Every hundred years, six rulers converge in an effort to break a curse that effects all of their kingdoms differently. The catch? A prophecy states that a rulers line must come to an end in order for the curses to break. Isla is the wildling royalty headed off to her first chance to break the curse, but she isn't as she seems. Powerless in a contest where power is everything can Isla make alliances to help her stay alive? What other dangers wait for Isla when it comes to matters of the heart?

I've seen some great reviews for this and some terrible reviews. Personally, I felt it was a fresh take on curses, royalty, and the lengths rulers are willing to go for survival. The royals are allowed to challenge one another to a specific task of their choosing, which can be used to weaken each other, show each other's strengths, or even reveal secrets. I don't agree with it being compared to the hunger games as it's more a competition of politics than physical prowess. The wording and titles of items in the book were a bit childish, calling a staff that can teleport you to anywhere a "starstick" makes it sound like the starling race is a bunch of frat boys who tried to think of a phallic name for this powerful item, but we're so drunk that "starstick" stuck.

Curses, crowns and betrayal awaits in this lush new fantasy. 4 stars. Recommended for fans of Caraval and the City of Dusk. I would put the age range at 14+ as there is a little spice, but nothing super graphic. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an AudioARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an audio arc of Lightlark by Alex Aster from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I DNfed at 70%. I couldn't connect to the characters and lost interest, I didn't want to spend the 2 hours finishing it when I wasn't invested in the story. I didn't really feel inclined to pick this up and usually I finish books like this in a few days, this one was like 2 weeks, so I decided to just put it down. The audio is also almost 13 hours, and while parts of the story were entertaining, maybe it's a bit too long?

I first saw the author promoting the book on Instagram and Tiktok, and of course, I was interested. Although I don't think all of the marketing is true to the story...
I was interested in The Hunger Games and All of Us Villains vibes in the competition aspect. I was also getting some Caraval/ Stephanie Garber vibes from the writing.
I thought the world was cool, and the different realms but I just really didn't connect with the characters.
This just didn't hit like I thought it would, from all the hype I've seen before picking it up. I think I might have liked this more if I read it like 5 years ago.

<i> Update: I was kindly given access to an audiobook on NetGalley and can now divulge a full, honest review! Fair warning, I was right about this being an ACOTAR ripoff with terrible prose. I feel thoroughly validated lmao </i>

Are you ever so nosy that you willingly invest $16.99 in a pre-order sale? Because yeah, that's how we've ended up here. Giving me adult money was a mistake.

Anyhow, I have been lurking on Alex Aster's success story for a while now because it's remarkable how well she's marketed her book. From BookTok to a 6 figure deal and an impressive following, Aster has likely secured herself a spot on every bestseller list. It's commendable, genuinely, I am impressed with how she and her team have generated hype for this book. So much, that I was willing to pre-order and receive the 5 free chapters. Read all 52 pages in one sitting.

I have thoughts.

This book has been touted as this Hunger Games x ACOTAR fantasy and I need y'all to manage those expectations because the writing makes it plainly obvious that this book is a debut. In fact, the writing comes off as a second draft that would have benefitted from closer editing:
<blockquote>"The snow villages of the Moonling new lands. The airy jubilees of the Skyling newlands. A few lands that hadn't been settled by any of the six realms at all."</blockquote>
A lot of the story (from what I read) relies on telling rather than showing and it leads to a lot of info dump so far. We are told that there were six realms, with six respective rulers, and six specific curses. We are told that Isla had a restricted childhood, who the perceived villains are, how the curses impact the different realms...

And the funny thing is that even with all this telling, the world-building is very confusing. From what I've gathered, there are 6 realms and the realms are countries?? Isla mentions there are uninhabited countries that she could escape to, but the focus is on the Wilding, Skyling, Moonling, Starling, Nightshade and Lightlark. We are told that Lightlark is an island that appears every 100 years, but it was also at war with Nightshade; but then we are also told that Lightlark was inhabited with people from the other 4 countries (Wilding, Skyling, Moonling, Starling) but then the rulers of the realm got killed after getting cursed - and everyone thinks Nightshade is responsible for the curses? Am I losing anyone yet??? These 6 rulers are supposed to compete in a 100-day game/battle called the Centennial in which one of them must die - note, this system hasn't worked in the past 400 years, but they still keep doing the Centennial because...reasons.

I feel like the author just made the rules very convoluted and hard to follow without the logic that we saw in the Hunger Games. For instance, in the Hunger Games, we understood that children were selected as a way to lower morale in the districts; in Lightlark, the rulers are selected...but they have been competing for 400 years (Isla is the youngest realm ruler while the others are like 500 years old lmao) so I don't get what's different about each time? In the Hunger Games, the competitors are sent to the Capitol; in Lightlark they are sent to Lightlark, the original realm with power, but also the King of Lightlark is cursed so does he also compete? In the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta meet with fashion designers to demonstrate how the Capitol demands pomp behind the tragic killing; in Lightlark, Isla has an appointment with the tailor...just because? I'm not sharing these parallels to demand the author make a carbon copy of the Hunger Games, but if you are gonna comp with such an iconic YA dystopia, you need to follow through.

<i> (Also this is a minor thing but from the character reveals we've had so far and the general Eurocentric fantasy world vibes, I'm sensing the book is gonna be very white/white-passing. I know Aster is Colombian so I give her kudos for being a WOC author in such a difficult industry. But I also can't deny that she is very white-passing and that does play a role in the diversity we might see in this book.) </i>

We are told that Isla feels dread, that her people are dying, but I never felt an urgency in the atmosphere of the story. The fact that Isla has time to go on a chocolate-eating date with one of the other realm rulers makes me doubt the stakes of the Centennial.

SPEAKING OF DATE, y'all...the ACOTAR really jumped out. Remember when I mentioned the 6 realms, let me repeat them for you: Wildling, Skyling, Moonling, Starling, Nightshade, and Lightlark. If there's a villain (as the author has heavily hinted at "villain gets the girl") guess where he's from. Let me make it worse, his name is <b>Grimshaw</b> LMAOOO.
<blockquote>"The face belonging to the man looking down at her was amused. And familiar, somehow. He was so tall Isla had to tilt her chin to meet his eyes, black as coal. His hair spilled ink across his pale forehead. Nightshade, no question. Which meant...

"Thank you Grimshaw," Isla said firmly."</blockquote>
Might as well have stuck a <i>"Hello, Isla darling"</i> in that introduction because that character is literally Rhysand in a different font. Tell me I'm wrong! You may argue that 5 chapters aren't enough to get a read on a character but all of the characters lack depth, most of all our main character Isla. She's also very inconsistent. Isla is supposed to be trained in battle/swordplay but she almost trips off a cliff, then she always falls over a balcony because the sound of someone's clapping startled her. She is supposed to have been isolated her whole life, but she's also very good at reading people (you can argue that she snuck out of her room using the Starstick so she's well-traveled, but I would think her personality would have traces of her anti-social, subdued/secluded background, though she is certainly naive).

I can already predict that Grimshaw and Isla are endgame. Apparently, there are all these plot twists in the end so I would wager Grim betrays her for savior reasons and the next two books are about them being enemies to lovers. I also bet that Isla's second love interest is the King of Lightlark. The curses resulted from something between the Lightlark and Nightshade realms, or maybe from all the rulers contributing, idk I'm trying to guess at what would be so good that people are raving about the last 30 pages...maybe Isla's mom and dad had some kind of hand in the curses?? I mean I'm gonna find out in a month since I've preordered the book so we'll see if I was right.

<i>Okay let's pick up since I got an ARC. Oh boy. So much to unpack.</i>

Last time I wrote this, I was up to the start of the Centennial. Now my thing about the Centennial is that it's the dumbest concept despite instigating the sequences of events in this book. It's 100 days but in the first 50 days, all the rulers have to do demonstrations for the people of Lightlark to observe. It's supposed to be like the training days in the Hunger Games where the tributes show off their skills to secure donors during the games but the idea falls flat in Lightlark because the people who live on Lightlark don't...do anything. They watch? They attend parties? But their role is so unnecessary. Another component of these demonstrations is for rulers to scope out each other's powers but the "winning" isn't always straightforward. For Grim's demonstration, everyone had to battle it out, but the King of Lightlark, Oro, had a demonstration where everyone had the chance to show their greatest secret. Like?? Oro ends up being the winner of these demonstrations and is allowed to choose who to pair up for the next 75 days.

Oh right let me break down this timeline: 100 days on Lightlark; can't kill anyone until after the 50th day. By day 25 or 50 (I think) the rulers pair up to solve the prophecy to break their curses. It's so dumb this entire book is about searching for relics. First Isla and the Starling ruler, Celeste, are searching for this thing called the Bond Breaker, then Isla and Oro are searching for the heart of Lightlark. I think day 50 also has some kind of banquet while day 75 has a carnival event? Genuinely, none of the things that happen are important; it feels like Aster is trying to contrive situations where Isla can be hot (in a revealing dress), fierce (holding a knife to someone's throat), or whatever.

This feels like a good place to talk about how Aster has weird anti-woman, slut-shaming sentiments in the book. All of Wildling is described as being warrior women temptresses. Their curse is that they have to eat the heart of the ones they fall in love with (and they need to eat a heart every month...because reasons?) Anyways, Isla is supposed to go into the Centennial to seduce the king of Lightlark but she's so morally pure, she could never seduce someone - wearing tight clothes for her perfect body stresses her out! She's nothing like her realm (she also doesn't have powers because her dad killed her mom out of madness since her mom refused to kill him. Others have pointed out that this feels like a cop out where Isla can fall in love with both Grim and Oro and get this love triangle going). I also have to mention that Isla is fixated on Cleo (the Moonling ruler) being this evil villain; all of Cleo's interactions with her come off so cartoony. She's building a whole armada in Moonling and we never find out why. The final villain is also a woman with motivations that are so cliche (she cast the curses by accident while trying to get revenge on Oro's brother for not marrying her and falling in love with one of Isla's Wildling ancestors).

I think it's kind of funny that Aster is touting the 6 overlay campaign with the 6 realm rulers because Isla never has a conversation with anyone beyond Grim, Oro, and Celeste. Azul (the only Black character...who is also named after a color...giving Topaz vibes a la From Blood and Ash), never has a one-on-one conversation with Isla. She finds out from Oro that Azul is mourning the loss of his husband but we never get more depth into his character. It's beyond annoying that Isla only has scenes with her two love interests or her friend who [SPOILER] turns out to be the main villain after all. Isla literally ends this book with two love interests and a vague, unfounded dislike for Cleo.

But I digress. Where were we? Right, the stupid demonstrations, the endless chapters of Isla's searching, and then Act 2 is where we have Isla paired up with Oro. You would think, the time they spend paired up would give insight into Oro's character. Nope. Nuh-uh, friends, his character is so bland. To be fair, all of them are:
- <b>Oro</b> (angry blonde hot guy with sun powers)
- <b>Grim</b> (bootleg Rhysand - seriously, he comes from a <b> night themed realm/court </b> and can read minds - but somehow, 13239x creepier. Every time he's mentioned he's "raking his eyes over Isla's scantily clad body." Not at all swoony. I would not trust this man to hold my drink.)
- <b>Azul</b> (token gay & Black character - a two for one - who does nothing for the plot. Is actually off screen for 67% of the book. ACOTAR equivalent is Tarquin but without the personality.)
- <b>Cleo</b> (bitch queen with vague water powers? #BiRep from one throwaway line)
- <b>Celeste</b> (Isla's bestie with star powers. Very magical anime girl until she isn't)

Isla rounds out all of them by being the ultra-pure, morally-pure realm ruler who is devastatingly beautiful, well versed in swordplay and battle, and if you thought she was unique for not having any powers, buckle up because the plot twist is that she has powers from not just Wildling but Nightshade as well. Oh right [SPOILER] her dad was a Nightshade.

I am so terrible at this, I keep getting off track. It's because I'm writing this like 3 weeks after finishing this book during which I did everything I could to forget this asinine world and its equally dumb characters. But the summary of this book is so easy to break down: Demonstrations finish, Oro wins. Oro picks which rulers are paired together, he pairs himself with Isla (despite her and Celeste wanting to be paired together). He tells Isla that the way to stop the curses is to find the Heart of Lightlark, which is a plant. And she's supposed to be the plant ruler, so yeah. Act 2 is him and Isla just searching for this heart, with guest appearances by Grim telling Isla he's a <i> monster who can't be loved </i>or some bullshit. Oro gets Isla to tell him her secret then betrays her and teams up with Cleo, then he turns away and says he did it to search Moonling without raising Cleo's suspicions. I really think that dumb plot point was so Grim could swoop and be Isla's confidante while she was mopey about the King. You would think his betrayal would trigger a new series of events and change the trajectory of the story but no. Like three chapters later, Oro and Isla make up, and then out of nowhere she's like "OH, I KNOW WHERE THE HEART IS."

DRUMROLL: the heart is an egg. Like an egg in the sky?? And it can be grabbed at daybreak?? I really don't know by that point I was numbed. Defeated, if you will, because this world-building is just vibes, 12-year-olds on Wattpad do more justice with their setting and prose. Isla goes to grab the egg and then she gets shot and Grim has to save her. On the world-building point, there's legit entire other species living on Lightlark, which I don't think is addressed at all in the marketing. Oro mentions these Ancient Ones and then he and Isla meet with like "winged people" ($50 it's some variation of the Illyrians from ACOTAR). There's also this entirely other faction of Wildlings who don't eat hearts living in Lightlark called the "Vinterlands" or something, I was on the audiobook and idk the spelling, but they shoot her for getting the heart. But we never address that in the aftermath?? Like Isla gets shot, wakes up to Grim sniveling over the idea of losing her, then she and Oro discuss which realm ruler needs to be killed now that they have the heart. I feel like the prophecy is also so dumb because someone must die because...reasons.

The book ends with Celeste revealing that she's actually Aurora the original curse caster who's been shapeshifting all this time. (Sidenote: in addition to their realm's powers some people have a super secret additional ability called a Flair. Watch Isla get a damned Flair in book 2). Celeste/Aurora has been manipulating Isla to find this thing called the Bond Break because she wanted to absorb all the powers of the realms. She can do that because in this world if people fall in love, you can access your significant other's powers...yeah...it read as stupidly in the book as it reads in this review. No surprise that this plan works because both Oro and Grim are in love with Isla. But then Isla unlocks something <i> inside herself </i> and it turns out she's had powers all along but her guardians have been hiding it because Aurora threatened them. She defeats Celeste and banishes Grim.

Why is Grim making a Rhysand-esque exit? Well you see, Isla had been using her starstick to teleport to all these places and one of them happened to be Nightshade. A year before the Centennial, she and Grim actually had a very passionate love affair but he erased her memories because he and Celeste wanted to take down Oro (because reasons) and they thought the best way to do that would be having Isla seduce Oro (despite her repeatedly expressing to the reader that she doesn't have a seductive bone in her body). Of course, Isla is heartbroken and super distressed by all this information and he really seals in his charm by sending her a creepy mind message that's like: <i>you will come back to me!</i> I'm telling you this character is so fucking weird, there is <b>nothing</b> intriguing or hot about his obsession with her. Not to mention his plan was the most contrived thing?? Why did he think it was a good idea to set his supposed love with his enemy??? Where is the logic??? Of course, Isla is gonna dump your sorry ass, you 500-year-old Grandpa!!!

So yeah that's where we leave off, Isla with Oro but deeply <i>traumatized</i>, which leaves everything perfectly set up for the ACOMAF sequence in Lightlark 2 (where Grim comes to swoop in and save her from the broody blonde man). Going back to my earlier predictions, I'm pretty pleased that I clocked the following:
- Isla saved Lightlark (obvs)
- Both Oro and Grim fall in love with her (duh)
- Isla and Grim were past lovers in some sense
- Grim was in bed with Aurora. Oh I didn't really talk about this but like, the whole reason Aurora/Celeste even managed to spin the curses was because she promised to sleep with grim if he found her the heart of Lightlark. Yeah the heart that took Oro and Isla like 50 days to find?? Grim found it in one night in exchange for sexy times.
- I also suspected Isla's dad was probably Nightshade so I'm glad Aster came through on predictability there.

Final thoughts: this book is gonna do well on Booktok. It's literally catered to include everything people like on Booktok (enemies to lovers, women with swords, vague fantasy) but without any of the bite to deliver on those tropes. This whole thing reads like a first, maybe second draft and it's a shame that no one at any point stopped to say, "let's go back and edit this" because it has both juvenile prose and plot. Maybe the latter could be forgiven for a debut, but the latter seriously makes this book unenjoyable. You never feel immersed in the book because the entire time, you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes at how stupid everything is made to be. I know everyone is talking about how Aster falsely advertised a lot of scenes and I can confirm: there's very little overlap between what she's been promoting and what made it into the final copy; the villain doesn't even get the girl in the end?? My bigger gripe though is the injustice done to tokenized characters like Cleo and Azul, what's the point of diverse characters when you don't even engage with them? Isla being a woman of color would actually send me into <i>my</i> villain era, that girl is a slightly tanned Feyra variant at best, an Alex Aster self-insert at worst.

This book is amazing!!
Totally recommend to read it and to listen to it.
The audio was perfectly done and you could feel like being inside the story.

I picked up this title purely based on the TikTok hype and I'm so pleased to say I was blown away by this title. Although picking up elements of past classic YA stories, Lightlark has all the makings to be a new all time classic. The narrator was captivating from start to end - a rarity in fiction audiobooks in my experience.

This book was amazing. It’s full of secrets and I enjoyed uncovering them. The political moves made by the 6 different rulers kept you on your toes throughout the whole book. The ending was so unexpected. I cannot wait for book 2!

4.5/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this audio book for an honest review.

I will say it took me a little bit to get into this book because of the narrator. The narrator is fine but she does have a very young voice- which is fine if you start thinking of it as age appropriate for the leading character isla. However, I was quickly drawn into this book and the story it had to tell.

We follow isla our main character as she navigates her way through her first centennial. Long ago a curse had been placed on the six kingdoms and one ruler has to die for it to be released- them and their people. Each of the realms is cursed with something that affects them and their people. For instance Oro and his people would fire and the sun but are cursed to only be outside at night (think vampire curse). However isla we learn has no powers even though she is heir to the wildling kingdom - who is cursed to eat the hearts of those they love.

All in all I found this book to be awesome and it had me second guess if I did know what was really going on. I loved the twists and turns and even the reveal towards the end.

This book would be great as a stand alone (if for whatever reason book two ain’t picked up) as the over arching plot is concluded at the end. However there is some unresolved conflict at the end that is mention and I’d love for book two because I think it will be full of drama!

This just became one of my favorite books of all time. The concept is achieved to perfection, the characters are complex and well-developed and the world-building is too die for. I was expecting big things from this book, but still, I was left astonished with how it gripped me. I couldn´t stop reading, all those twists and turns, love and betrayals, made this book a big masterpiece. The narrator was the best pick for this as well, she really emerged into the story, bringing us along with her. It was like feelings all the things the characters were feeling themselves. I´ll be forever grateful for the publisher, the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

unintentional DNF @ 60%

between my slump and the NetGalley ARC archiving plus my lack of enjoyment of this book I'm giving up on it and won't be picking it back up when its published

I swear we were promised the next hunger games with mystery, curses, and magic but I was just bored. thrid person pov with a FMC who's the leader of her people(? I'm really not sure why like each breed?species? human with septic powers? are separated by their own islands and don't travel between or talk at all except for the leaders every 100% years but they also have spies from each group to spy on the others?)

Isla is powerless and that's her big secret nobody can know, except on powerful island where they're showcasing their powers they've harnessed over the past 100 years etc and a bunch of dangers they're got to use their powers to protect themselves for. It's very clear she's powerless.

There was a bunch of talk about the romance between Isla and Grim too but up to 60% these two have barley talked outside of him protecting her while she ran through the maze of hallways to get away from another leader which she should have just used her powers to save herself from but suprise she's powerless so Grim saw her as a helpless young girl and saved her.

Maybe it gets really good in the end half but they'll just been running around playing royals and Isla sneaking around to try and find a magical needle. I was just bored. It this came out like in the hype of fantasy maybe it would have been better?


Sorry for the very bitter review, I just wasn't enjoying this magbe because i was also on a archiving deadline in a slump. and my personal problems. I genuinely think outside of those reasons I still wouldn't enjoy it hence 2 stars instead of 3. But i will not be picking this up again or continuing the series. (maybe ill watch the movies since theyve already planned to make them)

Thank you NetGalley for the Audiobook ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me this audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I have had this book on my radar for SO LONG so I just about died when I got to read this early. As far as the audiobook specifically I personally was not a fan of the narrator. I was cringing because it was giving Barbie Rapunzel in the way she was speaking..and it was weird. Also I think she pronounced the MCs name wrong. Isn’t Isla supposed to be pronounced (EYE-LA)??? Anyway I digress

For the book at hand HOLY CRAP THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD. Once I was hooked, there was no way I could stop. It was super fast-paced and I love the world that’s going on here. I loved Isla, and Grim and Arlo were making me feel things deep in my SOUL!!! Although this is a YA fantasy is was super fasted-paced, it read like a thriller and had twist after twist after twist that has me shook! Also, this is brave for being a YA, there were parts that were questionable for me in the YA category. (I mean those dreams??? Hello???) don’t get me wrong, I loved that haha but it’s is Young ADULT- emphasis on Adult.

I loved this book and I am SOOO excited to get the physical copy when it comes out later this month!! This could very well be a book that is in the same level as the Hunger Games and Divergent.

I recommend this book to fans of ACOTAR, Hunger Games, Divergent

I wanted to love this, especially after the comparisons to the Hunger Games, which I loved. The narrator was good so I’ll give the book points for that but the story line was sooo hard to follow I just could not get into the story and plot at all. I was really hoping to love this but I couldn’t. Too much fairy magic and not enough plot and actual story line for me. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity for an advanced listen.

DNF’ed at under 5%

I was excited to read this because I’ve seen it on tiktok quite a bit but after receiving it I saw quite a few reviews that made me realize this might not be for me after all. I’ve seen it compared to acotar one (or 100) times too many so I figured I probably wouldn’t enjoy this and the writing and names within the first little bit didn’t give me any more confidence in this book. Being in a slump with a tbr a mile I felt like finishing anymore of this would be a waste of my time but thank you NetGalley and recorded books for the opportunity to listen to this audio arc in exchange for my honest thoughts.

A wild girl without power goes against a group of very powerful rulers to save her realm. I enjoyed the world building in this story. Think of this world like a star with 5 points and a center and that is Lightlark. This book gave me hunger games, with the fae and gods and goddesses. I gave this book 4/5 five stars. There were som parts that were a little lacking and the packing slowed down a little in the middle. Overall I enjoyed it and will be reading the sequel.
Thank you to the author an publisher for this opportunity to review this ARC for an honest review.

I preordered this book 25% into listening to the audiobook. I really enjoyed listening to this and i'm excited to be able to annotate the physical book. Love Isla as a main character so much because of how strong she is and I was struggling along with her wondering who to trust and who not to trust.

Excellent YA fantasy set in a unique world. In a setting where all the world’s rulers have powers, it is absolutely essential that Isla, ruler of the Wildlings, keep her lack of powers secret. As she travels to the Centennial in an effort to save the world it is hard to see how she can help.

This story has powerful females, a mystery and a love story that isn’t overwhelming of the narrative.

the publisher and netgalley were really just passing the audiobook arc around like a blunt at a party (thank you to them for real tho) but that meant i have some friends who also got to read this, who i had to pester with questions the entire time i read this book because wow. incomprehensible. 😚✌🏽 may god have mercy on your soul.

i’m gonna bitch about the worldbuilding first because i had in fact heard of this from tiktok (before i made my daring escape in the night) and the tiktok kinda led me to believe the world was completely different. the vibes we were picking up was that the island of lightlark is abandoned and inaccessible to the six far flung realms and that it only appears once every 100 years so the rulers can compete to break their curses. it turns out that no, the island can be accessed by our protagonist isla through her fun teleportation wand, and that it’s actually fully inhabited and a couple of the realms are actually still on the island somehow?? i don’t know how tf that works but i like my idea better. i also thought that five of the six competing rulers had to die and that only one could win, turns out that’s inverted so the stakes are much lower (especially considering the romance). also one of the rulers of the realm is also the king of lightlark which also really puts a damper on the way i thought that lightlark was separate from the realms and a kind of neutral competition ground. but whatever. we ball i suppose.

ok also the other two female realm rulers are basically identical when you look at their character art. they’re both white and very pale with light hair and their realms are night sky based. their names also both begin with the letter C. idk why you would do that. the curses attached to all of the realms are uneven and silly and the mechanics needed to break all of them are absolute gobbledygook. i had my friends explain the rules to me like five times, which is bad considering i got all of the mistborn worldbuilding while listening to the audiobooks too.

in general i consider myself a fantasy reader and while i’m not immune to a good love story, at the very least i’m immune to the edgy, dark-boy fantasy love interest that populates the genre’s most popular offerings (think rhysand, casteel?? crescent city guy, cardan, whoever that is in fbaa, that character named wrath??) if you’re similarly immune, i regret to inform you that grimshaw is exactly that type. it’s simply excruciating to read about him. his dialogue is awful, he’s taken with isla from his first introduction and then just skulks around the periphery because oh yeah, this is a love triangle! oro was fine, he’s the betty to grim’s veronica. i had not a strong feeling about him, nowhere to be seen! if you look at their character art they’re giving very much nikolai and the darkling which is dumb bc mal supremacy. let’s move on, the romance was underdeveloped and didn’t engage me.

anyway the prose was bad but didn’t distract me the way it probably would if i had to look at the words instead of listen to them. lotta adverbs in this one. i think aster is just trying too hard to be lyrical and vivid, she’s writing the idea of good fantasy prose instead of focusing on craft and construction. this can be improved with a good editor if the writer is receptive. not to be a bitch but idk if alex aster is. remains to be seen.

the rest of the plot just meanders around the comically big island, we poke in and out of different libraries like a point and click cd-rom game looking for the bond breaker (victoria aveyard ass term) which isla thinks can break the curses (even tho oro who lives here tells her that if there was a magical breaker they would’ve found it by now) and the heart of lightlark, another potential curse breaking loophole. or maybe it isn’t. i honestly don’t know.

the plot twist that isla and grim were a thing but he wiped her memory is almost a serve but it’s also so. basic? i’m certain it’s been done before and done better, you’re not the innovator you think you are bestie. it probably doesn’t hit because i don’t give a shit about either of them. sad. it’s all just really dated and shallow. gonna make an awful movie. i’ll bet the sequel is gonna undo all the relationship stuff with oro and isla like acotar before it. so curious to see what normal people think of this thing.

Lightlark is a gripping YA Fantasy about an island that only appears once every 100 years and the 6 rulers of the realm must compete to break their curses.
The world building for this story is pretty heavy in the beginning and made the first 100 pages a bit dense. The author really creates an image in your head and also explains a lot of the lore in the beginning (so you’re not left going what?? The entire time). I loved how creative this world is and I also wish I could visit and see all the creatures and castles.
The plot is very intriguing and I am very interested to see what happens in book 2. I do think the plot got a bit muddled in the middle. There were just a lot of directions Isla was going in but it all got tied up with some crazy plot twists at the end. I knew something was up about 50% of the way through and I had some guesses but I was still surprised at some of the plot twists at the end. I’m still reeling a bit. I do wish the romance was a little more at the forefront of the story as I did
Isla is the ruler of the Wildling realm and she is head strong, tactful, sassy and a brilliant warrior. I loved her as the main character even when sometimes I thought a lot of her choices were rash. The love interest had me swooning pretty much immediately and I think I’m still drooling a little bit over him. All the side characters were good but none of them were extremely fleshed out, they were mostly 1 dimensional.
This was the audiobook version of Lightlark. I didn’t love the narration of the story. I felt the narrators voices for the men in the series were difficult to tell apart or sounded off from what I would expect for the characters. Isla also felt younger for some reason than she actually is due to the narration. I do think the narrator had good inflection though and told the story well.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I recommend this for fans of fantasy, fantasy romance, YA, love triangles, court intrigue, hunger games esque competitions and strong Female main characters! I am seriously so excited for book 2 and can’t wait to get my hands on it!!
Thank you to Netgalley and Amulet books for this early audio book copy of the book!

YA publishing has well and truly jumped the shark with this one. The premise was held together by duct tape and a prayer, and it wasn’t enough. The curse was poorly explained and it just didn’t make sense. This is a YA book, and as a seasoned fantasy reader, I shouldn’t be struggling to understand what the curse was, why it happened, or what the point of the competition was. None of it made sense. There was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.

Honestly I’m embarrassed for the YA publishing industry at this point. This is a book that catered to a TikTok algorithm at the expense of any sort of quality or talent. I’ve been reading YA for many, many years, and the quality has gone to shit. It makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the industry, especially when you have successful authors blurbing this book and hailing it as 5 stars and acting like it’s the second coming of Jesus. Are they contractually obligated to do so? It’s weird, man.

I’m just so disappointed, honestly. In this book, in the publishing industry, in the millions of readers who will eat this up for no reason other than it’s a big title on TikTok. I wasn’t expecting this to be some sort of masterpiece, but I at least thought it would be decent. And it wasn’t even that.

Format: audiobook ARC

Wow wow wow!!
What a fantastic YA debut from Alex Aster. Lightlark was non-stop twists and turns and second guessing everything.

In a land where every realm bears a curse, Isla is the ruler of the Wildling realm of wild, beautiful people, cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. And she has a secret.
Every 100 years, the rulers of the six realms come together to look for a way to break their curses, following a prophecy given long ago. The Centennial is cut-throat, and everyone has their own agenda. Isla can't trust anyone, and yet she must get the other rulers to trust her, and even love her, if she is to save her people.

This book was an absolute RIDE! I had suspicions about some things from the start, but there are so many lies and secrets and betrayals, all done so cleverly! Isla was a strong-willed, determined young woman, I admired her going after what she wanted, at the same time wanting to save her realm. Grim was the bad boy, I liked his forwardness, helping Isla experience things she thought were lost to her, but I also like how Isla brought other characters like Oro out of their shell and made them see there is more to her than the deadly temptress everyone thinks her to be.
And that ending!! I need book 2 now please!

Fans of the Caraval series will love this one, the wonderfully colourful descriptions, and twists and turns have a similar feel which I loved!

Lightlark by Alex Aster follows the story of Isla, a young ruler that is competing with several other rulers to save her life and her realm. I’ve seen it marketed as ACOTAR meets Hunger Games and I definitely agree that it has elements from both those books.

I don’t quite understand the island of Lightlark and the rules of the game. Or how the hierarchy works—Oro, the king, at the top? And Isla, Grim, Celeste, etc are the rulers that are under him? Those explanations were hard to follow via audiobook, but I expect to pick it up better when I read the book and can reference a map/flip back to other chapters.

Simplistic names for things—Starstick, Sun Island, etc.—and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I guess it’s a good thing and helps the reader keep everything in order during reading. It’s a large cast of characters and several different locations.

Really good pacing! I was afraid that at 400+ pages that there would be unnecessary filler, but that wasn’t the case. There is always a lot happening, but the story didn’t drag and it moved along nicely.

The writing is very approachable. It’s not overly flowery or lyrical and it’s very straightforward and easy to read. Definitely good for many reading levels.

There were many secrets and questions that I really enjoyed following along, making my own guesses about, and unraveling.

My biggest gripe, and it’s really not that big a deal, just a pet peeve of mine, was the chapter titles. They’re unnecessary and sometimes, when they’re a character’s name, misleading. They led me to believe a different POV was coming and it got confusing.

Thank you to NetGalley, RB Media, and the author, Alex Aster, for the opportunity to listen to and review Lightlark. My thoughts and opinions are entirely my own. I give it a 5/5 and would recommend it to anyone that likes fantasy and YA fantasy. This is a highly anticipated book thanks to TikTok and for good reason!