Lightlark by Alex Aster
Author: Alex Aster
Publisher: Amulet Books
Publish Date: August 23, 2022
Before all the drama went down, I preordered a signed copy of Lightlark by Alex Aster. I kept seeing her videos on TikTok, and the way the book was marketed, it seemed right up my alley. Dystopian is my home, and I love death games (hence Hunger Games and All of Us Villains) so I was excited to read something new.
And then all the drama happened and Lightlark got review bombed on Goodreads. It seemed not many ARCs for the book went out (or people didn’t publish their reviews) until about two weeks ago, and the public opinion was not positive. Many people rated it for one star due to a few reasons:
- The scenes/quotes promoted by Alex on TikTok didn’t appear in the book
- There was little diversity when the author had promoted that
- It was in-fact nothing like Hunger Games or ACOTAR (which it kept getting compared to by the author)
- It was crappily written
Now all valid points when written in a constructive review, but people took that and went flying. And kept giving it one-star reviews on Goodreads - without even reading it - and before the book published on August 23.
I decided to keep my preorder and read the book for myself - surely, it couldn’t be that bad.
It was mediocre at best, but I kind of liked it. It was nothing life-changing, nothing awe-inspiring, definitely not the next big thing, but I don’t think it was the worst book I’ve ever read….
And here’s why…
I struggled to get into Lightlark at first. The writing was rough and even contained some laughable lines. The first 50 pages were the most difficult to get through. It really was nothing like was being marketed, and until I erased everything I had heard about this book, marketing, reviews, and otherwise, I struggled to get into this book.
To even get myself to read, I had to forget everything and start anew.
So it wasn’t anything like it was marketed, but what was it?
Definitely nothing to do with death games.
The concept of the Centennial just seemed to be a convenient location. The “first games” the book discussed was a cop out - no one died, so they added rules. It’s not a death game. It’s a countdown clock. Essentially, the rulers of the six realms have 100 days to break a curse that is causing their realm to die. There’s no fighting. Not a death game, but an interesting concept nonetheless.
Once I got that issue out of the way, I started to get drawn into the story. The Centennial was still interesting and created an interesting backdrop for our characters and our plot.
I enjoyed the characters though I kept getting confused as who was who. They didn’t have similar names but they didn’t stick to memory at all. And I could not for the life of me remember which realm each person belonged to. All the -ling names just seemed the same to me so nothing stuck out.
The writing was pretty mediocre but I’m not a reader for prose. Sometimes I liked reading the bad stuff so my brain doesn’t have to think; reading is an escape for me. There was primarily an issue in Lightlark with telling instead of showing. The author tended to info dump a lot of the world-building, so it didn’t stick and I ended up being confused a lot. But it wasn’t the worst book I had read. Aster could definitely use some polishing but I don’t think it’s not anything she can’t get without practice.
I enjoyed the plot - it was interesting and a different concept than I had read in a while. I liked the fantasy elements without it being too “fantasy advanced” if that makes any sense. It was a nice read for someone who, like me, doesn’t read a lot of fantasy and isn’t looking for the Tolkien-sequel fantasy novel. I liked the journey to the ending, nothing was too boring or complex. It moved at a steady pace.
The ending was in line with the rest of the book - okay. I didn’t really care for the plot twist at the end of the book. I didn’t see it coming, but I didn’t think there was enough of a buildup to guess the plot twist. The romance was meh, didn’t do it for me.
Overall, it was a mediocre book that doesn’t deserve the hype or hatred it’s received. It was a nice read, a nice change of pace. I finished Lightlark within a day, so it was definitely a fast read. It definitely has issues, but I do recommend instead of review bombing, decide for yourself if it’s worth it. If you don’t want to buy it or support the author, rent it from the library or purchase secondhand. I don’t think it deserves the title of the worst book ever when there are legit some problematic and messed up books out there.
Not being a BIPOC creator, I didn’t touch on the lack of diversity in the book in this post but I do recommend you go read other creator’s who touch on the diversity issue. I think this video explains why a BIPOC voice is necessary in these discussion. There’s a lot of reviews on Goodreads that have actual concrete explanations that I think are good.
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