Reading With Tyler

Name: Lightlark
Series: Lightlark #1
Author: Alex Aster
Publisher: Abrams
Format: Paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Noted Tropes: Games and Trials, Enemies to Lovers, Love Triangle, Prophecy
Steam or Spice: Steam

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Review:

I am not ashamed to say, TikTok got me on this one. I was seeing Lightlark pop up everywhere, and then when I received a gift card as a late Christmas gift from my mum, I knew Lightlark was coming home with me. The premise sounded amazing! I loved the idea of six realms each cursed with a unique affliction so awful that they send their rulers once every 100 years to attend the Centennial to try and win the power to break their curses. To be clear, ‘attend the Centennial’ is the best way I could put it, because it’s not an all out brawl or anything like that. It’s a game. A political one really. You see, to win – one ruler must die.

Doesn’t it just sound fun? Like a good, fun read! And it was. I really enjoyed it, read it in under 24 hours because I couldn’t get enough. Some of the curses truly were awful, the Wilding’s for example have to eat a human heart to survive and should they ever fall in love their lover’s heart may be their next meal. Gruesome! Some are awful but not so bad, like the Sunlings can’t be in the Sun else they’ll burn and die, Moonlings are taken by the sea, if they’re on the water, when the Full Moon is out and some are sad, Starlings don’t live past 25… There are obviously other curses but these are just a couple of them – and honestly just the idea of the curses had me hooked.

I liked our FMC, Isla and enjoyed going on her journey with her. Her prediciment is slightly different to that of the other rulers which makes her an interesting character to be following. Without spoiling it, her curse is different to the curse of the Wildlings she’s representing. I will say that because of my main critique of the book I didn’t follow her journey as perfectly as I would have liked to…

The main critique I have of the book is that it felt like something was missing. I couldn’t always figure out how we got from A to Z and some of the reveals in the story fell flat as a result of this – any hints that may have been present were kind of lost on me as I was trying to navigate my way through murkey waters, so to speak. I often found myself backtracking slightly to re-read sections in order to try and figure out if I’d somehow skipped over a piece of information that would make things click. I’m not convinced I skipped anything, yet I’m still somewhat confused.

I enjoyed the friendship/romance situation in this book -though I was never sure who I was routing for. Even as twists were revealed and I’m sure they were supposed to push you in one direction over the other, I still couldn’t say I was swayed to one. This is one of the reasons I will be reading the sequel (when the paperback comes out) because I enjoyed Isla’s interactions with both our love interests.

When I wrote my original review I thought Lightlark was a duology, I have since found out that is not the case and there is a third book releasing sometime this year apparently (according to Goodreads). I do intend to read Nightbane (Lightlark #2) but if I find that I’m scrambling to make sense of things again I am not sure I’ll continue with the series.

Overall I enjoyed that Lightlark was a fun read, great premise and some characters that you really did feel for… I just feel as though this one needed a bit more work before releasing. Still, congratulations to the author because TikTok really took off with this book and so I’m sure it reached a wider audience and a different audience than the one it was intended for.

With all that in mind, I’m pretty comfortable with my rating of 3.5 stars. I enjoyed it, and I can’t hide that! I am excited for the sequel, I’m just nervous about the streamline of it all. Some of the story was a little predictable, but that being said I only partly figured out the twist before it was revealed so it wasn’t so predictable that you may as well not bother! I just needed it to be more streamlined, less of a job to try and just follow the story.

“There are lies and liars all around you…”