This book has so many good plot points I’m not quite done yet though so I can’t wait to see how it ends !

A book I have wanted to get to for a while after seeing it all over social media, Lightlark really did not disappoint. A very easy read with interesting characters and a love triangle that I did not hate! I enjoyed the tension, the plot line and the high stakes. I think Isla was slightly naive at times, but that made her more relatable and believable as a character. I enjoyed how the magic realm was set up, I do love when we have separate ‘lands/courts/systems’ with each their own strengths, weaknesses and back stories. My criticism for this book is I found the writing very repetitive at times, we seemed to use the same lines often instead of being a bit more diverse in how things could be phrased or written. This lead to dialogue or inner monologues being repetitive sometimes which could have been used for character or plot development instead. Overall though, enjoyable and bingable and I will be moving onto the next book soon enough! P.S. Team Grim

Okay this may be a controversial review but these are just my thoughts and feelings. I have given this book 4 stars. That is not to say that it does not have any issues. I went into this book absolutely blind. I randomly saw it in the book shop and fell in love with the cover. I hadn't seen any hype or videos or reviews. I started seeing some negative tiktoks and decided that I needed to get it read sooner rather than later. I can understand where the bad reviews are coming from especially if you have seen the positive reviews of famous authors backing this book and videos. But because I didn't watch these or see these beforehand they had absolutely no merit nor did they give me an uplifted view of this book before I read it. This is sometimes why I don't follow the hype because usually I get let down. WELCOME TO THE CENTENNIAL Every hundred years, the island of Lightlark appears for only one hundred days to host a deadly game, where the rulers of six realms fight to break their curses and win unparralleled power. Each ruler has something to hide. Each curse is uniquely wicked. To break them - and save themselves and their realms - one ruler will die. To survive, Isla Crown must LIE. CHEAT. BETRAY. Even as love complicates everything... Okay so if you read this like I read this you would assume there is a little bit of hunger games meets magic. So I was expecting a fair bit of bloodshed but that I did not really receive. Yes there was lying and a small amount of cheating. There was most definitely betrayal. But other than that the blurb didn't really describe the book at all. It was an incredibly slow burn, a lot of searching and skulking with small snippets of dare I say romance and tension. The action that we were all expecting was actually snuffed out really early on with a set of rules for the centennial. (Which I do understand but if that's the case why describe it as a deadly game?) I feel like this book was really rushed, it could have been absolutely incredible. I'll admit that some of the writing is mediocre, but from what I gather it is for a much younger reader. HOWEVER I did actually enjoy this book. I was gripped throughout, irregardless of the slow burn. That's the problem with fantasy, you have to world build and balance a gripping story and I know it can be done because I am a lover of the genre but it just felt like the focus needed to be balanced a little better. The love interest was intriguing and had me wanting more. The TWIST though actually had me mouth open shocked. I thought the ending was a little rushed it could've been done better and the surprise new love interest came kind of out of nowhere. On the one hand I was heartbroken, on the other the ending was peaceful and cathartic for the Isla. It was what she needed. I really think the author needs to think about how she advertised this book because it really was not accurate but if you put all that aside and just read the book it is a teen romance and not heavy on the romance. It is not smut nor spice but love. Apart from maybe two scenes. All in all I enjoyed it, would definitely read again and if there is a sequel it will be on my list.

Okay so I'd never heard of this book until July 20th when someone posted a screenshot from the author's Tiktok on Twitter, and in the screenshot I saw the book was going to be a movie, with the producers of Twilight. I love Twilight, the books and the movies, so I thought even if the book turned out to be bad, at least the movie would be good, so I might as well read it. I was happy to wait until the release date, but a lot of early reviewers shared some interesting opinions which got me curious and made me get the arc. I went into the book with an open mind, knowing next to nothing about it other than the movie deal, and I think that's probably why I wasn't disappointed. Because apparently the author promoted the book with scenes that aren't even in it? But like I said, I was blissfully unaware, so that didn't impact me at all. The first few pages were a bit confusing, like in any fantasy book, but Lightlark is fairly easy to get into when you get the hang of it. I will agree that the prose isn't the best, especially in certain places that contain the words "thing", "yolk", "egg" or "mean", but it gets the job done. There are no unnecessary descriptions and the writing style doesn't weigh the story down. The world is unique, and it doesn't remind me of anything else I read about which is a plus. I'm 50/50 on the names of the characters and places, some are okay but others really needed more creativity. A lot of them felt like placeholders, except the better names never took their rightful place. I doubt they will, even in the final version, but we'll see. The plot? Hmm. The idea was there, and it's clear that the author can be creative when she wants to, but I wish it was a bit more engaging. The first 50 something percent of the book covers the first 50 days of the Centennial, and there are so many scenes of the characters just showing off. That's kind of the point of some trials, but during them nothing truly important happens. It felt like an elongated tea party, sometimes literally. Isla was one of those neither here nor there characters, as in she was okay, but I probably won't remember her for years to come. She didn't turn out as cool as I'd hoped, but she could've been a lot worse. Grim is the first love interest, and I'm sorry, but he's bland. There's no intrigue, no enemies, he just immediately starts helping Isla in the trials from the SECOND she gets there. I'm not even exaggerating. She stepped out of the portal and BAM, there he was, waiting for her. It was so anticlimactic. We got fed crumbs of their romance, which wasn't even a real romance. They barely interacted and had no chemistry. I blame it on poor Isla sitting in a glass house her whole life. She was so lonely and friendless (except that one friend) that she jumped at the first opportunity she saw, which happened to be Grim. There is a somewhat steamy scene between them which is probably the only thing, apart from a few innuendos, that stops this from being middle grade territory. I'm not even sure it fits into YA because of that scene? And there is a love confession which was so cringy that I got second hand embarrassment. In general, the things Grim said were cringy, but that one took the cake. As for Oro, he's my favourite character. He was unintentionally funny at the start which endeared me to him, and he consistently proved that he wasn't lying unlike everyone else. He's also the second love interest, and the problem is that it kinda comes out of nowhere. There are subtle hints that it could turn into a love triangle, but he and Isla have even less romantic scenes than she and Grim do. There's one thing that happens near the very end that surprised me exactly because we never got to see the two of them properly flirting. But hopefully in book two that will be fixed. The other characters? Forgettable. I'd also like to talk about the comps, because I feel like this might also be why people felt lied to. My experience with comps is that they're rarely correct, except in the case of These Hollow Vows. The reason why I'm mentioning that book is because I've seen a few people compare Lightlark to it, when (in my opinion) the only thing they have in common is that they were both comped to ACOTAR. But while These Hollow Vows has so many similarities to ACOTAR that it's easy to see it was inspired by it, Lightlark has only one, a love interest similar to Rhysand. Likewise, the Hunger Games comp is also incorrect, because the only similarity is that there's a game where people could die, and that's it. A slightly more fitting comp would be All of us Villains. So how do I feel about this book overall? Well, it's certainly not as terrible as some people made it seem. I wasn't bored, didn't want to dnf, could it have been better? Yeah, but it's readable and enjoyable to an extent. *Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, once I finished it I did go and buy Nightbane. I am 100% team Oro, I normally route for the bad guys but in this case I love Oro too much!