Lightlark

Lightlark, Book 1

By: Alex Aster

Narrated by: Suzy Jackson

#BookTok phenomenon and award-winning author Alex Aster delivers listeners a masterfully written, utterly gripping YA fantasy novel.

Welcome to the Centennial.

Every 100 years, the island of Lightlark appears to host the Centennial, a deadly game that only the rulers of six realms are invited to play. The invitation is a summons—a call to embrace victory and ruin, baubles and blood. The Centennial offers the six rulers one final chance to break the curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. Each ruler has something to hide. Each realm’s curse is uniquely wicked. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die.

Isla Crown is the young ruler of Wildling—a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. They are feared and despised, and are counting on Isla to end their suffering by succeeding at the Centennial.

To survive, Isla must lie, cheat, and betray...even as love complicates everything.

Filled with secrets, deception, romance, and twists worthy of the darkest thrillers, Lightlark is a must-hear for fans of legendary fantasy writers Marie Lu, Marissa Meyer, and Leigh Bardugo.

©2022 Alex Aster (P)2022 Recorded Books

Inaccurate marketing

I knew very little about this book’s origins before I started reading it. All I knew was that it had blown up on TikTok and was being made into a movie.

First and foremost, the narrator is excellent. I don’t think I would have lasted long if I were reading the ebook, but Suzy Jackson’s reading kept me hooked into the story.

The biggest flaw of this book is the execution. The worldbuilding is creative, the characters are varied, and the concept of six realms all being cursed was intriguing. I’m also always a sucker for “dangerous games.” I’ve seen this billed as a spicy Hunger Games. It is not. There’s a single “spicy” scene, and there’s no game. It’s six rulers trying to solve a riddle in a prophecy (that is so well known people have it memorized), and they basically waste 50 of their allotted 100 days by participating in very tame “demonstrations” of their abilities and throwing balls. They only get a chance at this once every 100 years for vague reasons. If the curses aren’t lifted this time (the rulers have all failed the past 4 times), basically everyone in every realm dies. You’d think they’d spend more time on solving the riddle than going shopping!

The plot is essentially all based on the worldbuilding. The first third is mostly just that. It really felt like the book was merely grand concepts and ideas rather than about the characters populating this fantasy world. It was about the grand notion of how powerful love is without actually making the characters believably fall in love. It was about being a feared leader who commits despicable acts without actually showing why this person should be feared. This has all the beats of something that SHOULD hit all the major YA blockbuster buttons, but the details fail to match the grand ideas. So it all felt a bit empty.

Because the plot was so reliant on not only the reader understanding all the worldbuilding elements (which were often very convoluted; the MC jumps to a lot of random conclusions), but to care about them as much as the MC does, when the big reveal happened, I kept needing to rewind to make sure I got what was going on. I’m still not fully sure I did. Essentially, a lot of rules were created for this fantasy world plagued by curses, and one of the characters broke and twisted a bunch of the rules in order to ruin the lives of others. That’s it. So if you’re not super invested in the world created here, you’re likely to feel a bit disappointed in the whole thing by the end. If you fall in love with the world, you’ll probably really like the book.

There was a lot of potential here, but it just missed the mark for me.

Loved it!

It’s sad that a lot of people wrote bad reviews before even reading this. It’s definitely YA, but I thought it was so good! It reminded me of Hunger Games meets ACOTAR. I thought the premise was great and the author absolutely left me guessing the whole time. There were moments I definitely thought I figured some stuff out and was left with my mouth hanging open. My only mistake was looking up something online only to be met with a major spoiler. That being said, it was still really good and enjoyable. I didn’t read this to consume the next best novel of all time, I read it to de-stress and enjoy something, and that’s what the author gave me. I can’t wait for the next book and the movie! Thanks, Alex Aster for creating this book! You deserve all that’s coming your way!

Loved this book!

I DO NOT write reviews but for this book I felt like I had to. I couldn’t get enough of it! When I wasn’t listening to it I was daydreaming about it. Very smart storyline and left me wanting more at the end. I’ll be counting down the days until the second book is released.

Advanced Renaissance meets Fantasy

Moments were predictable. But the BIG twist was blindsiding! Good read for sure. I hope there'll be sequels.

Loved This!

This is definitely one of my favorite reads of 2022! So many twists, loved the characters, loved the story! I can’t wait for the next book AND the movie!