Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Lightlark by Alex Aster

59 reviews

gayelfboi's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

1.0

Begging people who think this is good fantasy writing to get better standards lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Xenophobia, Blood, Violence, Classism, and Death

Moderate: Body horror, Cannibalism, Sexual content, Chronic illness, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexual assault, Genocide, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

cdoubet's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Cursing, Gaslighting, Murder, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, War, Mental illness, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Death of parent, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol

anushar's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

I read this for my sister and it’s pretty standard YA. I feel like it’s definitely not well written enough to deserve the hype it has but the story was still enjoyable and I liked some of the characters. i did predict a plot twist from like 40 pages into the book though, so it definitely wasn’t the most surprising novel. all the plot holes at the end were also a choice but oh well, ig you can just publish anything and people will still read it. If you don’t really want to think at all, this book may be fun for you— but don’t have high expectations for it or you won’t enjoy it.
3/5 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Violence, and Blood

ladymickbeth's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic relationship, and War

Minor: Death of parent and Vomit

I’ll be honest, I didn’t see a fair amount of the plot twists coming. Other than that, there is nothing good about this book. World didn’t feel fleshed out, writing was terrible with its sentence fragments not used very artfully, and the exposition was just dropped in, sometimes very loosely related to what’s going on at the moment and long-winded.

stroop's review against another edition

mysterious tense

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent

sarahfr1end's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Vomit, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content

planreadrepeat's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

 Six leaders have 100 days every 100 years to break a curse from their homeland, Lightlark. Isla has been trained since birth to win the Centennial. But liars and lies are everywhere and she needs to form alliances to save her realm and the others.

I heard about this book in one of my book clubs but never saw it on TikTok. I knew it was review bombed and people were big mad it didn’t have scenes the author had promised among other reveals. Then the complaints it borrows from other YA series. Of course it does, they are all super similar. Young woman who is nothing special has a couple guys tripping over her in lust who eventually gains power. That’s almost always the general theme of YA fantasy and shouldn’t be a surprise.

That said, I found it a solid story. Compared to the debut novels of other YA authors, it’s right on par. Not fantastic and original but good. Still a better love story than Twilight ;)

Reading other reviews, people complained about plot holes. There were some things not fleshed out. I’d hope those are further explained in the rest of the trilogy. I didn’t expect LOTR world building and found it fine. Characters were heavily influenced from ACOTAR but the author even claims that.

So maybe the book is overhyped. But it’s definitely not a 1-star book in my opinion. It’s just a YA fantasy romance. Worth reading but not an earth-shaking piece of literature that will be read in 100 years. Still a fun read. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood and Violence

katvou's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Cannibalism, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Sexual content, and Death of parent

sydneyluxford's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.0

Woah. What the hell. That ending 😃. Very unexpected.

I knew there would be a betrayal at some point, BUT I DIDN’T EXPECT IT TO BE CELESTE. But now it just makes so much sense.

It’s obvious how the love triangle is going to end in future books, but I truly don’t know who I prefer Isla with more. Because I really love Oro,

and I love Grim until he lowkey betrayed her??? But IDK.

I low-key (high-key) have a crush on both of them, they’re so different but so so fine.

This book does not deserve the hate that people on TikTok are giving it. They’re hating on it for it not including scenes that Aster said would be in it, but they’re also acting like this book didn’t go through an editing process like every other traditionally published book. Like, get a life if you’re hating on a book you haven’t even read 😭.

I have to admit, that I didn’t fully connect with this book and there were moments where I was bored, but I think that’s down to the fact that I am not the targeted reader for this book. I’m seventeen, and the target audience is probably for those age twelve to fifteen, at least that’s what I gather from the writing style and other aspects of the book. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the book though, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent and Toxic friendship

Minor: War

selestre's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, and Child abuse