Reviews with content warning for Blood - Lightlark

This book made me want to never see a question mark again.

All tell, no show.

Constant explanation of what was being implied instead of just letting the reader understand the implications/piece things together themselves. Poor character depth and very rushed connections between characters. A confused pacing with the characters spending most of their time looking for a particular object in far too many different locations: searches that yielded nothing for the plot or character development, only there to add in tired worldbuilding/lore and fill more pages with words.

A complete over use of clichés and tired tropes, and while this could be true of most books, the author doesn't succeed in making them interesting or fun, meerly laughable.

I have never read a book that felt more like it was in its second or third draft. Characters had no depth, the story felt bored of itself, and things were either not explained enough or completely over-explained. (I couldn't tell you want anyone or anyplace looked like apart from vague, broad descriptors.)

Isla was a character that could do no wrong and was oh so special in the most grating of ways. Boring and plain. The same can be said for her love interests - Oro and Grim - who felt more like vague ideas of a character and less like actual people.

As frustrating, sometimes baffleing, and terribly written as this book is there certainly was a glimmer of something that could potentially be good, but considering this book went through multiple edits and this is the final product, I don't think Aster is the one capable of making it work. At least not without a serious marked improvement in her writing skills.

The half star is for the occasional gasp I had towards a plot twist (admittedly often followed by a laugh) and the memes me and my friend got to make because of this book, we had fun.

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nicoley3's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-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

This story needed to be more thoroughly developed and edited. Descriptions were often weird or nonsensical (someone drank spoiled water?), the world building was incomplete, and the magic system was kind of a mess. I felt like I needed a map for all the different kinds of powers each faction held because they all had so many. And on top of that, some characters had additional special secret powers unique to them. I actually couldn’t keep up with all the different powers each character had, so I gave up and kind of submitted to a feeling of deus ex machina every time each character exhibited a new useful power just in the nick of time.

The romance confounded me.

Right out of the gate, Grim was gunning for Isla but the only interactions they ever had seemed to involve him making comments about her body and insinuations about what he wanted to do with her. We find out later that they have been lovers and he just erased her memory so she wouldn’t remember him BUT THAT’S a whole other set of issues. For the vast majority of the book, I couldn’t understand what he saw in her or what she saw in him—because there were literally no interactions of substance. They never talked about anything remotely interesting. And he is 500+ years old while she’s somewhere south of 25 and had been completely sheltered/cut off from the world her entire life. Anytime she asked him if he’d do something for her, which happened quite a few times, he always immediately said “anything” even though he couldn’t follow through once or twice. I was happy when she ended up with someone else, but he is also 500+ years old. So I ended up being a little less repulsed because she actually got to know the other guy and he didn’t spend every breath hitting on her, but I am still confused as to how the other guy was interested in her.

The villain’s big reveal at the end actually made me laugh because there were so many inane plot twists shoved into one lengthy monologue. At least 7 and I’m deciding to stop counting there.

I finished the book, so that’s something.

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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kenziewol's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-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

I know there are a lot of opinions about this book, but I genuinely enjoyed it. I enjoyed the plot, the main characters, and I was surprised by the ending. It is YA so there’s no outright spice, but I thought the tension between characters was done well. I do wish we got more focus on the world and the island though, while I found what was happening interesting, I found myself wanting more explanations on a few things. But overall I thought It was a descent YA fantasy and I plan on reading the next book.

As far as the popular criticisms I did see them come up & agree with some..

There are a few places where the writing was spotty (a couple descriptions using the word “thingy” & some sentence structures could’ve been better) but that was mostly just in the first couple of chapters and then I didn’t feel like I noticed much.

Overall I felt the writing was easy to understand and was not bad writing by any means and on par with other YA fantasy books. The way people had been talking about the writing, I was expecting waaaay worse.

I do wish the names for the places and people were a little more creative than “Sunlings,” Moonlings,” “Skylings”, etc but that wasn’t a deal breaker for me.

At the end of the day I enjoyed it for what it was and tried to not hold it to what I thought it should be or what I had seen on other reviews. Unfortunately it’s hard to do that completely with all of the discourse about this book, but I felt it was enjoyable and a descent YA fantasy book. If you liked ACOTAR or TOG I think there’s a good chance you would enjoy this.

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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Let me start by saying, I tried to keep an open mind after all the drama came out last week. I really wanted to like this book because I’ve followed Alex since she first pitched the book idea. However the initial drama (not the review bombing but the critical reviews from ARC readers) happened for a reason. The book was so hyped and it’s not at all what was marketed and the writing does more telling than showing. This is the third Booktok book I fell for and honestly at this point I no longer trust Booktokfor recs.

First it’s said to be the next hunger games-but it’s not. Granted I only got 50 pages in but it’s not giving off those vibes. Also said to be enemies to lovers-it absolutely isn’t; the “villain” makes it known in chapter 2 that he’s into Isla and he helps her within the first 50 pages; there’s no “enemy” about them?!

Writing is mediocre and pacing is all over the place. World building is almost non existent, where the realm names and character names seem to have no creative thought process (skyling ruler is named Azul; other realm names include Sunling, moonling, etc just adding -ling to all the names). “Cliffy, yolky, starstick” just some of the fun writing to look forward to in addition to her constant use of the word “thing.”

Next, we are just thrown into the centennial with no introduction or build up. No background on our MC or the curse, nothing. We are launched head first into the Centennial and then occasionally info dumped with world building aspects at random.

The MC is a total fucking pick me-I’m done reading pick me books. And I thought we agreed not to have creepy age gaps between teens and hundred year olds?! Why are all the rulers 500 years old and the girl MC is 17-20 (I can’t remember her exact age).

The Best reviews are from S and Siu on goodreads-they perfectly put into words how I felt trying to read it. But I encourage you to give it a chance on your own because maybe you’d like it. I just know from what I’ve read so far and what I’ve seen from the above mentioned reviews that the book won’t get better for me and isn’t something I usually enjoy in my books. I’ll end up hate reading it if I force myself to finish.

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gardevoird's review against another edition

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adventurous sad tense 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

4.0

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chandlerwood's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful 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

4.25

Expected to hate this book and actually loved it. It reads like a decently written YA fantasy, and everything the author promised is here. Not sure what the controversy was about because this book delivered everything it said it would and was impossible for me to put down.

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