Lightlark has some bad reviews. A lot of the criticism is valid, but part of what made this book infamous is the author. Controversy surrounds them. I won’t talk about this, but, basically, this book was sold on TikTok. Refer to this video if you want to know the controversy surrounding the author.
Personally, I don’t research authors. I critique the art without knowing anything about the person in order not to influence my interpretation. Sometimes, I have read things authors have written regarding their work like when I read a post by Xiran Jay Zhao about Iron Widow and the acknowledgements in the book. This did not influence my interpretation, but it did help me understand my criticism better.
While I’m aware of the controversy surrounding this author and, by extension, the book, I will not be using any of these details to talk about the story. It does not help me understand it better. Also, I consider this to be an unfair way to critique the book since it doesn’t add anything.
This isn’t going to be a bad review. Not completely, anyway. I don’t plan to tear this book down like I have others. This story is not bad. There’s potential. There are moments I genuinely enjoyed. Despite the low rating I gave it, I would be willing to read it again if there’s a sequel.
Synopsis
Every 100 years, the rulers of six realms are summoned to Lightlark in order to compete for one final chance to break their curses. With one ruler and their realm meant to die, Isla Crown will have to lie and cheat to survive.
Book Information
Genre: Fantasy
Category: Young adult
Explicit violence: No
Explicit sex: One scene
Content warnings I noticed: Implied physical and psychological abuse
This is the first book in a series. I’m not sure when the second book will be released.
Review
The prose is okay. It’s mostly good. It’s very accessible and easy to read. If I were to read this in Braille, I would fly through it. However, some of the prose is strange, but those are very few moments.
I tend not to focus on descriptions, but indulge me for a moment. For the most part, they’re great. Very easy to understand and there’s some interesting imagery. Like I mentioned however, some of the prose is strange. Describing the island as a cliffy thing. Describing expressions with meanly at the end, such as smiled meanly or grinned meanly. Reading these ages down Isla, making her feel more like she’s no older than 12. It doesn’t help since she’s supposed to be older.
Let’s talk about naming conventions. When I write, I don’t always make a big deal about names. I tend not to care when I read either, but Aster uses a naming convention when it comes to the realms, only to break it. The realms are Moonling, Sunling, Starling, Skyling, Wildling, and Nightshade. The only reason the naming convention is broken is to make it obvious that this is a dark realm. I hate this. Why couldn’t it just be Nightling?
When it comes to stories, I have a problem when authors insult their target audience. I’m not the target audience for this book, but I read plenty in this category. I enjoy it. I understand that this is not meant to be taken seriously. The author obviously wants the reader to take it seriously, but it can’t be. More on that later. However, there’s a difference between stories not meant to be taken seriously and insulting your target audience.
For the most part, Aster does not do this. Changing the naming convention just to make it obvious that Nightshade is a dark place is insulting to the audience. Your audience is a lot more intelligent than you give them credit. There’s no need to make things this obvious.
Aster pushes it further by calling a character Grim. Again, too obvious. This is not as bad as Iron Widow when it comes to insulting the target audience’s intelligence. If you want to know my thoughts, refer to this post.
If you want spoiler thoughts, watch this video.
I just realized Aster does this with Oro as well. There’s apparently supposed to be Latinx representation, but I didn’t see it. Others have pointed out that the Wildlings are supposed to be Latinx, but it’s very stereotyped, especially when it comes to the women.
I bring this up because the idea of latinx representation being in the book made me consider something very interesting. Oro means gold in Spanish. Aster named her love interests darkness and gold. I don’t hate this, but I also don’t like this. This makes it so obvious who they want the audience to root for.
Speaking of audience, young adult doesn’t feel like the right one. Iron Widow feels like a watered down adult book. The Maid feels like a children’s cartoon made palatable for adults. Lightlark feels like a middle grade book pushed into the young adult category. I don’t like this, but the concept can work for a YA audience.
This book is written like a morning cartoon that you would see in Nickelodian. Think Winx Club. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem comes in the way it’s marketed. It’s marketed as a story containing intrigue and deadly games, but it doesn’t have any of these things. It’s a low stakes book with a cartoon aspect.
It has a quest formula, something I also enjoy. I read Gail Carson Levine when I have the chance and the stories I gravitate to from them have a quest aspect. There are too many quests, though and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Aster uses soft world-building to immerse us in the world. I find soft world-building to be easier to immerse myself into. Hard world-building has too many rules and I don’t always remember them. It’s the same with hard magic systems. Nothing against hard world-building and hard magic systems. I just find it harder to engage with sometimes when there are too many rules.
While I think soft world-building and soft magic systems are great, I was not immersed. Soft world-building and soft magic systems make sense. This world makes some sense, but not a lot. The magic makes little to no sense. I don’t feel like I know this world or understand the magic in it.
This brings me to the curses. The supposedly wicked curses. They’re not wicked. They also make little sense. Why did the curses affect these realms like this? This is where world-building would have benefited the logic of the curses.
I watched a readalong of Lightlark where the YouTuber points out that this story is built on tropes. They said that this is not how stories are made, but I disagree. Like cliches and archetypes, tropes are tools. Frameworks for stories. It’s okay to build a story on tropes, but there needs to be more.
The one thing that bothered me about the writing is the sex scene. It has nothing to do with the fact that it’s targeted to a YA audience. It’s just weird. It was uncomfortable to listen to. Naomi Novik can write a better sex scene in a YA book. If you don’t believe me, read the Scholomance series. Here’s my review of A Deadly Education if you’re interested in my thoughts.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik: Slice of Life Anime and Murder Hogwarts
For more content on the Scholomance series, enjoy these videos.
The pacing is not my favorite. It’s very fast. The good things about it are that it fits the writing style and that it keeps readers turning the page. However, it doesn’t allow for time to get to know the characters.
If there are any themes that were meant to be explored, I missed them. There seems to be an attempt at building friendships, but it all falls apart by the end.
The characters are flat. They’re pieces for the author to move around. I don’t even feel like I know Isla and we’re in her head the entire time. She has no goals or desires of her own, so she feels like a worse version of Bella Swan. Bella at least has a goal for herself, but Isla’s only focus is her realm. She has no personality.
Isla’s goal is to save people she’s never met. By breaking the curses, she can do this, but she can also live among them and have adventures. This is as far as it goes. Her lack of personality makes it so irritating to follow her.
It doesn’t help that Isla is supposed to be intelligent. A good strategist, but she makes stupid decisions and doesn’t plan. When she makes plans, they work because the plot needs them to. Glimmer from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power also makes terrible decisions, but she learns from her mistakes. The same cannot be said of Isla.
We don’t see Isla struggle. She gets what she wants. That’s fine, but establish that. Overlord does it. We know what to expect with Momonga, but we’re supposed to feel for Isla. She supposedly struggles, but that’s not the case.
For the record, we’re told everything I’ve just explained. I’m okay with telling in stories, but some things are important to show. These should have been shown.
Earlier, I said Isla is like a worse Bella Swan. I have a lot of problems with Twilight, but Bella’s goals make more sense. Her need to feel accepted and have a family makes a lot of sense because, if we’re being honest, her parents weren’t that great, but we know this, despite what Bella might tell us. I can’t say the same about Isla’s goals.
All of these characters are stereotypes. The badass lead. The mean girl. The cartoon villain.
The romance is terrible. You expect me to believe that Isla fell in love with one of these characters? They’re flatter than her!
A lot of people hate love triangles. I don’t, but for them to work the character who the triangle is around needs to have chemistry with both love interests. Otherwise, the love triangle fails. Take Fruits Basket as an example. Tohru has the option of two love interests, Yuki and Kyo. Both have a different relationship with her, but, from the very beginning, they have outstanding chemistry. As the series continues, the chemistry grows.
This has a terrible love triangle. There is no chemistry between Isla and her love interests. When the ending came and it’s revealed who she’s in love with, I felt nothing.
The twist at the end has no foreshadowing. It falls flat. However, I like the idea of what the original offense was.
Okay. So, I lied earlier. I said this wouldn’t be a bad review, but, technically, it is.
While I have heavily critiqued this book, I enjoyed reading it. It was fun. It’s a cute story and there are things it does well. It had a lot of potential and some of the issues I have could possibly be addressed in a sequel. This feels like a great introduction to the world, but not a complete one.
I mentioned Twilight earlier. Lightlark is a cute girl power fantasy where Isla is the reader. She lives the reader’s ideal life. It’s like an Isekai, but without the element of being transported into a new and unknown world.
Twilight is a power fantasy, but Aster does it better than Meyer. This might sound contradictory, considering I said Isla is a worse version of Bella. I still hold to that because I believe Bella has more personality. However, Isla is immediately overpowered, giving her several advantages. While Bella has more personality, Isla is easier to follow since she’s not as passive. While she’s dumb and inconsistent, she takes action at every part of the story.
While I have my issues with this story, I would read it again. Power fantasies are fun. While well done, Sarah J. Maas’s stories and both Flesh and Fire and Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout are power fantasies and I love them. I’m trash for them. They have better characters and theme exploration, but, at their heart, they’re power fantasies. For Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout content, check out the following links.
A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer L. Armentrout: Duty and Desire
The best way to engage with Lightlark is to disengage. To turn off your brain and enjoy the crazy antics and drama. Don’t worry about anything making sense. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s a power fantasy. It’s cute.
The conversation that this book has invited is important and I’d like to give my thoughts on it. A lot of it started because of this TikTok controversy. However, the criticism the book received outside of that has only encouraged it. I don’t have much to say on it, but I’ll do my best to argue my case.
The main point of this conversation is about traditional publishing. The problem is that some believe that no good books are being traditionally published. I also believe this, but have mixed feelings on that as I’ll discuss shortly.
On one hand, I understand this frustration. There are so many bad books out there that they drown the good ones. It’s not always easy to find a great story.
The framing that at least one reviewer used is that traditional publishers have been churning out bad books while there are so many authors with great stories. Those who get the chance to be traditionally published don’t always get the same attention that Aster has gotten. Those who are unpublished may not be given a chance by traditional publishers because they’re concerned it won’t sell.
Whether we like it or not, a book is a product. It needs to sell. Authors and publishers need to make money. I mentioned this in my review for The Savior’s Champion, but I think it’s worth saying it again. Whether the book is good or bad doesn’t matter. What matters in publishing is if it sells. If something is well marketed, it’s going to sell. Refer to this post if you want to see what I wrote about it in that review.
Using this framing, publishers are using what they think, hope, and know will sell to decide what books to publish. If you’re not an established author, they take a chance on you if they think your book will sell. Established authors will, of course, get better marketing. Established authors have a sales record, so publishers know they’ll sell.
On the other hand, what’s a good book? I have a criteria for one, but that changes depending on what I’m reading and my mood. If a book is good or bad is subjective. Even whether something is badly written is not objective.
As a reviewer, I’m aware that I don’t critique objectively. None of my reviews are or will ever be objective. I do everything I can to draw a line when saying a book is good or bad. It’s good or bad in my opinion. It’s good or bad for me, but you might have a different opinion from me and that’s great.
Every story has an audience. As a reviewer, it’s not my job to determine whether a book is good or bad. It’s my job to share my thoughts. I can’t tell you whether any book I review is good. That’s subjective to you.
Lightlark has an audience. I’m someone who would read books like this, but, while I enjoy it, I think it’s fair to critique the things that I don’t think it doesn’t do well. This is something I keep in mind when I type up and record my reviews.
The last thing I want to say is that reviewers review differently. There are some that, because it’s YA, don’t expect that much. Because it targets a younger audience, they let certain things go. Because it’s not adult, they may not feel comfortable reviewing it harshly.
I sometimes review books like this, but, most of the time, I don’t. I have high expectations for stories, especially after seeing what Avatar: The Last Airbender did. YA readers deserve great books, too. For the most part, I review books on a similar standard, despite the audience.
I’m an aspiring author. I will hopefully have my debut book published by the end of this year. I believe all readers deserve good stories. I strive to write good stories and I expect the same from all authors, but, again, good stories are subjective.
Lightlark reminds me of plotless action movies. No one seems to have an issue with those. Why do we have an issue with books that have a similar style? Is it because books are supposed to be intellectual? Books can be whatever the author wants. The target audience will get something out of it.
In all this criticism, we’re forgetting that Aster wrote a book and got it published. Good or bad, it sold and that’s an accomplishment. They should be proud.
Conclusion
Overall, this story had a great concept and style. It was well written, but the execution was not the best. I enjoyed reading it. It’s definitely not for everyone, but I think that, while valid, the critiques of this book were somewhat exaggerated at times. I rated it two stars.
Anexis Matos 