Ratings:
Star Rating: ★★☆☆☆
If This Book Was a Movie Rating: PG-13
Review:
I will be perfectly honest: I read this book in order to properly hate it. Everyone said it was awful and all the marketing was a lie.
They weren’t wrong. It was bad. But it was also weirdly addictive.
Let me give the publisher’s blurb and then I’ll explain.
“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.”
Back in August, this book was going viral across booktube, booktok, goodreads, basically anywhere that books are talked about on the internet. People were saying that Alex Aster (the author) had lied in her marketing material about all the tropes and quotes, and that none of that stuff was in the actual book.
Well, I also noticed a lot of the negative reviews were for the ARCs. A lot of quotes that ARC reviewers said didn’t exist ended up being in the final copy (the one I read).
So I will provide my own, more neutral take: this book was objectively not good. But it wasn’t vomit-inducing horrific. Like I said in a status update, it felt like watching a fail compilation: bad and nonsensical at times, but ridiculously entertaining. Honestly, however, it really was just your average YA fantasy that just had ridiculous hype and false advertising.
That sad fact, however, will not stop me from roasting this book into oblivion.
*cracks knuckles*
PLOT.
I think the best thing I can say about the plot was that it was fast-paced 😍
Let’s just take a look at some of these quotes, shall we?
“Lightlark was a shining, cliffy thing.”
I looked it up and tell me how cliffy is an actual word.
“She glared at him meanly.”
What, are we in preschool? What is this meanly?
(edit: meanly was said eight times I’m not even joking)
“It made the crowd’s cheers echo and braid together.”
“Isla’s stomach twisted into a braid.”
“They weren't chains at all. They were braided water, firm as a rogue wave and strong as the tide.”
I counted nine times where the word “braid” was used not in the context of hair.
[referring to a ghost] Isla pulled her new dagger from her waist and brandished it. “Don’t take another…float.”
That is objectively a horrible comeback.
“Wildling, Starling, Moonling, Skyling, Sunling, and Nightshade.”
These are all the most unoriginal names for realms and people groups you could possibly think of. Also (and I'm being petty here), what was the issue with just finishing the pattern and saying Nightling? WHY THE ONE NON -LING ONE I DON’T LIKE THAT
If you hate unoriginal names, don’t read this book lol. Isla is the ruler of Wildling, Celeste is the ruler of Starling, Cleo is the ruler of Moonling, Azul is the ruler of Skyling, Oro is the ruler of Sunling, and Grim is the ruler of Nightshade. And if that’s not enough: “Sky Isle for the Skylings, Moon Isle for the Moonlings, and Sun Isle for the Sunlings.”
HEAVEN FORBID WE FORGET WHERE THESE RULERS COME FROM PLEASE—
A lot of the plot felt very infodumpy. Something interesting would happen, and then it apparently needed a whole page of exposition because the magic system wasn’t structured enough for us to understand anything. And then most of the time, the exposition wouldn’t make sense. Case in point, there’s one moment where Isla is attempting to explain the magic of Starlings: “Starlings channeled energy from the stars, allowing them to move objects.”
That doesn’t make any sort of sense. Maybe wind power would make that work, but why star power?
The worldbuilding and magic systems were hazy at best. I had so many questions that never got answered. Let’s just take a little look at the Starlings (mild spoilers until the end of the paragraph): the Starlings’ curse is that they all die before they reach the age of twenty-five: are all the Starlings getting married at ten and having kids at fifteen? How are these children raised? How do they all know all the details of these prophecies if everyone’s dead AHHHHHHHHHH I DON’T GET IT
Other random questions: why do the rulers wear their crowns all the time? Like how the heck do they stay on with all this jumping and slashing and life risking these people do? Where is the map of this world I’m so confused? What happened to the Wild Isle again I’m so lost help me—
dude I have so many questions it’s not even funny.
I also need to complain about all the yolky things going on in this book. I despise the word The sun was called yolky NOT ONCE
TWICE.
TWO TIMES.
I APPARENTLY NEEDED THAT VISUAL TWO TIMES. AND NO REAL SPOILERS BUT THE FACT THAT EGGS AND YOLKS ACTUALLY ENDED UP BEING SIGNIFCANT IN THE ENDING OF THE WHOLE STUPID BOOK UGHHHHH
Now, this book was touted on the author’s TikTok and in a heck of a lot of marketing as enemies-to-lovers, villain-gets-the-girl. It had quotes, tropes etc. Some of the quotes I looked up were there, but I can totally see why people thought the tropes were all a complete lie. Isla has a little love triangle going on with two of the other realm rulers: 500-year-old love interests named Grim and Oro.
Here’s the tea y’all: the romantic tropes, stupidly enough, were advertised as belonging to ONE love interest. The tropes were ACTUALLY divided up among BOTH of them. So all that enemies-to-lovers, villain-gets-the-girl stuff? Yeah, the author means two different men.
I know. Horrible design.
CHARACTERS.
Isla Crown
Miss girl was lowkey dumb, but she and Oro were the most interesting characters in this whole book.
I liked how ambitious Isla was, but the most annoying thing about her was her obstinate stubbornness and then almost immediate opinion changes.
Gut wrenching betrayal? I hate you.
They have a reason? I forgive you immediately.
They've been kind for months? I think you’re amazing.
One thing that says otherwise? Traitor.
They’ve acted cold for months? You want to kill me.
A hundred things that point in the opposite direction? I still think you want to kill me and I refuse to consider anything else.
It got old quickly.
Love Interest #1: Grim (full name Grimshaw, like that’s an improvement 🙄) is your basic black-hair, morally-gray, Cardan-Greenbriar-and-Kaz Brekker wannabe. He’s supposed to be this mysterious bad boy, but for the first time ever, I couldn’t get into it. That man is genuinely not it.
Love Interest #2: Oro, a mysterious, all-powerful golden king (“oro” literally translates to “gold” in Spanish), is 100% my favorite character. He honestly was the reason this book wasn’t a one star for me. This man knew what he wanted and was willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen. Like Isla, in a way, but he was better because he was smart about his decisions. And he actually RESPECTED Isla, unlike a CERTAIN SOMEONE WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH A G–
anyways.
also y’all i called the love triangle from the beginning hehe be proud 💜
So I’ve written for far too long and I’m going to wrap it up here. To be honest, y’all, I did enjoy this book. It was so weird and bad but it actually became kind of enjoyable. I know this was definitely not the review I was expecting to write (I was thinking a lot more capital letters and a lot more ranting lol) but I think I kinda shared enough of my very mixed feelings about this book.
And I’ll probably read the sequel. I wanna see how this messy, strangely addictive story ends 😂
Friend me on Goodreads (yes, you, I wanna be your friend): https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/136268749-isabelle
Recommendations That Are Better Than This Book:
Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
The Darkening by Sunya Mara