“Lightlark” by Alex Aster
Now, I have reviewed this book on Goodreads, and I will be writing a modified version of said review here. There’s much to be said about one’s initial emotional response that can lend itself more towards the emotional rather than intellectual side.
I am not on booktok nor am I on tiktok in general, and I have no plans on changing that any time soon. As it were, I came across the global obsession of “Lightlark” by Alex Aster on Instagram and became curious.
The promotional team for this novel set it up for failure when they decided to compare this work to Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games”. The “Hunger Games” were about an authoritarian government that forced children to fight to the death in an arena to control the populace. While “Lightlark” continuously states that the Centennial is a deadly game, there are no deadly aspects. In the end, this egregious decision set “Lightlark” up to fail as the expectations generated by the comparison couldn’t be met.
The description of the novel on the back of the book doesn’t adequately describe the novel. I will be referencing some of these points throughout the review.
Personally, I found the book painfully boring. Following the conventions of the fantasy ya genre, there wasn’t much unique to the story. Many book series before this novel also employeed the contest of trials not only better but in far more entertaining ways.
“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 first chapter of the book completely ruins the “deadly” Centennial as the main character, Isla Crown, tells the reader that not a single leader has ever been killed during one. Despite this fact, the book tries to pretend that the reader should be concerned for Isla Crown’s safety.
Whilest one can certainly spend plenty of time discussing the many issues with Isla Crown as a character, I want to focus on the issues with her as a character in reference to the plot of the novel.
“Isla Crown is the younge ruler of Wildling—a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with.”
While the story explains why Isla Crown herself exists thanks to her parents’ falling in love, the book doesn’t explain why there are an implied multitude of previous Wildling leaders (for example, Isla’s unnamed past ancestor who lost a hand during a Centennial and was forced to have a child). The leaders of the other realms (Nightshade, Sunling, Moonling, Skyling) are all being led by the same leaders from before the curses. The only group that isn’t is Starling and this is because of their unfortunate curse to die once they reach the age of twenty-five. Over the course of the centuries, the only leaders not forced to have children due to a curse have never fallen in love or had children. Why are the Wildling leaders, the only realm cursed to kill their lovers, the ones constantly having children?
This of course begs the question that since all but Isla and Celeste have been going to the Centennial since its inception, why is it that none of the other leaders have any history between them? As the story progresses, none of the other leaders (Grim, Oro, Azul, and Cleo) have any shared history. Despite at least five Centennial’s worth of conflict, there is no bantering, personal grudges, or inside jokes. While the reader is told that Azul lost his husband during a Centennial, we’re never told how it happened or if another leader was involved in his death. To top it all off, not a single person ever mentions Isla’s mother and the reader is never told whether or not Isla’s mother even participated in a Centennial. The assumption is that her nameless mother competed at least once, but this is conjecture as she isn’t a character in the universe of Lightlark.
This comes back to a core issue in the “Lightlark” book: This spanning, centries old world does not have history beyond the pages of the book. While the world may have rules and a setting, the characters do not exist beyond the central story being played out within the covers of the novel.
“Each ruler has something to hide.”
Another promise not fulfilled in the story is the idea that all six leaders have a secret. This is blatently not true as we can see with Cleo and Azul’s characters as they don’t have a secret that impacts the novel. Cleo’s secret is that she had a son who tragically passed, but this has no impact on the story or the other leaders when this is revealed to Isla. If this information hadn’t been introduced, the story would have concluded in the same way.
Azul’s character has no secret throughout the book. Whilst the novel tries to claim that his secret is that he poisoned Celeste, this isn’t a secret that existed before the events of the novel and it is immediatly revealed within the next few pages of it having occured. The story also never really resolves this plot point. For some reason Azul chooses to poison Celeste after discovering her secret and then he leaves the narrative of the story. Where did he go? Why did no one go after him? Why didn’t Isla try to track him down for revenge? Why didn’t he tell the other leaders the reason he poisoned Celeste? His character disappears from the rest of the novel because it’s clear the author didn’t know what else to do with him. The poisoning of Celeste also isn’t a plot point in the novel. Celeste is almost instantly healed without any lasting effect. This scene could have been cut from the novel without any impact.
This is largely my issue with the novel as a whole: the novel does not deliver what it promises.
For an even more detailed break down of “Lightlark” by Alex Aster, I would suggest checking out my favorite novel reviewer Krimson Rogue on Youtube. You can find his indepth review here.
