Reviews with content warning for Cannibalism - Lightlark

I found the premise and the world building to be underdeveloped and honestly a bit silly. This author loves sentence fragments and frequently uses the em dash, so the writing feels choppy and unrefined. The mystery is engaging and the twists are fun. I also found the characters enjoyable. I'll probably continue on with the second book for an easy, light read.

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literarymary95's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This came highly recommended by a good friend who is also a big reader. It wasn't as good as she said it was and I came in with very few expectations. The first 200 pages (or first 65% of the book) felt very repetitive and made it hard to be engaged with the story. The last 100 pages (or 35% of the book) felt a lot less repetitive and action was really happening. I also only felt like I started becoming invested in the characters in the last 50 pages, which is not typical of me. All of this is why I chose a 3.75 because the last 100 pages redeemed this from becoming a mid-level review.

I hope Nightbane continues with the momentum that was finally created in the last 100 pages of Lightlark.

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jennagrant's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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chaptermaggot's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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brieoqueijo's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This was a very happy surprise, I was expecting a 3.0 stars at most, and maybe even a rant review, but this was really fun!!

!!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!

!!!!!I MEAN IT!!!!!!

Ok, so here are my critiques:

At the beginning I was kinda hating Grim, he was acting kinda creepy and it wasn’t sexy, just creepy

Isla was so dumb at the beginning, she literally almost died twice cause tripped????? Like girl you’re a warrior and can’t even stay standing up? Get a grip

BUT as the book went on I started really liking both her and grim, and I was thinking to myself like damn how I am supposed to ship her with oro? Cause he’s always acting like he has a stick you know where. But then he was just ✨oro✨ and we love him for it

I enjoyed the plot twists at the end (all hundreds of them), I definitely wasn’t expecting for grim and isla having a history before the games, I really thought it was just that old insta love shite

I could see celeste being evil from like a mile away, but it still was done nicely, and I think it was a great ending to the curse to kill that whoe

THE WAY I THOUGHT SHE WAS GONNA TELL ISLA GRIM WAS HER ACTUAL FATHER I ALMOST DIED IM SO GLAD MS ALEX ASTER DIDNT GO FULL ALABAMA OUT OF NOWHERE

And finally, I got kind confused at the end about how is oros and islas relationship right now, cause it kinda felt like “x months later” but they don’t seem very intimate?? I hope we haven’t lost their first kiss cause I wanted to read all that yearning

And finally, I’m still kinda devided between both love interests but grims last sentence of “remember us and than you’ll come back to me” kinda gave me the ick idk

That’s it, will be starting book #2 right now xoxo

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ksilvio's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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becca_wight's review against another edition

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adventurous tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This wasn’t the best written book but I definitely enjoyed reading it! Definitely picked up at the mid way point. Excited to read the next one!

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vreyna20_2004's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

My fucking God. I lost braincells just listening to this damn book. I didn’t want to come into a book with the expectation of it being bad as all I saw from my for you page on tiktok was that this book was garbage and that it made no sense and that publishers don’t care about their products anymore, the last thing is subjective but I’m not going into that. But I didn’t want to have an opinion just because the majority of the people hated this book like come on you’re going to shit on a book that you haven’t even read that makes absolutely no sense to me (aka people who hate Twilight like at least read it than give an opinion) but I can say that they were right this book is absolutely horrible it makes you feel smart in the things they do the only real thing I can say to Alex Aster is the fact that there are parts in the story that sound so beautiful only for her to ruin it in the next sentence.

She, like every author honestly, likes to leave little…easter eggs (get it?) and that pun was an example of her hints. She talked so much about eggs even went on to explain the sun as being a “a yolky thing” which made me want to rip my hair off my damn scalp and eat my own ripped hair because as a writer and lover of space as well as the sun who explains THE FUCKING BURNING STAR THAT GIVES US LIFE as a “yolky thing” like what the actual fuck? And this wasn’t a one-time type of deal, Alex Aster did this TWICE!!!!! And I can shit on how her writing is sometimes good and sometimes bad but it’s the fact that someone read that and said “good enough” like I hope someone had some sense and said no to her before Alex explained the reason why she called the sun a yolk either way the description irked me.

And talking about descriptions. I’m not saying that people who have aphantasia cannot write but as someone who has vivid imaginations I could not for the life of me understand anything Alex described because she either gave no description and hoped that the reader can figure it out OR gave the simplest description only to never say anything about it ever again. I didn’t know that Azul (they’re names are stupid and I’ll get to it in a second) was black until I saw fanart because she only mentioned it once like she couldn’t even talk about anything that makes a black person besides the skin color like maybe talk about their kinky hair or something like that but no she just said, “he’s black now let’s move on.”

Now onto the fucking names. Did you know Alex Aster is Latina? Well, now you do, and she makes it obvious by their names such as King Oro who controls the kingdom and what does his name mean? Fucking gold. And Azul? Well, he is the Skyling and his name fucking means blue as in the fucking color as in the fucking color of the fucking sky!!! Can you notice how pissed off I am? Like it seemed like she pulled shit out of her ass and half assed it just to be called a “NYT Bestselling Author” when this damn story hurt my actual brain and made me feel like I was getting fucked with a rusty spoon.

The plot twist didn’t fucking do shit because I saw it a fucking mile, no I saw it lightyears away. Oh no turns out the best friend is actually the ruler from years ago and is pissed at a Wildling taking her fiancee and wah wah wah I’m going to kill her and then turns out the real curse is to kill your friend/backstabber and here comes Isla and she saves the day and finds out that Oro has her powers which means they’re made for each other and blah blah blah. I fucking hate this book my god. None of this makes sense if Celeste who turns out to be Aurora was the reason of the curses wouldn’t the others know how to stop this curse? Especially if they saw one of them gone? They just saw one of the rulers gone and just shrugged. Also doesn’t Oro also have every power? But I like him more than Grimshaw (stupid name as well) because Grim is just flirty and cried like a big ass whiny baby when Isla didn’t love him back and got all creepy even if he is the main love interest that reaction gave me the ick that doesn’t mean Oro is good either he literally has like one good moment so not much to work with especially since this fucking book is a love triangle.

All I’m saying is this shit would’ve ended a lot sooner if Isla just killed “Celeste” in the first chapter before they entered Lightlark that way I didn’t have to deal with any of these fucking idiots. And this is ya and yet Grim sucked on Isla’s nipple…what the fuck I expected it to be like heavy making out not someone getting their tits licked. I am not reading this anymore. I only read it because it was free on Audible.

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