took a step back. He knew that this should not be the way their sex goes, that it should not be a blanket to cover something, that she was hurting and desperate, so he got on his knees and asked her what was wrong. Then he gave her his room because Grim has never been there, and she would not think of him when she was there. Oro could've just taken off his pants and went with her plan -- I bet Grim would've done that -- but Oro would not take advantage of her when she was down. Instead, he went to find out what was really the problem and solved it. He really went "let's unpack your crisis, not your clothes". Another example is when Oro and Isla were in that cave in the desert during the sand storm. Again, Isla got naked in front of him and tried to advance on him. Yet Oro used his limited powers to use Moonling magic to cool her down and get her to sleep, preserve her strength. His morals are literally through the roof and he would never give in to either of their desires when he knows that it is not right, not how their story should go.
He knows her. As mentioned, he was in like 20% of Book 3. He flew across the world to check on her in the middle of the book, then he was let in on the plan and action in the last few chapters. He was waiting with Grim for Isla to appear with Lark, but it was taking too long, and he suggested to go to her. Grim disagreed and told him Isla's plan. And. He. Was. Like. Wtf? Ain't. No. Way. In the 4 pages that is his POV, dude heard the plan, and immediately went "that's the plan?? That's a horrible plan. She must have another plan." And he was right. I cannot stress enough that Oro literally figured Isla's actual plan in seconds after he heard the BS that Isla fed Grim. I mean, Grim was literally around the entire time when Isla was concocting her plan and he did not think anything was amiss. Bro thought that he was so important that he did not realise that Isla already had everything she needed (with Oro's power) to open a portal elsewhere. Grim can spend a whole year and then some learning about Isla's favourite foods and whatnot, but it takes true connection to immediately hear something and know what she was actually thinking. Grim knows facts about Isla, but Oro knows Isla.
He would give up the world for her. One line that stood out to me from Oro's POV in Duelling Crowns is when the castle was in peril and he knew that Isla could not be the one responsible for it as she would never (willingly) do something that hurt innocent people. (I'm looking at you, Grim, person who started an entire war for Isla when she was just living happily in Lightlark. Jealous bitch. It wasn't as if she was kidnapped against her will when she stayed at Lightlark; but one can argue that she went against her will with Grim at the end of Book 2 just so that he would stop the whole stupid-ass war.) Yet, Oro was willing to give it all up for Isla when he refused to kill Grim to save his land, even when Isla was screaming at him to do it, because he chose her life over Lightlark's. I mean, they were this close to winning, this close to ending the war, this close to killing Grim -- but he could not do it, because killing Grim would mean killing Isla (literally the only romantic thing that Grim has done). Another -- less dramatic -- example is when Oro lets Isla take the heart of Lightlark. I mean, he literally entrusted the life of his island and his people to her. He thought that the Heart was what first spun the curses and he trusted her to use it's power for good. He put his island's fate into her hands.
He never lied to her. Do I even need to bring up how Grim a) stole Isla's memories against her will. b) betrayed her by working with Aurora/Celeste. c) kept secret of all that he knew about her past and father. d) gave her a forever binding marriage necklace without even telling her what it was. e) kept her guardians in his castle without telling her, even when he knew that they basically kidnapped and silenced her since young -- something he can definitely relate to as his own father was the same, just a lot more homicidal. f) (again) started a whole war to claim her back, killing thousands when he knew she would never want that. Meanwhile, Oro's only offence was not telling her about Lark -- but I would argue that this is also Grim's offence, and he kept it from her longer since he knew her longer. Oro has been nothing but truthful to her, telling her his plans and his secrets.
He protects her. One scene that gets me was when Isla went to Wild Isle, and used her emotions to fuel her powers to grow the plants there to trap Nightshade soldiers during the war. You know, the ability that would slowly kill her the more that she used it? The ability that Grim taught her? When Oro first found out that Isla was draining herself, he immediately forbade it and told her that losing her was not worth it, that they would find another way. But she was desperate, so she went back, and did it again. And what did Oro do? He found her, carried her back to the castle, and healed her. He didn’t scold her when she was down. He didn't berate her with I-told-you-sos when she became so drained that she was wavering between life and death. Oro had every right to be pissed and disappointed in her, yet he never lashed out, and just gently healed and took care of her, held her when she cried, when she realised her own mistake in using such power.
Their powers, together, are whole. Oro has Sunling, Moonling, Skyling, and Starling powers. Isla has Wildling and Nightshade -- and newly acquired Starling -- powers. Those are literally all the powers that exist (that we know of, at least as of book 3). When Isla was saying that she, Oro, and Grim needed to work together to open the portal, I was literally screaming "No, you don't!". Isla and Oro are enough. They have everything they need when together. They complete each other. Periodt.
She hates the cold. There was this scene in Book 3 when Grim takes Isla to somewhere after their wedding, and she was shocked that she never knew that the place existed. And his response? "I thought we've established that you hate the cold." (This might not be verbatim, but the idea is there) Like. Bruh. That is not an excuse to just not show her things??? Meanwhile Oro, Sunling, is always warm. She will never be cold when she is with him. She will also not overheat with him too, like (again) when they went to that desert on sun isle and he used his limited strength to Moonling ice her to cool down. He literally warms her inside and out.
Sidenote, their metaphor is cooler and tangible. "We are infinite"??? What is that?? That's so vague. What does that even mean? Meanwhile, Oro compares them to the Forever Flame. You know, the fire that has been burning since the creation of Lightlark and will remain burning forevermore? The very real flame that has burned through disasters and withstood wars, just like Oro and Isla in Books 1 and 2? Alexa, play "Burn for you" from the Unofficial Bridgerton Musical by Barlow and Bear.
Lynx likes Oro, too, and dislikes Grim.
Need I go on? Oro is clearly the only choice here. As mentioned, I really did try to like Grim, and I literally went into the series ready to fall for Grim. But it did not happen that way. And that should say something in and of itself.
