I have been thinking about this review for a good while. And my opinion of the book went down the more I thought about it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is the worst book ever and I will elaborate on why I dropped my rating but I definitely went from fairly liking this book to being just disappointed with it.

I want to start off by saying that I am aware that this book garnered a lot of attraction on tiktok, but I also want to say that I did not hear about this book from tiktok, but from my cousin. I am saying all of this to say that I didn’t really know how this book was marketed. At all. I just knew a very vague premise of it, but I was, if you will, blissfully unaware of how exactly the author was promoting this book. And that is with scenes and tropes that are either not in the book at all or are not entirely as such, but somewhat similar to what she was saying. So I went into this book with very few expectations, and that is why, I think, I enjoyed it more than people who anticipated its release.

That said, when I saw the audiobook on NetGalley, I requested it on a whim and binge-listened to it in under 24 hours. After finishing, I was wanting to know more about what happens next and I was planning on reading the next book. I tweeted about it, but I waited on rating it because I think the audiobook format is somewhat more forgiving (for me at least), so I tend to overlook some things in writing and wording. So after a good while I settled on 3 stars, because I thought this was one of those entertaining books, that you binge read and move on, but it had its problems. (I went back and listened to some parts again, which is also when I noticed more issues than during the first listening, which is entirely on me.) However, that’s when I saw an influx of reviews calling out the misleading promotion of this book, and I fell down the rabbit hole that is tiktok and I can attest that a lot of those scenes/tropes are either straight up not there, or you’re doing some serious mental gymnastics to make it make sense. And if you’ve seen any of my more negative reviews, you would know I really strongly dislike misleading marketing, and I’ve knocked stars for that in the past, and I thought it was only fair to do so now as well.

To get into the actual contents of the book, this is a YA fantasy, and I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of what it’s about, so I’ll just go over some thoughts. (Some of the following is going to be with spoilers.) What I enjoyed is the idea of it, the idea of the worlds and the curse, and the overall setup. I think the worldbuilding was done fairly well if a bit lacking with the names. The names of both kingdoms and characters left something to be desired, but I enjoyed the setup and what we learned both about the individual kingdoms, as well as the island of Lightlark. I thought the world-building was unique enough to be interesting by itself. I also enjoyed the challenges, though I know this is not a popular opinion. I thought that with such high stakes, the very low stake, inconsequential challenges do a good job of leaving little clues and information on the characters and their true motivations. I do think it’s absolutely fair if this is the reason you were disappointed in the book, as the challenges take up a lot of the book, but are seemingly not helping in the actual curse-breaking. I enjoyed the character of Oro, the Lightlark king. He was my favorite, I thought he was the most interesting and well-rounded character. I think he was funny, and I enjoyed his and Isla’s interactions.

I thought a lot of things were enjoyable, even if they maybe needed some additional work. The main character, Isla, was pretty much your typical YA main character, and I was mostly okay with her. She doesn’t necessarily stand out, but I was at times slightly annoyed at how naive she would seem. This does fit her character, given the fact that she'd grown up very sheltered and removed from the world, so I was willing to forgive that but it got frustrating at times. Other rulers that are participating in the competition were less fleshed out, which is to be expected but I wish we got more on them. The characters we mostly follow are Isla, Oro, Grim, who is the Nightshade king, and Celeste, Starling queen and Isla’s only friend. What needed more work, in my opinion, were the terms of the curse. It felt like some kingdoms were disproportionally more affected by the curse than others. The prose itself also had some issues, there were repeating phrases that seemed annoying and overused. I missed some of them on my first listening of the book, but the one that immediately annoyed me was how all of the male characters “towered over” Isla - it seemed very much like “oh look at me I’m so dainty and tiny, I’m not like the other girls”, which immediately annoyed me. I also later noticed that everyone grinned meanly and darkly and there were a lot of egg comparisons, and use of the word yolk, so take that as you will.

This book, of course, features romance. If you guessed that Isla’s first love interest is Grim, you would be right. I definitely expected this, but I also expected that he would not be her “endgame”, if you will, as I thought that was too predictable. I was somewhat right, as close to the end it turns into kind of a love triangle, with it turning out that Oro has also developed feelings for her. I thought Grim was kind of a bland, stereotypical love interest, but as I said, I was holding onto the hope that he is not where the journey ends. He was conveniently immediately willing to help her, and he had quite a bit of cringey lines. Oro, on the other hand, was somewhat of a mystery, but about halfway through I could tell he was having some feelings for her, so I wasn’t all that surprised when it was confirmed. I was however surprised at how fast she was reciprocating those feelings because I thought it was entirely unclear when she had developed them, in a romantic way, that is.

Here I want to touch on the misleading promotion of the book, as I noticed that a lot of the tropes had to do with the romance, and I just don’t think they were all true. I think the author claimed there were "rivals to lovers", "villain gets the girl” and also “love triangle” included, as well as what she called “spicy scenes”. Now, I wouldn’t say there were any particularly spicy scenes, but I would argue that is a good thing, given this is a YA book.

Besides that, I would say this book has rivals to lovers, in the fact that because when the curse is broken one ruler must die, they are all technically rivals, but if we’re talking about Grim - they never feel like rivals. I mentioned already, that he offers his help to her at every turn, it really (to me at least) didn’t feel like that trope. On the other hand, she and Oro do get off on the wrong foot, but he’s consistently been the only one honest with her so it also feels like a stretch. "Villain gets the girl" is so confusing to me, as I truly don’t know who this is referring to? Grim is the one that “seems” villain-y, as everyone is afraid of him, but I don’t think he’s the actual villain, and they are not together by the end. Oro, the king of Lightlark, is definitely not the villain of the story as he is working with Isla on breaking the curse, and besides their mutual dislike at the beginning, again, he’s the one who’s actually helping Isla. A love triangle is also technically present, but it’s only apparent at the end, so if you were going into this book expecting that you would be very disappointed I assume.

Another thing I would want to add on the topic of scenes you need some serious reaching to find, I saw one tiktok that says Isla trash-talks the king to the king, not knowing that was him. That absolutely does not happen. Isla immediately identifies the king as the king, and there is no confusion there, and any eventual trash-talking she does is intentional. As you see, I’ve done some serious mental gymnastics to try and figure out how and where these scenes/tropes show up in the book, and I’ve only given myself a headache. This seems so disappointing even from the perspective of someone who expected nothing from this book. There were more misleading things I could talk about, but I think this illustrates enough what the issue is.

I would also like to talk about the twist at the end. As the majority of the book is more quiet, with seemingly unrelated challenges, Isla and Celeste’s plan that’s not working out, and Isla and Oro’s research, the end comes off as quite a bang, I would say. However, I think that a good part of this ending was predictable. I have clocked Celeste as suspicious and the possible villain halfway through the book, so when she showed her hand I wasn’t that surprised. I also wasn’t surprised at Grim’s betrayal (even unwilling, as he claims) - as I said I was assuming he was a placeholder of sorts. I was surprised at the triple betrayal of Isla’s guardians being in on it, though. I think that the ending was interesting if a bit messy. I feel like it all went from a zero to a hundred in a split second. I think it was a bit more chaotic and some aspects were a bit more convenient than I thought they should be.

This book was also marketed with comparisons to other novels, as I later found out. I saw it was said that it’s The Hunger Games x ACOTAR. I also presume that if you go into the book based on these comparisons, you will be disappointed. The only valid thing I see is that Grim resembles Rhysand from ACOTAR in some ways, but that’s pretty much it.

All in all, the more you think about this, the more disappointing it becomes. I don’t think this book is as bad as some reviews claim, but I understand why they’re upset and they’re justified in their opinions. For me, this book was a solid, entertaining 3 stars, which I ended up dropping after my tiktok deep dive. I don’t think I will be picking up the sequel now that I’ve thought more about this, but don’t let me stop you if you are still interested, but take into consideration that the marketing for the book was certainly misleading.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

I loved this! So good 🤩 a mix of ACOTAR, Hunger games, the cruel prince.
The world building is really well done, the magic system is very interesting. The love story is slow and cute. But the betrayals and twists 😱 Just wow! Love!

*I received an audiobook ARC from Netgalley in exchange for this review*

At first, I really loved Lightlark. I loved the worldbuilding, I loved the way that Isla was a strong, independent character who fought for what she wanted. The idea that this could introduce me to a new world and get excited for what was next, I couldn't wait.

However, about 100 "pages" in, I was lost. I tried to go back through again, understanding what I was missing, but it was just part of the book. I found that I really struggled with the choppiness of this and struggled with it jumping around, dropping in random plot points, dropping in new characters but never actually using their name and a lot more. The excessive use of petnames and nicknames became extremely distracting, especially during key plot points or pieces that the reader needed to know. I loved the IDEA of this so much that I continued to read and hoped that it would catch on for me. Additionally, the sudden edition of a small romance scene or "smut"/fade to black scene was absolutely bizarre - it would suddenly happen and then be like nothing happened. Then, 30 minutes later, it would come up again.

While I know that there was a lot of hype on TikTok and a lot of discourse about this author, the book already having a movie deal and more, that didn't really sway me from reading it (especially because that has happened with plenty of other books) but after finishing this and reading their reviews too, I found that they were spot on. This is advertised with plenty of tropes and while it is a YA fantasy novel, I couldn't imagine a younger version of myself understanding this and continuing to read it. Even as a 29 year old woman, I had to build myself a small chart to understand what was going on and who was who. I didn't find that this was "fanfiction" or a rip off of other books, but in today's world, there is bound to be some crossover about different books.

I'm really sad that I didn't enjoy this as much as I hoped I would. I had originally pre-ordered this from B&N the day that I saw it available and I was so excited. I'll attempt to give this another read in a few months, but right now, I feel like I just got off of a rollercoaster that would never end. It was like a random left turn here, drop you in an ocean and have you learn to swim here, take a sharp right turn here over and over and over again.

Lightlark may be for some people, but unfortunately, not for me. :(

Thanks to Netgalley for the audiobook.
The narrator did a fantastic job.

Lightlark was a good mix of popular attention grabbing tropes. It was a fast paced YA that kept me wanting to read more. I love a light quick read and this was exactly that.

I will most definitely be reading book 2.

I really enjoyed lightlark! The world building was interesting and well thought out! I also really liked our main character !

This book went viral on Booktok and then had thousands of people altogether hate on it???! One of the weirdest thing I’ve seen happen on Booktok but listening to this book I can agree that this book doesn’t have what it promised. But again it’s not that bad that every person just gives it 1 star.

The plot was promoted as ACOTAR + Hunger Games but no? Like that didn’t happen at all? Grim was supposed to be a rip-off Rhys? No? Rhys is thousand times better. The plot was sub-par at best. The world-building was confusing at most. There were things that I didn’t understand at all. I know world buildings are hard and I don’t blame many fantasy authors for that but this book was like reading the Ice Court Heist the entire book because I didn’t understand a thing going on 😭😭
They can’t live past 25 years of age? But wait both the love interests are 500+? There were so many damn plot holes and I don’t want to get into it.

One of the things that ticked me were the names. There’ll be such an intense sentence and then words like starstick would come up which just reminds me of those little kid fairy wands with star on top of a stick 😭

This one has all the elements of a typical YA fantasy with a heroine who thinks she's not special going up against seemingly insurmountable odds ready to sacrifice everything for those she loves and finding herself torn between two very different but very appealing heroes. Don't let this fact keep you reading and loving the wild ride that is Lightlark. That very predictable mix of elements keeps getting used because a capable writer can weave a magic spell with good characters and Aster has proven herself thus. Yes, the naming of things feels like placeholders while a more creative thing came to mind that they forgot to fix later, but I can forgive that when the story is interesting enough.
Isla is an instantly likable character that I was rooting for from the moment we meet her on the page, and the world of Lightlark is as intriguing as it is magical. Exploring the world and meeting all the players along with Isla opened up the world and made me care about what happened to the characters.
The plot is a maze of ups and downs that keeps the action at its core while making sure that Isla's emotions are never settled. It makes for exciting reading to continually jump from one emotion to another and never really know what could come next.

The narration by Suzy Jackson on the audiobook adds an extra touch of magic to the story with an emotionally powerful reading that pulled me in almost as much as the story itself did.

Overall, it's a complex plot with many secrets and twists in the story that were obvious in hindsight yet still incredibly enjoyable to discover. I'm definitely interested in seeing what else could possibly happen next.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for the early listen, and to Amulet Books for the ARC!

I didn't love this, but I also acknowledge that I had developed some wild expectations of all the hype surrounding this novel.

note: I finished this book in 14 hours. I'm reviewing it and not the author.

where do I even start with this? what do I even say that can convey how much I wanted to cry reading this book? I don't know. this review might be a mess so be warned.

god, 60% of the book was rough, and I wasn't expecting it to be, because the story started fast. Isla crown is about to go to Lightlark and join the Centennial. every part of this story had potential.

THE WRITING COULD'VE BEEN BETTER. instead, we were given these:

Lightlark was a shining, cliffy thing

The sun had fallen. It was just a yolky thing, halfway consumed by the horizon

“Demon,” she said meanly.

“And monsters stick together.”

like what is going on? what are these descriptions? what are these dialogues? not to mention the author uses it REPEATEDLY in the same paragraphs. why. why. just tell me why. I'm a bit sad about this because Alex Aster has the potential to be a good writer if only she took the time to better her craft. :(

but let's talk about world-building, shall we?

what in the hell are these names: “Wildling, Starling, Mooning, Skyling, Sunling, and Nightshade” granted, nightshade isn't that good, but it's better than word + ling. it confuses your audience and it's just not good to look at no matter what.

let's also talk abt the isles. “The pieces that remained were Star Isle for the Starlings, Sky Isle for the Skylings, Moon Isle for the Moonlings, and Sun Isle for the Sunlings” CAN WE NOT THINK SMTH OUT OF THE WILD, STAR, SKY, SUN AND NIGHT? PLEASE?

what pisses me off more is that the author constantly tells us readers the color of each realm. like I get it. you don't have to tell us THREE times.

there is also the matter of character inconsistencies. we were told that Isla is this fierce warrior. she's good at hiding and strategizing. but when she has to show it to us, suddenly, heads empty, man. the number of times she was saved by other characters is MORE than the number of times she held herself.

I remember a scene where celeste, her friend, said she strategizes like a general and you see Isla failing at that job in the next few paragraphs. oh god. embarrassing.

let's also mention how she was able to defeat TWO WARRIOR RULERS that are around 500 YEARS OLD. isla, in her twenties, defeated those rulers in combat. how the hell is that possible??? I demand answers.

since we're talking about characters, let's talk about the other rules.

there is no single female ruler that was friends w Isla. Cloe hates her for whatever reason (we never got to the bottom of it in the book) and well, her friend, Celeste... her guardians? yeah, no. there is just NO good portrayal of female characters except Isla (and that's even debatable). how disappointing.

there's another one that pissed me off and it's the character Azul. he's such an interesting character. he also has a very sad background that we could've explored but nooooooooo I have to listen to Isla whine and cry. I would've let it go but Azul's presence became important in one of the climaxes and yet he wasn't there??? he's only mentioned here and there??? LIKE COME ON???? I hate everyone

and Grimshaw. screw him so hard. he's such a creep. I understand that Alex aster did some of his scenes to make the twist seem like it didn't come out of anywhere but it's so badly done??? and it's so funny bc Isla starts to notice his absence and I'm like hUH HE'S GONE??? I just didn't care for him. he's a weirdo. he needs to be in jail. isla should press charges against him.

AND LASTLY THE SAVING GRACE OF THIS BOOK - ORO. this might be controversial but man did the book become better because of him? when he starts to have more scenes, I was Awake, Listening, and Aware. alex aster may have done so many things wrong but not oro!!!! he's mysterious, he's irritating and he's a good guy overall. WHY DID ALEX ASTER PUT WHATEVER SHE DID W ORO WITH THE REST OF THE CAST? come on!!!

so yes, in terms of romance, I am an Oro and Isla shipper. as everyone should be. as their mothers should be. they just had better chemistry. the reluctant allies to lovers HIT. there was at first a power imbalance because it's repeatedly told how Isla is the naive one while oro is the wise one. but as they had more scenes, they became equal. and it's done so beautifully!!! I just know they'll be endgame that's my besties right there.

(i won't be talking about grim. he's not worth it.)

anyway, this is initially 1/5 star but I bumped it up to 2 because oro and Isla (mostly, oro) <3

overall, I don't recommend this book. your time would be better of with a good book. :)

An island appears every 100 years and the rulers of the 6 realms of this world come together and compete in a game in order to break one of their deadly curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die.

I quite enjoyed this audiobook, it has been a while since I’ve read fantasy, but this reminded me why I love it. Isla is the youngest ruler of Wildling, a realm of temptress cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. I know this book was hyped up a lot on TikTok, but I still always keep my expectations at a minimum to avoid disappointment, so it doesn’t affect my review. Near the end of this book I was getting whiplash from the amount of plot twists, I was loving the drama, especially listening to it. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book and also for the movie.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to RB Media and NetGalley for gifting me this audiobook arc in exchange for my honest review.

Lightlark was one of my most anticipated reads of this year, so I was thrilled when I received an advanced copy.

The audiobook is narrated by Suzy Jackson and is done so in such spectacular fashion that I should have been truly immersed in the world and its characters.

A lot of time is spent on world-building throughout, and while I expected that, knowing this is the first book in a YA fantasy series, it often felt like it was favored over strengthening character development. Even though the world is interesting, with so much being consistently thrown in, it became difficult to track over time.

Any romantic connections between characters are quite muted, and it was unclear that there was supposed to be a love triangle until the last 10% of the book. I can point to many moments throughout the story that would have significantly benefited from heightened tension, depth, and added angst. There were several missed opportunities for banter between Isla and the love interest(s) to give us a sense of that undeniable chemistry so that it wouldn’t have been such a surprise.

It is said that good things come to those who wait, and to some degree, that is true, but ultimately, Lightlark falls short of its potential.

That said, I did enjoy Lightlark enough that I plan to continue with the series to see where it goes from here. I have hope that with the right creative team on board, the feature will build out what is missing on the page.

I absolutely loved everything about this, so much so that i’ll be purchasing the physical book. I don’t want to give to much away but i adored the main character and found all the support characters intriguing and the story compelling, I was hooked by the end of the first chapter! I’ve always been a massive fantasy reader but for the last two years i’ve struggled to pick up anything high fantasy and Lightlark has successfully brought back to life my love of the genre. Book two can’t come sooner!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an audiobook arc in exchange for an honest review. As I do better with reading the physical thing instead of listening to someone read it, my review will not be as detailed as my previous ones, but I will update my review as soon as I receive my preorder and finish rereading it.

Lightlark is a wonderful YA fantasy novel by Alex Aster about a world of curses and magical abilities. Does it live up to the Hunger Games or ACOTAR as it was marketed? Maybe not, but Lightlark and Alex do not deserve the amount of hate it's getting. The vocabulary is not as juvenile as several people have said, and personally, having the realm "species" name as "Starlings" and "Moonlings" doesn't seem bad to me at all. It's simple, as well as correlating to each realm's ability or source of power.

Some of the snippets scenes were not in the audiobook arc (or maybe they are). However, they could be in the final print. To everyone angry about Alex supposedly lying about the scenes not being in it? Most of you did not receive an ARC, so I kindly ask that you refrain from commenting about it so badly. Additionally, most of the snippet scenes are "spicy." And you're mad that a YA novel doesn't have spice scenes? This is a young adult fantasy novel. If you want spice, go read a new adult or adult book. A YA novel is not where you should be looking for spicy scenes.

Could there be more diversity, considering Alex was marketed as a POC author? Of course. But for people to hate the names she chose for her characters after previously being extremely excited? Are you sure you aren't just jumping on the hate bandwagon?

As for the plot, it was a little drawn out, but despite everything, I was still absorbed in the entire story. Perhaps the first two minutes were a little dry and detail-oriented regarding Isla and Wildlings, but everything else? I was screaming over Celeste and the hidden secrets being revealed to us. I will also not hesitate to buy the second book when it comes out.

As I said before, I will update my review with more details once I read a physical copy of Lightlark; I ask that you simply give it a chance. If you don't want to buy the book, sure. Borrow it from a library. Lightlark does not deserve the one-star rating it is getting. A gentle reminder, too, that you are not just ruining a book before it's been released, but that you are also ruining or, at the very least, negatively affecting someone's career and possibly their mental health.

(less informal note: i realize my review's kinda all over the place, but while i want to review the book, i hope that this also convinces people to at least give Lightlark a chance before mindlessly hating it just because of other reviewers. no hate to the fellow reviewers! everyone has their own preference!!)

From the amount of hate this book is getting I thought I would be reading crazy trash. I was surprised to find that I was actually into the book. Of course, I listened to it and the first 1/4 of this long book was hard to get through. The info dumping started right in the beginning so it was rough! We are immediately dumped into what is the ceremonial fighting on Lightlark and I was so lost for so long and confused. Until she finally found a pace that made sense of the plot. I know this is supposed to be a "Hunger Games" but there was very little hunger gaming. It was more political intrigue with the rules of each planet (confused as to what they actually ruled) trying to figure out how to break a curse and hiding. The love triangle was also confusing because we're thrust into it and there's little set up for one of the characters but a lot for the other. This all becomes clear as to why at the very end of the novel but it took 15 hours to make me unconfused on that part. Regardless, I still had a favorite and my past will tell you why it's Grim. All in all this is a fun, not to be taken serious take on a Hunger Gamesesque story. If you liked A Court of Thorns and Roses, you'll probably like this long pacing and clunky yet fun plot that against all odds you fall in like with these characters. I'm invested in knowing what comes next.

First of all, I was not aware of the hype on social media for this, or the excerpts shown that people are saying aren't in the final version. These are just my thoughts on the story and writing. I listened to a finished audiobook and I will say that the narrator did a good job with the material, though she only has one voice that doesn't change based on which character is talking.

From the little I knew about this going in, I did hear it compared to Hunger Games and was excited because I'm all about deadly competitions. Unfortunately, it's more like a gathering where everyone shows off some of their power and then everyone goes home. In the time that the 'Centennial' is happening, no one has actually died. Um, what? I guess they're all too good to be killed, plus if one of them dies then all their people they rule over die, so I don't know how hard anyone was trying to kill each other either.

The main character is Isla and she falls into the "chosen one" trope. She's beautiful and a temptress, she can sing amazingly, and someone she's a better fighter than anyone, even though she's like seventeen or so. I can get behind the main character having some extra traits, but it was too much. How can she be better, smarter, stronger than rulers that are 500 years old? It felt too ridiculous.

Lastly, the names of things were childish and if you're going to build a whole fantasy world, please try a bit harder. The various races(?) of people were called things like 'moonling', 'skyling', 'starling', etc. There's also a magical transportation staff called a 'star stick'. I mean, clearly no thought put into these at all.

Obviously this story didn't appeal to me, maybe a younger audience will like it?

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Amulet Books, RB Media, and NetGalley for the copy

This audiobook was amazing!! The narrator did a good job. The book tho was otherworldly. I loved everything about it! The world building, the characters ( i may say my favourite is Oron and nothing can change it, I fell in love with him right from the beginning and i have my hopes up with him in the second book.) The mistrust between characters and the challenges they were face with were captivating and one of my favourite parts of lightlark. The magic they posessed and the intrigues that came with it.. especially Grimshaw. Isla my favourite! Her strenght and her mind were awsome to read about. The way she had to think and plot.. amazing. So ready for the next book. I hope the movie is this good for i can´t wait too! Thank You Alex for this amazing escape and love i created for this characters.

So I’m going to be honest, I received this as an audiobook arc and never got around to listening to it properly so DNF’ed it and marked it as not reviewed on my NG.
However, I bought a physical copy last week, and given all the ‘drama’ surrounding the book that came out a day or two after purchasing it and one afternoon of having to tidy, I have to admit I found myself wanting to read it and find out what all the fuss was about.

Again being honest, I can’t say that I haven’t looked at the bad reviews and haven’t been keeping up with the drama, however…am I being delusional? Please someone tell me, because for me this book was an easy 4 stars.

From the synopsis I could tell this would be something I’d enjoy reading, (tropes aside, will talk about that later), and I did enjoy it!! The storyline was easy to follow, explaining all of the different courts (I literally cannot think of another word for these so that’s what I’m going with), the Centennial going on, why it happens and the background/history behind all of this.

The story is from a single POV, but different ‘main’ characters all bought their own thing to the story, but didn’t have loads to keep up with, as well as smaller side characters which added to the story but didn’t pull from the main storyline.
The writing style, although I could tell where people were coming from where it’s been noted that it’s poor writing, I personally didn’t find it that bad and found it easy to read and enjoyed it again.

I also think that what made this 100% a 4 stars for me was the ending, those last 50-100 had me on the EDGE OF MY SEAT!! I know lots of people have said that ‘they saw it coming’, but HOW?! Am I dumb? Because I was not expecting that AT ALL, I found myself second guessing the whole book and had to go back and read some bits from earlier on in the book to make myself believe it!!

Now I think (from what I’ve read) that the troubles arose from the ‘tropes’ that the author said were in this book, not being in there, and again, being honest, I didn’t look at the tropes properly beforehand, but looking back now I’m confused as to why people think Aster was leading them into something that this book wasn’t (like you haven’t read another book marketed as enemies to lovers when it’s not)!!! Unless I’m wrong, I can’t actually see where Aster ‘lied’ about the tropes in this book!
There is also apparently a bit of a grey area about whether this is a YA book, which I’d agree with slightly, (there is just one scene), however I wouldn’t say it full crossed over into the NA category.

Overall, I do think that some people’s opinions have spiralled and other people have jumped onto the bandwagon (and now people who haven’t even read the book are reviewing it 1 star), but I really enjoyed Lightlark will deffo be reading the second book when it’s out!!

I don't feel comfortable with this being marketed as.a YA book when there's an explicit spicy scene on par with a romance novel.
That's in addition to a number of other issues I have with the book.
As it stands if I hadn't been trapped on a 12 hour flight with nothing else to read I would have DNF'd at 10%. It got better after that, but it shouldn't take that long to become interesting.
Then there's the curse, which never really makes sense. Plus the fighting, which also doesn't make sense. It's never explained, never clarified, and I'm left more confused the more I learn. People live hundreds of years? So were the characters involved with it or not? The curse requires them to fight every 100 years, and a prophecy says they have to kill one of them, but this is the first year they plan to kill someone? Or did other rulers die in the previous battles, because they're never mentioned even in passing.
It's just very convoluted and not well written considering the amount of "it's super successful" I'm being shilled. Which is also bizarre. It's apparently a top release, huge movie deals, 7 figure signing... but I've never heard of it before the ARC came up on netgalley. It's weird. Especially because it's NOT that good, writing wise.
All that said- did I get into it? Sure. It was fun. But I also read bad fanfiction if the premise/romance is decent.
And overall just okay book. And then I'm left angry by the amount its being shoved in my face that it's the best book of the year. I don't think so.
It was a 3 star. But I'm bumping down to a 2 because above all else, I don't believe open door sex scenes have any place in a book targeted towards teens. The sex scene in Lightlark would have fit perfectly in a romance genre novel, but is beyond inappropriate in a book targeted to teens.

Thank you to RB media for the audiobook ARC of this!

I didn't expect to enjoy LIGHTLARK that much but I truly did, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to review this early! I will say there was a lot of questionable content within the book, and there were many things I wasn't a fan of, but overall, it was a great read.

Let's start off with the plot. Now while the plot wasn't anything like how I expected it to be, it definitely kept me very invested. Throughout almost every chapter, there were so many twists and turns that I didn't expect at all, and the entire book kept me in so much suspense. The book was filled with such high stakes from the beginning and never failed to keep me on my toes. Not to mention the huge plot twist at the end, which I will admit, I did expect, but not to this level. I'm not sure where the second book will lead, but I am excited to see what happens next.

The characters were probably the strongest part of the book, in my opinion. I really enjoyed Isla's character from the beginning and wanted her to succeed within an instant. Her character felt so raw and real and I loved seeing her character growth and development. I absolutely adored the side characters as well, especially Oro and Celeste. I feel as if some of them could have been fleshed out better, such as Azul or Cleo, but hopefully, in the next book, we see more of them.

As for the worldbuilding, I feel like this was definitely one of the much weaker areas. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the world of lightlark. I'll start off with what I did like about it. It definitely felt very unique, especially with the concept of having six rulers fight to break their curses in The Centennial. It was detailed and complex, and I loved being able to explore the many aspects of it. However, I did feel as though the worldbuilding felt lazy at many times, especially with the names of certain things. For example, the realms, which were Nightshade, Sunling, Moonling, Starling, Skyling and Wildling or even the names of relics like "star-stick" or "bond-breaker." I felt like the curses were also very strangely thought-out and could have been executed better. For example, Skyling's was that their realm couldn't fly anymore. I feel like more could have been done with it to make the stakes higher.

I don't usually talk about the writing style in my reviews, but I just had to bring it up because it did bother me. Alex's writing was straightforward and to the point, but some of the metaphors she used bothered me a LOT. For example, she would constantly describe the sun to be a yolk or the moon to be an egg. After reading the book, I can see why she wanted to do that, but I feel like it would have been fine if it was just avoided. She also constantly used crutch words like "grinned" or "meanly," which I wasn't the biggest fan of. I listened to an audiobook, so it didn't affect me as much had I read it as an actual book, but still, even listening to it felt weird.

And finally, we get onto my least favourite aspect of the book...the romance. The romance felt very...messy. It was a love triangle which already didn't sit right with me because I'm not a huge fan of love triangles, but I decided to roll with it. The book didn't heavily focus on the romance, which was good, but whenever Isla had any sexual tension with one of her love interests, it felt forced. It was more on Grim's side, but I feel like Oro and Isla could have gotten better chemistry. I wasn't a huge fan of Grim, mainly just because his flirtations felt icky and uncomfortable at times, and it felt so forced. I feel like they had limited chemistry, and when they did get together, I just didn't like it. I wish they had more vulnerable moments together and had gotten to know each other better before they got together. As for Oro, however, I was rooting more for them, but I wish they got more time together. They had more meaningful moments, yes, but we only got that in the second half of the book. However, I will say, that I officially declare myself a #teamoro girl. I do have other issues with the romance, however, and one of them is that Isla is in her early 20s while both Oro and Grim are 500+. It just doesn't sit right with me and feels disgusting in so many ways. I feel as if this all could have been avoided, and I just really hated the immortal love interest trope. Another issue I wanted to bring up was the smut scene. This book is heavily promoted to be a YA book...but there is a smut scene in the book that really shouldn't have been in there. This book could have been marketed as a NA book instead because YA's audience consists of 12-18, and people who are 12 should not be exposed to this kind of content.

All in all, I enjoyed Lightlark, even though there are quite a few issues with the book. I think to really enjoy the book you have to overlook a lot of things. Again, thank you to RB media for the ARC and LIGHTLARK releases on August 23rd in bookstores everywhere. 4/5 stars.

I was given a free e-arc through Netgalley, this in no way influenced this review.

I should start off by saying that Netgalley provided an audiobook, which I don’t typically like as a format, so that’s why it took me a while to get into and also a while to finish it.

I really liked the world building. Aster wrote a rich fantasy book and all the elements were definitely well thought out. Again, maybe with the format it was a bit hard to follow everything, but that’s on me.

The characters were really amazing. Isla was such a complicated main character and her journey in the book was so enjoyable to follow.

I did kind of figure out what would happen in the end, but there were still a lot of things that pleasantly surprised me!

Very excited to see this being turned into a movie!