I want you to stop what you're doing, look me in the eye, and listen to what I am about to tell you. All these people assuring you that this is the greatest book ever--they are lying to you.

Do you want to know how open-minded I was about this book? In a story set on an island where realm rulers gather to play a game, the main character is named Isla Crown, and I ROLLED WITH IT. When I tell you that what you're about to read is an honest review, I mean it with every beat of my heart. So buckle up, my friends. There has been a lot of talk and raised eyebrows over this book, its author, and the sheer amounts of money being thrown at it, and I have thoughts. Lots of them.

So, what bothers me right off the bat is the premise. This could have been so good. Truly. But the execution was flawed almost immediately. You cannot compare this to The Hunger Games in any shape or form. Not when the first 50 of the 100 days long competition has only balls and weird detective moments because no one is allowed to kill each other. Literally, it's a rule. Also, no one DIES. Not a single person. There are no fights, no clawing for survival, no societal commentary. Every realm ruler holds a trial that challenges and forces every ruler to showcase their magical abilities, and each one was an opportunity wasted. Each challenge is over in a few pages within the first half of the book without any real consequences and it doesn't add anything new to the story or world.

But don't worry, the Twilight comp holds fast and true with the terrible dialogue, questionable romance and love triangle, and naïve as hell main character who is basically Bella Swan repackaged.

I was fortunate enough to receive an early audio copy, and I think that may have saved this from being a one star read. It forced me to take it slower and not be as invested. I'm told from a few others that it definitely protected me from the questionable prose. At first, I thought it was prettily written with some cute Caraval vibes, but that was when I wasn't thinking too deep about it. Once I really started listening, I realized that no, this writing is better suited to middle grade, which is what the author has previously published. It is somewhat repetitive with its descriptions and thoughts, and a bit juvenile with its choice of words.

Reading this slowly also kept me from thinking too hard about the plot. I didn't really notice until I finished and reflected on it, but this really was all over the place, and I'm left asking myself what was the purpose of most of it. So much could have been condensed to leave room for the more important aspects that the premise kept pushing, like the competition to the death? There is no streamlined Point A to Point B to Point C trajectory. There are so many tangents and secondary plotlines that try to play off each other but can't quite fit. It goes back and forth a lot, and whatever mystery is trying to be solved does not give any level of satisfaction. It really was "let's see how many scenes I can write in different fantasy lands so I can show off how how talented my brain is."

Where the audiobook did nothing for me was with the worldbuilding. I really was just vibing and taking their word for it on most things because I was playing catch-up the entire time. You need a map, a glossary, a character and magic cheat sheet just to get through the first five chapters. It was a disaster that had zero finesse. Again, the name, Isla Crown. I didn't realize it until about the 75% mark. If I had taken the time to be critical about it in the beginning and connected the dots sooner, it would have told me all I needed to know about this book. I'm almost insulted about how little effort was put into this second world fantasy.

The gold king is named Oro, the sky ruler Azul. A magical teleportation device is called a starstick. Realms are named Moonling, Wildling, Starling, Skyling--and you wonder why I couldn't keep anything straight. And then there are so many characters, names, places, types of magic, types of curses, types of flares, competition rules, history points. To make matters worse, most of it is dumped on you in the first few chapters with very little grace or any chance to absorb. Not to mention, we hardly see it in action because it's all told at us. And we're just expected to remember. Joke's on you, because I did not.

Isla is a Mary Sue if I ever saw one. She's so beautiful, haven't we told you that ten times? With her hot face and hot dresses and all the men looking at her. But she's different. She's barely seen a man before. Never talked to one. Nope. She is of the seductress people but she is not one of them, no sir'ee, because she will never seduce a man after her parent trauma. She has no magic ability but can wield any weapon. Apparently. I don't know. Barely get to see that in action. But wait, she must make herself look weak so she's not a threat, but she must win so she can get magic, but actually no, she's too good for that and has her own silly little plan to execute. Don't forget how she's a master of disguise because she can wear different coloured clothes and dye her hair a different shade for a night. Oh, and she has the most bestest singing voice ever, and we'll randomly bring that up whenever it just feels right. That's a self-insert if I ever saw one.

The romance was ... not great. I mean, the main love interest is named Grimdark, Grim for short, and he truly is a Rhsyand wannabe. He's of the dark realm, and he's so edgy and mysterious but obviously in love with Isla from the first moment. He calls her Hearteater, since that's what her people eat (don't ask.) But this later gets shortened to Heart, and it made me cackle so hard.

There is the most random and gratuitous "spicy" scene after the most cringe twilight-esque confession of feelings. It did not fit into this book, not one bit. I mean, complete and utter whiplash where this girl is all sad and in hiding, then suddenly she's getting a handjob or something, I dunno. Whatever it was, it. did. not. fit. With the writing, with the book, with the YA vibe. NA exists. Go write that instead of shoehorning this kind of stuff into a category where it doesn't suit.

And of course, there was a love triangle involving the two moody broody hot boys, and I did not care for it because she doesn't deserve or need the attention. Not to mention it's kind of uncomfortable when she's pretty much 18, but everyone else is over 500 years old?? And they're all pining after this fool of a girl. Make it make sense.

The ending went completely off the rails. And I mean completely. The author tried to pull together so many threads to make twist after twist after twist work, but it flopped for me. For one, I couldn't remember half the details that were brought back to life because they didn't seem significant or weren't brought up enough as coincidence for me to care.

Two, Isla's naivety crashed and burned some of it because she chose to focus on the wrong points of what was happening. Had me tearing my hair out that she can't believe something that was so obvious to the reader. The entire world could be crashing down around her and the secrets of the universe relayed, and all she would fixate on is that some random boy accidentally confessed he had feelings for her. I also don't see how this will carryover into a sequel. There's maybe one thing left to look into, and I genuinely don't care about it.

Now, the suspicions. Not only did this get a 6-figure book deal, but it's also sitting pretty on a 7-figure movie deal before the book is even out. The author has tried to explain that this is normal and fine, really trying to put a "If you go through rejections as long as I have and keep trying you can get this too," but I really don't buy it. Alex Aster is an absolute nobody to me. Didn't even know she existed until a few weeks ago, to be honest. I never saw her on BookTok, her MG books I've never seen on shelves. She apparently lies about scenes and tropes and lines in the book. But what she is is very wealthy. Her twin sister is a CEO worth $220 million, and her parents aren't hard off. Yet this book is coming out from Amulet, which absolutely no offense, is not a competitive publisher in the grand scheme of things. So to have this pushed as the next big YA franchise sensation and the biggest thing since the 2010s YA boom smells incredibly fishy.

I am very glad I did not have to contribute a single penny towards this book as even that would have been a waste of my money. I know full well that this will land on the NYT Bestseller list because of how messed up the entire system is. And I hate that even more because I can think of at least thirty other books I read this year alone that not only deserved that six slash seven figure deal, but also the amount of hype and marketing this mediocre book has received when it is simply not good. Publishing really isn't fair some times, and this is a blatant example of why.

Unfortunately I do not believe this book lived up to the hype. I found the plot to just be a jumbled mess of every trope the author could throw in to try and gain audience favour, which was a great disservice to the novel. I think a lot more thought should have been put in the story, and especially to the characters.

Once again, a reason not to buy into hype.

I will say, the premise sounded fun and so I went in with tampered expectations. But so much of the storyline and background info was underdeveloped. Unless you’re just reading for easy amusement and not really thinking about and processing the information.

I really hope more editing goes into the final version as well.

Thank you so much to the publisher for giving me a chance to read this book before release in exchange for an honest review.

Oof.. this book was a doozy. i went into this with pretty high expectations since the author is pretty well known on social media and i was interested in how in compared to ACOTAR and the Hunger Games.

it did not compare. it didn't even touch those books.

I'll start with the writing, in the first 30% of the book the writing was all over the place with the random mentions of how the curse came about in very random moments that made entirely no sense. the word " thing" was used so much to describe certain things in the story that i ended up turning it into a drinking game.

Characters- Isla or should i say a cheap imitation of Bella Swan was probably the worst part of the book for me. She kept flip flopping her train of thought pretty much the entire book such as when she tells another ruler off and then you see her have this anxiety about it and then this random confidence boost about the other rulers and how she was a monster in disguise. I would say monster if the monster we were talking about is a kitten. I didn't like her at all.

the love interest was a pale imitation of Rhysand mixed with Edward Cullen. there was nothing to him. Why should i want him with Isla? that reason never came.

The villian was pretty much the only character with any depth to them, when they were revealed i actually wanted them to destroy everyone.

also there is a mention of the only poc ruler being lgbt for one page and thats it. you don't get to know anything about them.

I ended up wanting to know more about the other rulers than Isla herself because their worlds and powers seemed more interesting than her.

This book definitely needs more editing and improvement on writing as well as world building.

I've chosen to rate this two stars for the magic system and learning about the worlds kept me reading as well as the villain reveal.. Read this at your own peril

The prose in this book was not very good. The plot is thin at best… the logic behind the Centennial doesn’t make sense. Honestly, it needed more revision because the concept is good but the execution is not. I have to give it one star.

Lightlark is the first book I've read by Alex Aster. I was a bit scared for this, I wasn't sure how the whole tiktok sensation thing was gonna go. This book was good, it was well written enough, I actually liked the main character. We had one character who is LGBT+ but he doesn't get much on page time, I wish he had more. I liked the betrayal and love triangle but it was so so similar to those hollow vows. I didn't get acotar or hunger games vibes from this. I've also seen that memory eraser trope way too many times. But when the reveals kept coming I was wowed. I also wish we'd gotten more world building but the different magics and curses were interesting. I don't know how well this book would do as a movie.

Welcome to the Centennial. Isla Crown is the young ruler of Wildling—a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. Every 100 years, the island of Lightlark appears to offer the six rulers one final chance to break the curses on their realms, and this time, it’s Isla’s turn. More than just a game, to survive the Centennial, Isla but lie, cheat, and betray…even as love complicates everything.

This much-hyped book had me really excited-and for good reason! It’s hard to go wrong with a game of intrigue and a nice old-fashioned love triangle both of which Lightlark has. Isla has prepared her whole life for her chance to break the curse on her realm. All six rulers come to Lightlark knowing that one of them must die to save the other realms, and Isla is determined that it won’t be her. We see a lot of the “chosen one” trope in YA fantasy, but Isla was very likable. She was fierce and clever and smart. Honestly, she’s pretty badass, and we love to see strong female leads.

The picture that Alex Aster paints of Lightlark is magical and enthralling. Despite the danger lurking at every turn, the wonders of Lightlark make me want to visit. It’s a beautiful and mysterious setting which only adds to the ominous feeling of foreboding throughout the game.

Every character was three-dimensional and morally grey which made the plot all the more interesting. Everyone has their own motives and agenda that will keep you guessing until the very end. I think Aster created life-like characters that made choices we can see reflected in our own lives. The element of choice plays a huge role in this story, especially at the end, and Isla surprised me by choosing a path I would not have chosen for myself.

My only qualm with this story is the love triangle. Can’t a girl try to save the world without the help of a man for once? Ultimately though, the triangle has a greater purpose for the sake of the plot, so I’m willing to let it slide. If you love the dark-haired mysterious brooding boy versus the sunshine golden prince, you’ll enjoy this aspect of the story. Personally, Isla and I have very different tastes.

I did guess the plot twist, but others might not. It’s one of those twists that might make you want to re-read it to see if you missed anything. I think it’s really, really hard to do anything original in terms of plot twists these days. Aster did a good enough job though and had me thinking about the ending for days.

Overall, I highly recommend Lightlark to anyone who reads YA fantasy. It’s compelling and fun and even a little spicy at times! Give it a read to see what all the fuss is about- you won’t regret it!