Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Lightlark by Alex Aster

74 reviews

faeriefox's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This rating was hard to decide on.

I absolutely loved the first 80% of the book. I thought the prose was lovely and that the premise and characters were very interesting and unique. The plot twists made sense while still being unpredictable, and the story was all in all very well done.

However, later on in the book, it felt like the writing and story was less thought-out and just done in a rush. The plot twists were out of nowhere and completely outlandish, and the story could have been taken in so many different, better directions.

All in all, I'd say the book is definitely worth a read, and I will be reading the second one. It doesn't deserve all of the hate it's getting, but it didn't quite live up to my hopes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Blood

Moderate: Gore, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Cannibalism

Minor: Genocide and Gore

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-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? Yes

2.0

This book has quite the polarized reviews on Goodreads, and really, sparked a lot of controversy on TikTok. So, I figured I'd give it a chance and see what all the talk was about. Let me just say, if you read a lot of YA fantasy, and know a lot of the popular YA fantasy from the early 2000s and 2010s, you will notice quite a few similarities in this one. Like, so many scenes taken almost directly from other books. So many.

Let's start with the world building. Someone, there's a lot of info dumping, and yet nothing really makes sense? There was a Hunger Games-esque promise with this, but that's not really an accurate comparison for this book. The best comparison is honestly A Court of Thorns and Roses, maybe a little Throne of Glass, and a tiny bit of The Selection. But mostly, Sarah J. Maas. We've got a lot of Sarah J. Maas influence in this book. 

But I digress! I finished the entire book, and I still can't explain what exactly the competition was that happened in this book. There were some trials, and at some point they were allowed to kill each other, but to what end? It wasn't exactly clear what they were fighting for, or why they were really having the trials at all. Additionally, there are a lot of random rules for each of these different kingdoms, but again, it is not clear how or why all of these parameters exist. The realm where they only live until they're 25? How is that even sustainable? But you also have realms where they live until they're 500? Having both of these exist in the same world just didn't make sense to me.

I will tell you right now, Grim is basically Rhysand from ACOTAR, and you can't convince me of that otherwise. I actually would go as far as to say that this book is pretty much ACOTAR fanfiction, as there are an astounding amount of similarities. Other books I recognized scenes from are: Divergent, Harry Potter, and The Selection.

I did listen to the audiobook, so I can't speak to some of the writing and spelling errors that were mentioned in some of the other reviews. But if anything, this book could have used a developmental editor for sure. There were sections that needed to be fleshed out, and other sections that took way too much time. 

I'm sure there's more I could say about this book, but it really just baffles me overall. I can see why some people are drawn to it, it just needed some overall better editing. In all aspects.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Sexual content, and Death of parent

Minor: Genocide, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

taryn_g's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Death, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Suicide

grace_9613's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

I am confused…. 😅

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Abandonment

Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Fire/Fire injury

mixxroxy's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Cannibalism and Death of parent

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

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

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

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: Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism

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

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

Minor: Vomit and Death of parent

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, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Death of parent