lightlark by alex aster book review (arc review)

Posted On September 13, 2022

thank god it’s over.
***
um okay, i suck at writing reviews. so im not even going to-
yeah i’ll just start right away.

this was disappointing on SO many levels, i don’t even know where to start. i almost screamed when i got the audio-arc thingy cause this was on my “anticipated releases” tbr and all, but now i regret even requesting this book on netgalley (it was probably an auto approve arc anyway lol). i’ve been following alex aster for a while now and she seemed like a really nice author, replying to my messages, and i have nothing against her but alex, really? i mean, come on. this book wasn’t even good. this book didn’t even contain the TROPES and QUOTES that we were promised, you know, the ones she posted on tiktok for the purpose of PROMOTING her book. ironic, right?

this was the explanation alex made on tiktok when someone asked her why the quotes weren’t in her book: “All those moments are in there. Either not word for word, but there, or only in the final copy not the arc.” im sorry but that makes zero sense. why would you use the quotes that aren’t in your book for the sole purpose of promoting your book??? one of the tropes that are mentioned in alex’s videos that are allegedly in the book is the “forced proximity” trope. which means they are forced to be right next to each other at all times. this isn’t even the case in the book, every character has their own rooms and they are only gathered together during games and stuff. another trope is the villain one. so… which one of these characters is the villain? asking for a friend.

i listened to the whole thing with 3.5 x speed, and the narrator, bless their heart, kept going “andtheniliftedmydaggernjsbashfefbehachjadtowardshisthroatbchjsdvb” so i kind of feel like i need to appologize to them. i really do suck at writing reviews don’t i? how’d we even get here?

grimshaw is supposed to be the “morally grey” guy with a tragic backstory but we were once again fooled! the book was so focused on the three characters (oro, isla and grim, the “love triangle” squad if that can even be called a love triangle) that we didn’t even get to read about the other characters. like why are they even here? give me more of cleo, azul and celeste. but they’re just props, right? who cares about them?

this book was REPETITIVE. i thought i was listening to the same chapter SEVERAL times ffs. if i see the words “centennial” and “100 years” again istg- LIKE OKAY WE GET IT. it felt like i was studying for the book the way you study for a test, repeating everything until it’s buried into your brain. im tired okay? i don’t know what im saying either. at least im not saying stuff like “she glared at him meanly”. ~~HOW ELSE WOULD SHE GLARE AT HIM? CHEERFULLY??? KINDLY????~~ glaring itself is an act of meanness dear and if it’s an oxymoron of some sort, you’re overusing it <3

and oh my god the booktok authors’ reviews of this book?? those convinced me to request this book, meaning that their marketing strategy worked. marie lu, sabaa tahir, adam silvera, chloe gong and all those big names saying that this was the best book ever, who wouldn’t be convinced to pick this book up right? i know i was. also i’ve read somewhere that new profiles were created on goodreads, rating this book 5 stars and saying that they “loved it” and stuff like that which is ridiculous & very unfair to all those hard working authors. my theory is that, once people started to ACTUALLY read the book, the average rating of the book fell drastically. the average rating was 4.0 something this morning, now it’s 2.8 something, i think it’s self-explanatory.