DNF Review: Lightlark (Lightlark #1) by Alex Aster

 

Lightlark

(Lightlark #1)

by Alex Aster

August 23, 2022

Goodreads Summary:

Welcome to the Centennial.

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 Centennial offers the six rulers one final chance to break the curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. Each ruler has something to hide. Each realm’s curse is uniquely wicked. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die.

Isla Crown is the young ruler of Wildling—a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. They are feared and despised, and are counting on Isla to end their suffering by succeeding at the Centennial.

To survive, Isla must lie, cheat, and betray…even as love complicates everything

Review

It really guts me to DNF Lightlark but over the course of two months, I've picked it up and put it back down so many times I don't even remember what I've read. In the end it boiled down to me just not caring about the characters and their story.

The synopsis was so promising but almost from the very beginning of Lightlark I struggled to absorb the writing. It's not bad but some of the wordings could be a little better? Everything about the six realms, their special powers and different curses, sounded pretentious and exaggerated. For this reason, I found it really hard to take the characters and their actions seriously.

I've seen other readers say the story becomes much more exciting after the first 100 pages. Lightlark is a title I've been quite excited for so even though I only got 64 pages in this time, I may give it another go in the future. Fingers crossed.

*I received an advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not affected in any way. Any quotes included in my review were taken from the ARC I received.