Alex Aster’s “Lightlark” (And All The Drama)

If you aren’t on TikTok, you might have missed all the drama about a book that releases soon. Alex Aster put her book idea on TikTok and the buzz led to a six-figure publishing deal and Universal bought the rights to Lightlark before it ever hit store shelves.

It had really high ratings on Goodreads, until regular reviewers started sharing their thoughts and things went south, both with legitimate negative reviews and ridiculous review bombing.

My store got an advanced copy of Lightlark one week before release date, which is pretty sus anyways. Normally, we get them a minimum of a month ahead of time. One of our senior booksellers planned to put it in my locker, but forgot, and someone else picked it up. I said something about that, then we started talking about how we were interested in it because of the hype/drama and decided to read the first page. Welp, it was so bad, neither of us wanted first dibs. I ended up with it, and it took me a couple days to get through it. There were many breaks required.

Lightlark is about an island that appears once every 100 years for 100 days, so the rulers of the six realms can try to solve some prophesy to undo curses. (This was not well set up in the book itself. The flap description was more the set up than anything. I still have questions about the people who live on the island the other 99 years and 265 days.).

The story follows Isla, who is the ruler of the Wildlings… except she doesn’t have powers. That’s a secret only her best friend Celeste knows going into the contest, but she’s determined to break the curse on her people and Celeste’s.

The premise sounds promising. Unfortunately, the first page alone is filled with poorly named concepts. Isla explains that she can “portal” using a “starstick” in the first couple sentences, and I cringed. Unfortunately, the naming doesn’t get any better. I mean, Celeste is a Starling. Azul (blue in Spanish) is the ruler of the Skylings, and Oro (gold in Spanish) is the Skyling king who can gild things with gold. There are “coffiner” trees, which can hold a person inside… like a coffin. Just to name a few of the weak spots in the creativity.

The writing itself feels like it was done by two different people. There are the sections that show some promise and aren’t irritating to read, and then there are chunks cluttered with strange attempts at description or phrasing that made me roll my eyes and groan… then immediately send it to coworkers who also groaned.

I’m talking phrases like:

• “Her stories were fruits in a tree — sweet and limited.”
• “The sun had fallen. It was a yolky thing.” (which was also a weak attempt at foreshadowing)
• “The smell of stars shattering something nearby.”
• “perfectly coiffed stubble”

Ya know, things that just make you scrunch up your face in confusion. I don’t know if the issues were more on the author’s end or editors, but dang, it was annoying.

That’s probably what bugs me the most overall: it could’ve been great. The premise was there. There were some good scenes here and there, along with some decent twists. It just wasn’t executed well. Had the publisher not rushed the book, maybe we’d be having an entirely different conversation.

One conversation readers need to have in the wake of all this drama is proper behavior. DO NOT RATE A BOOK YOU HAVE NOT READ! DO NOT TAG AUTHORS IN NEGATIVE REVIEWS! DO NOT SEEK OUT AN AUTHOR TO BASH THEM/THEIR WORK!

Yes, I understand many people feel bamboozled by claims that scenes and quotes teased on TikTok aren’t there, or the lack of representation, or that it is not the ACOTARxHunger Games story we were promised. I get it. However, that does not justify all this bad behavior and acting like monsters. Talk about your opinions AFTER you read the book for yourself and don’t be a dick about it.

There.

I said it.

The one-star ratings bomb is dickish behavior.

Attacking an author who OWES YOU NOTHING is dickish behavior.

So don’t be dicks.

I am hopeful that the movie team can turn Lightlark into something worth watching because the bones are there, but the book just doesn’t do it for me. If you’re curious about it, I’d recommend getting a library copy or reading the first chapter in store before buying. DO NOT READ IT AND RETURN IT. That’s another bullcrap trend that makes you the literal worst.

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