I have no light and I must Lark

Oro refers to Grim as Grimshaw in narration, which is validating as fuck to me and my ongoing bit of referring to Grimshaw exclusively by his full Christian name.

Oro also complains about Grimshaw being very talkative which has led me to realize that Oro is the real silent brooding ML, he just has the wrong motif

Oro basically falls in love with Isla at first sight (weird when we’re very imprecise about what she looks like, except she’s just generally “hot”) and he’s really mad about it. Like his entire inner monologue is Mr Darcy’s first proposal where he’s like “I love you and I don’t know why because I’m so much better than you but I am compelled fuck my stupid baka life”

Vitally, Grimshaw and Oro used to be besties and Grimshaw went from being chained up in Oro’s basement to being his roommate for several centuries. Oro stresses that this bromance was significant to him on a very emotional level.

Then in Grimshaw's POV, the roommate thing is barely mentioned. Ouch. I feel embarrassed for Oro now.

Aster has been really pushing for Grimshaw and Isla's version of the Fault In Our Stars "okay? okay?" thing to be infinite. But when Grimshaw first uses infinite in relation to Isla, it's always in conjunction with her touching his dick.

During the Centennial, the Sklings-- the kingdom with the democracy-- somehow voted to sacrifice themselves and kill their (gay) leader should we reach the end of Centennial and not have the curse broken yet. Which, I cannot emphasize enough, is not something that any popular vote would produce. Even if you could get the majority of your people to vote for their own deaths, there would have to be a vocal minority who would think "fuck that shit" and try their best to kill some other leader to save their own asses.

(My friend also brought up some very good additional ethical concerns, such as a) does a majority vote have the right to determine if the minority vote should also die, b) do children also get to vote or are they victim to the whims of their parents, c) do you ever get to change your vote, and d) did the population get enough time to consider their options before voting?)

Oro's novella also has an early contender for my annual Worst Line of the Year Award:

She squints. "Have you ever felt like a bird in a cage?" Constantly. [...} I've never heard anyone phrase it that way...

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert in this topic, just a junior in my bachelor degree. My area of study focuses on how society and policy interact, with some international relations and political philosophy/theory. I am not super knowledgeable about governmental or international organization’s processes. I am also much more familiar with democratic and authoritarian states than monarchies, moreso democratic ones. I actually know nothing about how monarchies work in terms of their bureaucracy. I am also more familiar with states (democratic or otherwise) being in constant tension with its citizens and/or actively oppressing them, rather than them living in relative harmony. I will delve deeper into this later.

Since I used an ebook, I’ll use the percentage of how far it is in the book instead of page numbers. Also, I didn’t spend too much time flipping through the book, because I don’t have the time.

some quick clarifications: a nation is a group of people, state can refer to both government and a territory but I’ll use it to refer to government/institutions; a nation-state is when a nation is also a state. Nation, state, and nation-state are used interchangeably with country. Aster appears to use realm interchangeably with nation and state, so I will too.

A little recap of the first book:

Lightlark is set in a universe with six realms/nations: the Wildlings, Sunlings, Starlings, Skylings, Moonlings, and Nightshades. Each realm has its own magical powers. 500 years ago, all realms had unique curses placed on them, which would only be broken if a ruler was killed (without an heir). After a war, the rulers began to hold the Centennial once every 100 years in an attempt to end the curses, either by killing one another or by finding an alternate solution. The book follows Isla Crown, the ruler of the Wildlings who is powerless, but wants to save her people nonetheless. There’s a love triangle between a brooding blond man (Oro) and a creepy brooding black haired man (Grim). There’s more plot twists at the end than I can count much less name. Isla somehow ends up with Oro while Grim goes to build an army or something. Truly nothing of substance happened in the first book. Or the second really.

In book two, Isla tries to open a vault on Wild Isle. It rejects her and she sees a vision of death and destruction caused by Grim. Anyway, she and Oro bond. Her memories with Grim are starting to come back. Some monsters they’ve never heard of (except Cleo) called dreks attack Lightlark during Isla’s crowning ceremony for being the Ruler of Starling, but it isn’t until a third into the book that we start to see the beginnings of a plot. Grim casts his illusion magic to show death and destruction and says they have a month to evacuate Lightlark before he destroys it. The majority of the rest of the book is the different realms prepping for the fight and arguing whether to fight or flee. The key to beating him is locked away in Isle’s memories, which is the excuse to have such a large chunk of the story set in the past, where she and Grim are doing a fetch quest for something that doesn’t even matter in the end, but more importantly are falling in love. The end of this book genuinely pissed me off for multiple reasons. I’ll get into them later.

Scale

The sense of scale in this world is completely wack, which is why I have a whole section dedicated to it. Initially reading the first book, it seemed rather small and concentrated. But in book two it seems that Aster tried to stretch it larger and so now I have zero sense of scale even though we now have a map of Lightlark. The map greatly confuses me because I assumed it was a main island with small satellite islands for each realm, with the newlands much farther away. This is not the case. It vaguely resembles the European continent. Landmarks are far from each other. The Abbey isn’t in the agora (which I think is also the main city?) and appears to exist on its own. Sky Isle has mountains that stretch out of view? I’m confused. It doesn’t get any better with the newlands. It apparently takes months to sail from the Wildling newlands to the Nightshade ones.

We do get some numbers, but first I want to draw your attention to this section:

“My people have already started harvesting their own crops, but we will need aid to achieve an assortment of diet and agriculture now that they are dependent on farming. I—” “How many of you are left?” Soren interrupted. She frowned. “I’m not sure. As you know—” “You’re not sure?” Soren asked, eyebrow raised. She could feel her face go hot. It was a reasonable question. The kind a good ruler would know the answer to. “Do most of your people know how to wield power?” “I don’t know.” “How is housing? What has the rate of reproduction been in the last century?” “I will have to find out,” she said through her teeth. “Do you—” (6%)

A lot of people have said that this is Aster looking in the comments and taking a shot back at people for questioning every tiny detail. I don’t disagree, but these are valid and important questions from a policy standpoint. (Something I will nitpick is that Isla considers this as a “lack of wisdom” on her part, which it isn’t, it’s a lack of knowledge which likely has resulted from a lack of having a real government with the ability to do a census). For the context of the world, I’ll admit it’s out of place, but if it was phrased differently, it could have been more natural. Granted, it’s asked when they’re eating dinner, but they are a collection of rulers, officials, and representatives, this is stuff they discuss constantly. Especially considering that they’re talking about a region that has (from what we have seen/led to believe) very little state power and control. I’ll elaborate on this later.

Anyway, the thing is when you have a character ask these sorts of questions, you are opening yourself to having them answered. And they are rarely answered.

There are hundred Starlings on Star isle “give or take” and an unknown amount on their newland. This is minuscule compared to everyone else. Moonlings have 100 healers on Lightlark and triple in the newlands (no, we don’t know the ratio of healers to normal people). In the last book, it was mentioned that dozens of Moonlings were claimed by their curse EVERY month, because on the full moon, the tide would drown them. There are thousands on Lightlark in total, and in one scene of a festival in Nightshade, we get this...lovely description:

Thousands of people made currents through the streets and filled each shop to the brim, so much so that she watched someone fall through an open window in a bar and land right in a pile of vomit. (60%)

We are never given a solid indication of the size of the Wildling population, but there’s a moment where Isla takes note of TWO different people being malnourished when she’s observing a crowd. That implies that is a very tiny crowd or that hunger is not as widespread as initially thought (I doubt the latter). More likely, Aster wanted to give a sense of the hardship by giving two NPCs some color but inadvertently gave them too much focus. Especially as the book goes on, there is a sharp decrease in her flowery descriptions and everything but Grim starts to look like a white wall.

HOWEVER, there are mentioned to be multiple villages of Wildlings of varying sizes. We do know that some (all?) villages have lots of abandoned, dilapidated buildings because their population has shrunk, but that’s all the description we get. How big are they? How far away are they from each other? Do they interact with each at all? Is there a village/city around the palace or is it just in the middle of the woods?

So, how big is everything? Unclear. Granted, your fantasy world doesn’t need a population census presented in text or anything, but having such an undefined idea of scale really messes with the reader.

State Structure

Stick with me here. I’m going to try to make this interesting to anyone who hasn’t read the same material I have. Quite frankly, because of the fantasy setting (and sometimes poorly defined aspects of the world) I can’t analyze this in certain lens that I would have.

Something to note is that not all the realms are equal because of how they were impacted by their curses, which affects both their society as a whole and their state. This is noted multiple times throughout the book, though it never has much weight. Wildlings were cursed to kill anyone they fell in love with (something I completely forgot until rereading Crow’s fantastic analysis to remind myself what happened in book 1 because it was never brought up in this one) and eat human hearts once or twice a month. As a result, they are a struggling nation with a low population. Even after the curses ended, they are struggling to sustain themselves. Let’s put a pin in that for now.

Starlings were cursed to all die at 25, which I assume has quite a devastating impact on their knowledge capital, especially when they are such a long lived race*. Having your officials, advisors, powerful wielders, etc die constantly at such a young age restricts their ability to continue to grow as a nation or even sustain a functioning state.

*When I read the first book, I was never fully certain whether or not they are human. Because with the powers and long lives, I kind of assumed they weren’t. Also Wildlings eating “human hearts” was never explicitly called cannibalism. I am now (mostly) sure they are human.

As for the rest of them… sure their curses aren’t good, but pretty manageable. Nightshade can’t go at night or they insta-die. Same with the Sunlings and going out in the day. The tide rises up every full moon to kill any Moonlings near the shore, somehow killing dozens of people each month after five centuries. This is mentioned to be bad for their economy. Skylings can’t fly anymore.

You might think that there would be stronger international ties between Starlings and Wildlings because they are at a disadvantage compared to the other stronger nations that look down at them. And as morbid as it is, Starling could provide Wildlings with a steady supply of food. Nope.

The thing that stuck out to me is that most of them don’t appear to have a government aside from their rulers? I mean, nobles and courts are mentioned a few times but they don’t really have a role other than technically existing. Granted I don’t know how monarchies structure their governments with the bureaucratic stuff (I doubt Aster does either). At one point it’s mentioned that neither the Wildlings nor the Starlings have courts in this passage when Isla is talking to Grim in a flashback:

“If you have any desire at all to survive the Centennial, you will not tell anyone in your court either.” Her court. She didn’t even know what that was. Celeste didn’t have a court, just her string of guardians who died every few years and were replaced, an endless cycle. Terra and Poppy were the only people Isla saw regularly. (48%)

Again, since I’m not familiar with monarchies, I did a quick internet search to see what a court is in this context so I didn’t make a fool of myself. Oversimplified, it seems to be what I thought it was, a collection of nobles and advisors that oversee government functions, as well as social and religious life. Because a single ruler cannot oversee every aspect of running a country even if they have absolute control. You need to divvy up tasks and put them in the hands of people who are knowledgeable about them.

So, why the hell does Isla, the ruler of her realm, not even know what a court is??? Granted, she is very sheltered and her guardians have been leading the realm as she grew up, but this is like. Bonkers, right? Also Starlings do have a nobility, at least on Lightlark, implying that the nobility/court is in charge during the 99 years that rulers are unable to access the island. (They are, somehow, unrelated despite there being a tiny population. I do not know why this was mentioned).

I’ll talk about it more later, but I am constantly baffled at how unprepared Isla is to rule. She doesn’t even know basic things about her own culture. Is the book implying that her guardians neglected this part of her education because they wanted to remain in power? Because I see no other reason why they wouldn’t teach her this stuff. Isla trying to become a better ruler was a plot line that for sure did exist on paper, but it was never wrapped up well. Because other people do the work, not Isla. I’ll more into that later, but right now I want to focus on this section during Isla’s little humanitarian aid episode:

[Wildling village leader] proposed the Wildlings be temporarily consolidated into a few key villages, so help could be centralized. A vote was conducted, and every person agreed to host their neighbors for the time being. Many Wildlings gave up their own homes to the volunteers for the week they planned to stay. Lightlark chefs began teaching Wild-lings how to safely prepare meat. (23%)

(interesting how Isla says they are dependent on farming, yet they are being taught how to prepare meat. Livestock is never mentioned, so I assume they are hunting, though I don’t know if this confirmed or not)

Even if Isla is inexperienced, it’s weird that she is taking a complete backseat while her people make the decisions. That doesn’t do much for her legitimacy as a rightful ruler. In fact, this is kind of undermining it. What’s to say her people won’t realize that “hey we can do this stuff on our own” and revolt? Aster I guess. This scenario makes logical sense, I suppose, in terms having a wider reach in a shorter amount of time, but it doesn’t answer tiny questions like “how far away are villages from each other?” and “how do several key villages (key how? Economically? Geographically?) just move into together for an undefined period of time without overcrowding or conflict arising?”

Also notice how Wildlings is written as Wild-lings once? Yeah we don’t get a clear explanation why sometimes the realms/people are hyphened. It only happened to the Moonlings in book one, but now Wildling, Starling, and Nightshade (mostly Nightshade) are getting the same inconsistent treatment. I think (maybe??) it’s supposed to differentiate people who live on Lightlark and the diaspora, but it’s super inconsistent and would mean the Wildlings and Nightshades should always be hyphened. The only other explanation is that it’s a typo that neither Aster nor her editor caught which would only go to show the lack of care either of them put into this. Is it a big deal? No, but it drives me nuts.

I’m not going to bore you with political theory, but honestly the Wildling realm feels a bit like it’s living in a Hobbesian “State of Nature,” which is a sort of “every man for himself” society. That is not good. It means there’s no one to enforce your rights or state to protect you. You can steal and kill without repercussions. It’s a sign of a failed or even collapsed state, where the state no longer has legitimate power over its people or borders. Unsurprisingly, this is not addressed.

The Wildlings seem to be a failed state, but I can’t really analyze the particulars because 1) my knowledge on weak/failed/collapsed states is from ~2 academic papers and 2) the Wildlings’ situation is very different from real life examples. A weak state is one that can provide some basic services and security, but it isn’t sufficient and generally has some insecurity/conflict. A failed state can’t provide them and is embroiled in conflict. In real life, failed states are often the result from state-imposed violence on its own citizens, civil wars, and government corruption. None of which exists in this world. Also none of the realms seem interested in expanding their borders/conquering one another, so the issue of having no legitimacy over borders (especially with islands) is a moot point.

We get zero insight in how Sunling, Nightshade, or Moonling’s governments operate besides mentioning they have nobles. I assume they have government responsibilities, but they just sort of exist on paper. I’ll get to Skyling in a second because there’s something we need to address.

See, there’s a curse that if a ruler without an heir dies, then all of their subjects die instantly. Why? Weirdly enough, this was not explained in book 1, but in book 2. Three quarters of the way through. This is so stupid, not only how it was revealed (the Starling common folk are somehow the only ones who know this and have been researching for centuries to break this curse) but when it was revealed. I have been wondering why this happens for almost two full books and it is CONSTANTLY brought up. This is something that should have been explained early in the first book, but noooo Aster wanted another plot twist. Or probably didn’t even come up with the idea yet.

“Because thousands of years ago, the king’s ancestors had a Night-shade create a series of curses called nexus, designed to keep the people weak. Everyone—except for his line—was cursed to only be born with a single ability. And people were cursed to be tied to their rulers, so power could never be overthrown. Nexus was meant to keep us all weak. Subservient. Loyal.” (73%)

THERE. IS. SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL. IN. THIS. CONCEPT. AND ASTER DOES NOTHING WITH ITTTTTT

I can think of a billion different ways you could explore this concept but the worst possible way to do it is for the focus to be entirely on the elite. This is like if you want to write social commentary on how capitalism is bad and then write about philanthropic billionaires.

Anyway, we’ve established that there’s some sort of “divine right of kings” thing going on here in a much more literal sense. All the realms are monarchies because they kind of have to be. Right?

So how the hell did the Skylings become a democracy?????

There are so many factors (both realistically and specific to this universe) that would prevent them from being a functioning democracy. Obviously because they are not the focus at all, we don’t get a look into how their government operates besides the fact that they have elected officials instead of nobles. It’s a little unclear whether it’s a pure democracy (everyone votes on every single thing) or its a democracy in broader terms, where their representatives vote for the people (Like the US, we are technically a republic). I would assume that the Skylings are democratic in a broader sense, but Azul says that his people voted for him to be guarded at all times and wasn’t allowed to travel to other newlands, which hints at it being a pure democracy. Here’s this quote that had me with my head in my hands:

Skylings valued choice over all else, as evidenced by their democracy. It was an alluring principle, Isla thought. What she wouldn’t give to hand off all this responsibility to someone else.” 7%

“Democracy is about choice!”

But that doesn’t really capture what democracy is about. Aster (from what I understand) had lived in Florida her whole life so I understand why that might be her impression of what democracy is. Also democracy as a concept sure as hell isn’t about handing off responsibility.

I actually borrowed the first book from Hoopla to see if we could get more info. If the search engine on it works correctly (I have some doubts), the fact that Skylings are a democracy is mentioned literally ONCE in this rather short and shoved-in moment:

Isla was desperate to change the subject. “Are you close to your nobles?” Sky Isle had been surprisingly well-kept. The nobles seemed to be doing a good job of running it in their ruler’s absence. Azul frowned. “There are no Skyling nobles.” She must have looked confused, because he continued. “We’ve had a democracy since I came into rule. The Skylings who are invited to the smaller events are elected officials. All big decisions are made based on voting from my people.” Isla blinked at him. “So, if they decided they didn’t want you as ruler . . .” He shrugged. “I would step down. Though that would certainly complicate things, what with the Centennial and the way our powers are passed down,” he said. “I’m lucky they have been happy with my rule.” She had never heard of a realm being run that way. (Lightlark, 25%)

Aster even acknowledges how difficult it would be to be a democracy with how the world functions (both in this passage and in the second book), which leads me to the question of why even introduce it as a concept? It feels entirely pointless especially when it’s basically a throw away line. I think there could be a fascinating story made about people who want democracy but can’t because they are tied to their rulers’ lives in a very literal sense.

It never truly matters that the Skylings are a democracy. Part of the appeal of democracy is so that 1) people can gain and have their rights respected and 2) have the people—including minority groups—represented instead of the elite. It’s not so much about choice as it is having a voice. The rulers seem to meet their people’s needs well enough with what they have and I don’t think there are any marginalized groups (such as religious or ethnic minorities) within each realm that would be oppressed by the government or majority of people. So why would they want or need a different regime type?

Later in the book, Isla offers to make the Starlings a democracy. Why? She feels that they should be ruled by one of their own, which is a surprising show of maturity and awareness I didn’t expect from her. However, the person she hopes to be their leader of this democracy is like “yeah that’s cool in theory but it doesn’t solve the problem that the people are tied to the ruler’s lives.” So again, it doesn’t matter. Notably, Isla never offers to make the Wildlings a democracy, despite thinking it’s a good system and not wanting responsibility early on.

One thing that bugs me is that there is no tensions between the realms with them being a democracy and the others being monarchies, which is very unrealistic. The other realms are chill with it even if they don’t see the appeal. This also ties into the fact, that we are shown that the common people as a whole, seem to be relatively content under their regime. Part of this is because we generally only get the narrow perspective of the elites of the world, with the odd citizen who loves Isla or rebel who tries to kill her.

However, the rebels exist (even if they aren’t all that important) and we are told there is discontent. Early in the book, this occurs:

Oro nodded. He made to face his own representatives when Azul said, “There is something else. Rebellion on the island is brewing. Our spies have heard the whispers, carried along the wind.” Oro frowned. “What do those whispers say?” “The people are not pleased with how long it took to break the curses, or our decisions as rulers.” “Which realm?” Oro asked. “All of them. The ones on Lightlark, at least,” he said. His gaze shifted to Soren. “Yes, even Moonling.” Rebellion. Would the people of Lightlark really attempt to overthrow Oro, or any of the other rulers? Without heirs, their rule represented a total monarchy. Rebellion was futile, when killing a ruler would result in the death of everyone in their realm. Their expressions were grave, but no one looked too surprised. It made Isla think rebellion was not a new concept on Lightlark. (6%)

Annnnnnd this is never revisited unless you include the rebels, which I don’t. Why? We’re never shown this. We don’t see the common people in general, but there’s never any sense of tensions between them and the elite. We don’t see people protesting, peacefully or otherwise, organizing etc. Any people we do meet face-to-face are pretty happy with their rulers. I’m actually very interested in seeing how the rulers would react to a protest/rebellion because historically, monarchies would stop peasant revolts with the highly effective tactic of “killing a lot of them to scare them into stopping.” Authoritarians and democracies have done the same. I have a feeling Aster wouldn’t take that route (except for maybe Grim, but then there would be some kind of excuse for him that they were really bad people actually).

Revolution would have a really interesting turn of events. I would have loved to see it. The people shouldn’t be pleased with their rulers, they barely put any effort into adapting their societies to the curses! Starlings especially, since they are constantly given the short end of the stick. But ultimately this culminates in the rebels appearing for two (?) scenes, one where they try to kill Isla and the other to give her information. Guys...this isn’t revolutions work...

Part of the reason I can’t analyze these books is because there’s no violence. No, Isla and Grim killing random people doesn’t count, and even the battle at the end doesn’t really count. It’s a one-off, it’s not constant or everyone constantly in fear of it occurring. Violence doesn’t even need to be physical fighting, it can be damaging to culture, stripping workers of rights, etc. So much of what I have learned is about states inflicting violence on their own people OR other more powerful countries/international organizations inflicting violence upon a country for their own interests. This world doesn’t function like that because the elites are the good guys.

International relations

Alright here we go: they make no fucking sense. For one, there is so little definition between all of the realms that you don’t get a great sense of how and why they interact. While each realm has their own shtick, we don’t see how they ever really work together/trade to mutually benefit. While tensions between realms is kinda integral to the plot in both books, there’s not a lot of weight behind any actions that leaders do (either for themselves personally or for their nation).

Something that occurred very early on set how tone deaf Isla (and the book) is with this sort of thing. For context, Isla in the last book stole Aurora’s powers so the lives of the Starlings are tied to her, technically making her their ruler. She hasn’t been yet accepted or coronated though, so she’s in a weird waiting space. She is requesting an outfit for her first official outing as ruler of two realms and this what she asks for:

“Make me look like a sword,” Isla had told the Starling tailor Leto. “One that’s more blood than blade.” A mixture of Wildling and Starling. (3%)

That poor tailor. What are you supposed to do with that? I know that Isla is total badass with more weapons than clothes, do you really want your first impression as a ruler of two realms (perhaps the only one in history) to look like a bloodsoaked sword? If you want to give off “menacing warlord I’m-going-to-conquer-your-realm-via-bloody-conflict” vibes this works. If you want to leave a good impression on your new people, maybe reconsider. I’m assuming Isla just wants to look like a badass though, but this comes off like a middle-schooler writing a their cool edgy main character.

Also, I’m confused why Isla chooses red to represent the Wildlings when 1) green to represent growth would fit better and 2) is she not trying to get away from the stereotype that Wildlings are bloodthirsty monsters? I think the only thing stupider would be wearing a communist flag as a cape to international meeting discussing democracy and sit next to the US official.

Anyway!

Little bit of clarification: Nightshades no longer have an isle on Lightlark and only live on Nightshade. Wild isle on Lightlark is abandoned and they only live on Wildling Newlands. Sunlings are completely bound to Lightlark and therefore don’t have a newlands. Skyling, Moonling, and Starlings all have their own isle and newlands. For 500 years, Lightlark had a perpetual storm that only lifted during the 100 days of the Centennial; there are no other times that people can enter or leave and there is no communication between realms and their diaspora during those 99 years.

People have nitpicked about the fact that there are bananas and chocolate on Lightlark considering that they can’t import anything and it is alluded to being a temperate not tropical climate. Also the fact that a 100 year storm would completely devastate their agriculture. All valid. I don’t feel the need to elaborate.

We have almost no indication of how much realms mingle either in the newlands or on Lightlark. Lightlark is the only places where common people regularly interact with different peoples, yet interrealm marriage seems to be extraordinary rare unless you’re a ruler. Rulers on newlands don’t seem to meet ever unless they are on Lightlark. Which is stupid. Imagine if world leaders never interacted or communicated with one another unless they were coming together for a UN meeting. Okay, the UN might not be a great comparison because there’s 193 countries that are a part of it, but regardless.

Like I said earlier, you would think that Wildlings and Starlings sort of being the underdogs might have stronger relations. The Starlings could give their dead to Wildlings in exchange for elixir or gems. Nah. It seems to be implied that Wildlings are completely cut off from other realms and therefore don’t trade with them. Isla at one point notices a Nightshade using a coin currency she had never seen before, which implies that realms use different currencies or she/Wildlings don’t use coinage. A barter-system makes most sense for them.

I totally forgot about this, but Azul in the first book shows off an emerging mailing system using wind powers. Cool! Useful! Never brought up again.

Moonlings seem to be economic powerhouse of this world because their economy/trade with them is mentioned about three times throughout the two books. What do they trade? Uh. Healing? Bandages? Something. I think that Moonlings are the only healers/doctors in this world, which completely changes their role in international politics. That gives them immense leverage. “Oh, you want healers? Only on our terms.” Cleo could threaten to withdraw her people from other realms if there’s something going on there she doesn’t like. This is kinda shown with her and her people leaving Lightlark and joining Nightshade but it’s not really portrayed as a heavy loss, in part of the oh-so-special Wildling elixir.

Can I talk about the elixir now? I can? YIPPIE

It was mentioned a few times in book one, with the rather confusing conditions about how it functioned (pain reliever or heals) that basically disappears during book two and is just a healing potion. The elixir functions similar to the starstick in the narrative; it solves problems to move the story along quicker and doesn’t do a great job in covering it up. I wouldn’t call it central to the plot but in a sense it kind of is? There’s a subplot where it’s made from a rare flower that is difficult to grow and so they’re running out of elixir. We never actually get the sense they’re running low because Isla uses it left and right, FAR more often than she did in book one.

At 40% of the book, nightbane gets mentioned—you know, the thing in title?—when Isla is at the black market in Nightshade. It doesn’t get brought up until later and Grim tells her that it’s fantasy heroin. It’s forgotten about until way later when Grim brings Isla to a field full of nightbane flowers. But wait a minute, these are the same flowers that are used for Wildling elixir! Plot twist, elixir from these plants made by a Wildling makes healing potion and when its made by a Nightshade it’s hard drugs. They should trade together! Keep this in mind, I’ll bring it up again.

I will give Aster this: the quote she uses at the beginning of the book has layers (exactly two, but layers): “My bane and antidote, both before me.” I assumed that this was referring to Oro and Grim and rolled my eyes. I was pleasantly surprised that it was tied in another way.

However, I’ve got a tiny little question. Why does the realm that can famously grow things HAVE TROUBLE GROWING A SINGLE DAMN PLANT. The supposed tension of them running out of flowers feels pointless when this question isn’t answered. Is the climate? Is some stupid magic reason?

Speaking of economics, I had a bit of an inside joke to myself that Aster was going to somehow insert capitalism/neoliberalism into Lightlark. It wasn’t, which is for the best, but it would have been sooo funny and I would have torn it shreds. I would have brought Marxist theory into it for the sheer absurdity. However, thinking about this made me realize that 1) if Aster had wanted to do Global North/South commentary, other realms exploiting the Wildling for their land and natural resources (like the gems that are supposedly so numerous you can trip over them walking around) it would have been a great tie in and 2) what does the average person do?

Lightlark is a pretty average “vaguely European medieval inspired because it’s not specified otherwise” fantasy. I know I am looking WAY into it. BUT. Are they mainly agrarian and most commonfolk are based in agriculture (do some of the realms have feudal systems)? Have they industrialized? What do realms have to offer each other in trade that isn’t magic based? We have zero sense of what the commonfolk do because they just don’t matter or exist until they do for—not even convenience—just to show that Isla is a good or bad ruler.

Culture and society

Remember when I said I’d put a pin in that Wildlings are struggling to sustain themselves? I’m bringing it up now. Not only is there the very big plothole of “they can grow things at an extraordinary rate” but it isn’t delved into the exact reasons why they are struggling. It’s implied that they are harvesting food pretty consistently, so why is food a struggle? The reasons are implied at best. It seems that the knowledge of storing food is lost, as well as not getting balanced diet, though that second one is a little out of place since that takes longer to identify and address than a couple weeks.

Also why is there no shock among people that they have to eat multiple times a day? Would that not be an extreme shock when you’ve spent your entire life only needing to eat a heart a month? No?

During Isla plus some random people from Lightlark’s brief stint in humanitarian aid (Isla forgot to tell her people this and they were almost attacked on sight for being outsiders. The volunteers didn’t know what they were volunteering for until they meet up with Isla), they show Wildlings how to prepare and cook meat. They also fix houses, provide a steady food supply, and give them “new skills and resources.” Interestingly, disease is never mentioned especially odd since the Wildling Newlands is tropical. Education for the masses is also never mentioned, so I’m assuming that is there is no institution that provides it, even though literacy or lack thereof are never mentioned. Most likely it never crossed Aster’s mind.

The thing that bugs me about this little stint is that it feels so superficial and like it’s a checkbox Aster wanted to tick. Isla is supposed so worried about being a bad ruler and concerned for her people, but this whole thing is covered in a couple pages. She doesn’t even do most of the work, a Sunling takes care of the situation. Isla talks with her people but the only one we see is Wren, the leader of a larger village, and proves to be far more competent as a leader than Isla in the few times we see her. We don’t even get to see Isla interact with the common people in any meaningful manner, it’s all off screen. The entire thing is also solved so quickly, which hmm. Forgoes a lot of potential in several ways.

This leads into probably my biggest grip about these books: there are so many opportunities for social commentary about how concerning the relationship between the Global North (Western countries) and the Global South (aka the “Third World” though that language is outdated).

Stick with me here.

Aster has Colombian heritage, her middle grade series that she wrote before Lightlark is based on Colombian folklore, which is cool. The Wildlings are supposed to be based on her heritage. I say “supposed to” because it isn’t clear in-text and I didn’t realize it until Marines (who is Latina and Black) pointed out the stereotypes. Wildlings are ostracized by the rest of the realms and are struggling far more than the other realms. While each realm has its problems, they appear to have more than enough resources to help and don’t. Are you seeing the connection here?

Starlings are also a struggling nation, mostly due to their curse. Early on, a representative of the Starlings Maren says this:

“For centuries, we have been an afterthought. A blip in your ancient lives. We have been treated as disposable by many. Taken in the middle of the night. Subjected to labor, and torture, and sometimes worse.” She looked at the king. “You executed those found guilty, but so many fell through the cracks.” She grimaced. “Star Isle is in ruins. I can’t imagine the newland is faring much better.” She looked to Isla. “We need a ruler.” (6%)

Crazy thing to drop that trafficking and slavery is a thing in this world*. Never talked about again of course, but again, similar things that occur even today in the Global South at the hands of the Global North, usually in the form of multinational corporations/neocolonialism that is always brushed aside or under the rug. Are you seeing the connections here?

This interpretation might be just a tad influenced by the fact that I am currently taking two different international development courses this semester, both of them emphasizing that the Global North was only able to develop because it heavily exploited the Global South and continues to do so today.

Even so, I love social commentary in fiction, it’s another way that you can enjoy media beyond its “surface level” story. Now. Do I think that Aster would have been able to write this well? Eh, probably not. I’m hesitant to criticize her in this way because I have no idea how attached she is to her heritage/history. However, considering how she build a world that has inequities but doesn’t address them, and how many of the difficult topics she touches in her book that are not handled great, I have my doubts. She’s too busy making her dolls horny for each other, not even making them kiss.

(*Weirdly enough, there seems to be a sex work/trafficking problem in Nightshade that Grim (or Aster) doesn’t address. There is a scene where Isla pretends to be dancer/stripper/sex worker to get information out of some dude, which exists purely for her to dance sexily in front of Grim and includes the sentence “He was staring like a man entranced, standing predatorially still.” [60%] Brother eugh)

On a similar note: Isla’s clothes. The books feel the need to constantly hammer on Isla’s clothes in a way that is insanely frustrating to read. It either stuck out more in my memory when thinking about the first book because it bugged me so much, or her outfits weren’t described as often in this one, but every single time her clothes would be brought up as immodest/barely covering anything, it would trigger me.

I’m convinced that Aster didn’t read her own book before writing the second just in general. Specifically, I’m convinced that she completely forgot that it’s normal for Wildlings to wear little or no clothes in literally the very first chapter of her first book. Sure, Wildlings are known for being sexually free (which is also constantly harped on), but there are many cultures where bare/exposed bodies are not inherently sexual. If this is what Isla grew up with, then what does she consider immodest or improper? You’d think that she would have a completely different concept of immodesty from other realms. While there are occasions where Isla directly states that wearing some of these clothes make her uncomfortable because of how exposed she is (which are ALL in the flashback sections where Grim doesn’t give her another option), in the first book, we never get a reason behind why she doesn’t like wearing these sorts of outfits. Actually, it’s not even clear that she DOESN’T like them because of some of her clothing decisions in book 2.

This is something I noted in my analysis of Lightlark, but I didn’t expand much on it. It’s pretty clear that it’s the author’s own opinion coming through her character and wanting to establish that she (Aster or Isla, take your pick) isn’t like those girls.

It was black and gave her Wildling clothing competition for impropriety. It hung by two thin straps that looked one wrong move away from snapping, had the lowest-cut bodice she had ever seen and a slit so high, there was very little fabric in the middle holding it all together. (60%) A quick, thieving trip to the night market later, she was dressed in about as little fabric as possible to still be considered clothed. […] Before, Isla had felt embarrassed by the amount of skin she was showing, but now she saw she was wearing almost the most fabric in the room. Her dress was black gossamer, with a dipping neckline, two pieces covering her breasts, then coming together in the middle. It had a slit up to her hip. (71%) Her dress was tiny, sky blue, and strapless. She had glued little gems around the sides of her eyes. Glitter dusted her collarbones and shoulders. He had bought her each of these items—with very specific instructions—but he still looked surprised. (79%) Her new red, metal-woven dress whispered against the smooth floor, feeling almost like chain mail […]. Her bare, tan shoulders. The silk-and-steel corset. The slit in her dress revealing knee-high boots she’d had made, because they were more practical than her heels or slippers. (3%)

That first dress she decides to ditch underwear because the slit is too high, which is crazy work. You guys have wire bras, tank tops and tight-shorts-that-are-definitely-booty-shorts-but-can’t-be-called-that, but no fantasy thongs? I’ve also got many questions about Isla making her own boots (which are, predictably, never mentioned again) and why she’s focused on them being practical when she’s wearing a sleeve-less dress with a high slit and a metal corset but pop off queen I guess.

Not only does the constant borderline slut-shaming mixed with “not like other girls” syndrome drive me nuts, this again had the potential for both culture clash and commentary. Think about it, if Isla had come to the Centennial with her normal outfits and the other rulers mocked/looked down at her for it while she’s confused, would that not have given this an ounce of depth? We would have seen something that is normal (and not inherently sexual) to her being objectified and sexualized by outsiders. This could have been commentary on how people perceive WOC or indigenous culture/women, but noooo.

Weirdly enough, Wildlings are always seen as the slutty, seductive temptresses but then we get a brief look into Nightshade’s culture which is. uh. Distinctly more sexual. You could say that because Wildlings are majority women that they are demonized for their sexuality while for Nightshades, a lot of the sexuality is centered around pleasuring men (a culture of one-night stands with the ruler, the sex-worker/stripper section for the thief), so it’s seen as natural or what ever BS. However, it doesn’t even seem to occur to Aster that she created this double standard. Isla is very startled by the clothing and ball orgy (idek man), but she doesn’t have quite the same thoughts about “immodesty” as she does toward her own Wildling clothes. Like in this section:

Women wore clothes she had never seen in other realms’ lands—boots that reached their thighs, dresses with chain mail woven through, pants that were glossy and shimmering. Compared to them, Isla was wearing far too much clothing. She kept her head down and her hood—a black one she had procured in another market—buttoned at its front, so as not to show what she wore beneath, the only other dark-colored clothing she owned, a deep-plum silk dress meant for sleeping. (40%)

Not only is this just sort of bizarre, it paints Isla as kind of chaste and naive which is uh. A Choice when these flashbacks are of her and Grim getting together when she was 18/19 and him 500+.

Anyway, let’s delve deeper into the culture of Lightlark. It’s very surface-level in general and even realms that get more focus are still very hazy. We get stuff like “Skylings celebrate orbs” and “Wildlings have a festival revolving around growth.” The whole color-coding thing is still present, but for all we know they all wear (beside Nightshades and Wildlings) the same clothes in different colors.

One thing that didn’t appear nearly as much in this book as book 1 was the listing off of each realm doing something, which thank god. It’s always presented clunky in the same format of “The Wildlings were/did X. The Sunlings were/did X. The Moonlings were/did X.” etc etc. I think the only time it showed up in this format was in an early chapter where they have a feast.

A special drink was prepared, a Sunling specialty. […] It tasted of honey and burned like liquor. The flames licking the edge of the goblet stroked her cheeks as she drank, then sank into the dregs of the drink before simmering away completely. The first food course was pure Skyling. It was a floating feast, served in a flowerpot—miniature vegetables still tied to the roots, flying about, that one had to pin down with their fork to eat. [...] The second course was Starling. The fine silver plates contained a single orb. Once all were served, the Starlings snapped their fingers in unison, and the orbs exploded, revealing a cut of unfamiliar meat, carved into precise pieces. Large saltlike rocks formed a circle around the protein. Isla bit into one and startled when it burst like a firecracker in her mouth. The Moonling course arrived last […] Blocks of ice were presented with live fish still swimming within them. Their eyes were wide as they tried to navigate their quickly melting confines. (5%)

Even though Aster is trying to paint a very whimsical and diverse assortment, it lowkey doesn’t really make sense. The Moonling course is meant to be a statement about Lightlark falling apart and the people representing the people. Sure I guess. Whatever. People have talked about the animate (alive?) flowerpot vegetables, I don’t feel the need to hash on it. Notably Nightshade and Wildling aren’t represented; Nightshade makes sense but Wildling does not since Isla is the one that saved them all? Should her culture not be represented? If I were in her shoes, I’d be pissed.

Does this imply that Wildlings have only subsided on hearts for so long that they have lost knowledge of any recipes or dishes? That has HUGE implications. Food and culture are heavily tied together, to lose your ability make cultural dishes is a huge rupture for people. It’s a form of violence, even if in this case it’s not really intentional. Preventing people from growing certain crops, hunting, or making culturally significant dishes has been used against marginalized groups as a facet of genocide. Sorry that got dark pretty quick but there’s just so many things that you could (or maybe just me lol) extrapolate from not just the casual throw away lines, but the lack of mentioning something.

The actual story and writing

I was initially planning on just focusing on analysis above and not go over stuff others have before, but then I realized in the last few chapters that there is too much stuff that I want to yap about that wouldn’t fit in it. This will be less structure and have a lot more hopping around. I’m also not going to summarize the whole book because there’s enough metas that do that, so apologizes if it’s a bit disjointed.

Here’s the thing about the Lightlark series. There’s actually a lot of potential in the ideas Aster has. I won’t deny it, some of them would be really cool to see focused on. But there’s too many elements and none of them are fleshed out well, so they end up feeling a bit like bullet points on a brainstorming list for worldbuilding ideas that got turned into a paragraph in the final draft. Much of these books feels a bit like a show that’s on a shoestring budget, working with duct tape and a dream but has none of the charm and soul. The costumes are cheap and gaudy and the main cast are walking around cardboard cutouts of people. It wants to be high fantasy world but it doesn’t want to commit the effort into building it.

There are few things more infuriating than wasted potential.

I don’t want to say that Aster doesn’t care about her series, because that’s kind of a crappy thing to accuse and she did abandon her middle grade series for this one (because it didn’t garner nearly as much internet fame as she hoped). But at its heart, the Lightlark series is built on tropes and what BookTok likes, which in my opinion is the worst way you could construct your book if you want it be well crafted. I believe that Aster is more focused on writing a book that gets a lot of attention rather than one that’s well crafted.

Which leads me to her actual prose. I do think people are a tad too harsh. Yes, there are some truly terrible lines, such as the infamous “Lightlark was a shining, cliffy thing” and her horrendous attempt at foreshadowing by calling the sun “yolky” a couple times. But if you throw enough enough spaghetti at a wall, some of it bound to stick. Not only that, but apparently Aster has mentioned in a Tiktok that she can’t/has trouble mentally visualizing scenes which does explain some things, but the way that people have commented on it is. Hmm. I haven’t seen anything too over the top, but it certainly has a “ha ha stupid” element to it.

I also struggle with mentally visualizing scenes. Some people can’t mentally picture things at all, which is called aphantasia. I didn’t actually know that people can have crystal-clear visualization until a few years ago. I can picture something from a movie/show I’ve seen very clearly, but my own is very hazy. I tend to have white wall syndrome BAD unless I put in a lot of effort to build a scene, which is in part why fight scenes are so difficult for me and means that a couple paragraphs of description can literally take me hours to write. I focus a ton on body language to “show not tell,” but what a person looks like? uh.

Anyway, some people have said that her prose uses pretty simple language. I feel like I personally can’t criticize authors for having more simple language since my own writing comes off as kind of simple. I also struggle to color my writing without making a fitting but rare word seem out of place. However, something I do when I read is write down words or short phrases that catch my eye in my notes for my current wip. Usually action words since writing fight scenes have always been the bane of my existence. Do these words ever actually get incorporated into my story? Usually not. But I’d like to think the process helps me think more deeply about how to better my writing.

Where am I going with this? Because I realized after finishing that not once while reading this book did that occur. Not once in *checks* 432 pages according to good reads. I regularly have instances where multiple times in a single chapter of a fanfic I will save a word or looked up what it means. That isn’t a good look for a published book.

I don’t think that Aster is too concerned with improving her prose. She did stop making pastry related similes and metaphors in book two, which were very bizarre and kind of silly, but it had the unintentional effect of making Nightbane’s descriptions more dull because she didn’t really replace it with anything else. I want to make it clear that I’m automatically biased against super flowery language/purple prose because (new) authors have a tendency to double down on something that makes no sense but seems deep and poetic. To me it starts to sound like “his voice was like a stone on a beach that was smashed upon its brethren for eternity until it was nothing more than fine sand.” What the fuck does that mean.

Lightlark was a great example of it, but certainly not the worst I’ve seen since reading it. Daughter of the Moon Goddess made some uh. Choices. I think about these ones a lot:

Her voice now cooler than a piece of unworn jade. (p. 13) Red lights flickers to life like fireflies dancing over the water. Except these were embedded in heads which reared up as Xiangliu uncoiled to full height, almost that of a young cypress. (p. 182)

Yet this sort of description is reduced in Nightbane. Does it make it better? I guess. I have less to complain about at the very least. I still have these lines to share:

“I’ll do it,” Isla said, standing, putting a bookmark in the plaited conversations. (8%) “If you hurt her, she will kill you. And then I will find a way to revive you so I can kill you again with my own bare hands.” (14%) Her spine was drenched in fear […]. (18%) “I will always be death. I will always be darkness.” (22%) [...] their swords clashing together like lovers [...]. (31%) A bird with silver wings cut through the sky like a pair of swords. (58%) [A sword] was made of two pieces of metal, braided together like lovers, until they formed a single joined tip. (67%) Grim wore a helmet with spikes that curved down over his nose, his temples. His shoulders had barbs like blades. Touching him anywhere would draw blood. His armor resembled dozens of scales, plated together. (75%) He was wearing his full armor, the one she had seen in her memories. Spikes everywhere. On his shoulders. On his helmet. He looked the part of a demon. (90%) “You look ruinous.” “I want you to train me in something wrong. Something treacherous.” 80%

The dialogue isn’t typically this bad, but my god. At one point Grim says to Isla “You and me… we’re infinite” and I can’tttttttttttttttttt. It’s so silly it leaves me giggling every time I think about it. It comes up three times. Third time is not a charm, Aster you cannot sell me on the infinite thing. Also she refers to Grim as a demon 23 times, which is at least 20 times too many.

Her writing style is very choppy, which works well in action scenes. But she utilizes it constantly. This has the unintentional effect of giving some of her prose like “spikes everywhere. On his shoulders. On his helmet” the voice of an edgy middle schooler making fun of something.

Okay, now the actual story.

It’s glaringly obvious that Aster just wants to focus on the love triangle and anything politics related feels like its only there because she felt obligated to include it. I actually did like how Isla and Oro’s relationship started to truly form in the early parts of the book. Their relationship feels more romance-driven, while Isla and Grim’s is more lust-driven, but it pretty quickly has a sexual element. It was actually kind of bizarre because Oro doesn’t want to have sex with her until she’s in a better mindset (she has a brief depression arc) which is good, but also denies her very clear advances. I think this supposed to make us go “Oro is so mean, Grim always has sex with Isla” but I’m just baffled.

Speaking of sex, there’s a fair amount of smut in this book. Being someone who physically can’t read smut unless it is so terrible that it would already make my bones want to army crawl out of my skin, I can’t judge whether it’s good or not. What I can say is that a YA book having as many (fairly explicit) sex scenes is a bit…weird. Sexuality shouldn’t be removed YA entirely of course, but this level feels too much to me. I think people who “advocate” for YA books having more smut need to move on NA and authors that want more smut in their YA need to remember who the target audience is supposed to be and possibly reevaluate their rating, though I know publishing isn’t that simple.

Much like in the first book, anyone who isn’t Isla, Grim, or Oro just sort of pops in once in a while to remind you they exist. I was briefly deceived with the potential of Azul being a mentor to Isla before he said “I can’t teach you how to rule, Isla. You must figure that out yourself.” (9%) which is so not how that works and is stupid beyond comprehension. That’s how you end up with a country without basic provisions like roads and civil rights, a civil war, revolution, getting overthrown by a dictator that people vote for because you let people starve etc etc.

There was a moment where Aster was going to expand Cleo’s personality beyond “bitch,” but it didn’t go much farther than Cleo having a son that died. Isla reminds her of him for some reason. This somehow is her motivation.

There was a scene that I really liked where Isla portals to Celeste/Aurora’s old room, sits in some memories, and then starts trashing the place. I wish we had gotten a much deeper look into Isla and Celeste/Aurora’s relationship because it’s so crunchy. Having a good portion of the book in the past presented that opportunity but Aster didn’t take it. She was Isla’s first and only friend for a long time. Aurora manipulated this already abused girl and never cared about her. Her betrayal out of all of them hurt the most at the end of Lightlark. Isla has complex feelings about her, but most of all feels hurt and angry. The scene is pretty short though and clearly is just setting up something for book three. Shame.

I talked about this before, but Isla is so cut off from her own culture it’s actually insane. She doesn’t know basic things about her culture/people and it’s never presented as “oh my god your guardians isolated you so much you didn’t know X” but more as a “huh. Anyway.” Because in the real world, this level of lack of knowledge would be a red flag for growing up in a cult or severe abuse. I'm not really joking. The most glaring example is Bonded. Apparently all Wildlings are bounded to an animal companion. In Lightlark, it is mentioned that some Wildlings have animal friends, but it’s not clear that ALL of them do. This should shape how Wildlings live drastically but they are only ever briefly mentioned aside from Isla’s.

This entire thing should have been cut or expanded, but more likely scrapped. First of all, the bonding ceremony is stupid because it’s different for Rulers than commonfolk because rulers have to shoot their Bonded that’s attempting to kill them because… it proves something? It only proves that Aster didn’t think it through much because I don’t understand how harming your companion and dominating nature is supposed to prove anything. Especially from a group of people that (I would argue) are indigenous-coded since that is very antithetical to their beliefs.

Moving on. Isla is like “sure I’ll do the ceremony if it’s still an option.” Then Wren bring her to a scary forest with a single arrow and leaves. Isla almost dies to a bear or something. She finds a giant black leopard. She Bonds with it. It turns out it used to be her mother’s Bonded. Wanna guess what it’s name is?

It’s Lynx.

This is a new level of bad naming that I didn’t know was possible. I try not to judge people on bad naming because I suck at it too, but wow. There’s also a Skyling named Sturm, which is German for storm (who wudda thunk it) but it honestly comes off like Aster changed a single letter.

Lynx doesn’t really matter and honestly feels like he exists purely for the end where Isla rides him into battle. He somehow shows her a memory of her mother, which was kinda sweet. But there was a lot of missed potential in this? Lynx only accepts her out of obligation to his last partner. With the story so heavily focused on Isla’s (and Grim’s) past, would this not have been a way for her dig into the past and try to connect with a mother she never knew?

Speaking of which, it’s also very clear that Aster just wanted to show how Isla and Grim got together. A fair amount of the book occurs in long flashbacks in chronological order as Isla remembers the memories Grim erased. It didn’t occur to me later how amusing it is that it’s strictly in chronological order, both for the reader’s sake of not getting confused and for plot twist reasons of course. These books are just about finding Mcguffins and the flashback is no different.

Actually I just realized how much it mirrored Lightlark. Isla is looking for human skin gloves, then Grim convinces her to help him find a magic sword, she basically abandons her own quest, they bond, etc. This is very similar to Isla looking for the bondbreaker, Oro convincing her to help him find the heart of lightlark and them bonding. If this was intentional, I think it would have been more effective if there were clearer differences made between Oro and Grim. If it wasn’t, it shows how formulaic her writing is.

It starts off with Isla accidentally portaling to Nightshade and running from guards. Some lady sees her and is like “you’re late. Here, put on this undescribed but assuredly slutty dress” and she gets in a line up of women like that one scene in the Emperor’s New Groove where he’s told to pick out a wife. And Isla’s like “is this a battle formation? A dance recital?” Grim saunters in, picks her and brings her to his bedroom and the pieces finally click together for her when he’s basically pinning her against a wall. Oh so that’s what those girls meant when they said it would be an honor to be part of the ruling line! This girl is denser than a brick. Grim asks for her consent, which is sort of ooc for him in general but considering he’s under the assumption she signed up for this, it’s even more ooc.

She says yes for some fuckin reason, he kisses her, fireworks exploded blah blah blah, she comes to her senses and stabs him in the chest then portals away. Delightful meet-cute.

I can’t remember if he breaks into her room when she’s in her nightclothes first or if she portals back with wildling elixir for his stab wound as an apology, hides in his huge-ass bathtub and almost sees him naked first. Those both happen. Eventually Grim tells asks her to team up with him and find a magic sword that does something and he’ll help her at the Centennial, which is going to occur in about a year. It’s lowkey annoying for two plotlines occurring in text at the same time that are fetch quests. The endless “they have to find the thing to find the thing to do the thing but first we gotta talk to a guy who might know about the thing” is so repetitive.

There’s a pattern of Isla portaling somewhere, getting her shit rocked, and Grim saving her but she doesn’t seem to be making this connection and doing something different. In one of these (many) occurrences, Isla puts on the high slit nightshade dress, sneaks onto Nightshade, somehow gets hurt and Grim portals her away. I think my notes on this moment best summarizes both the next scene and my reaction of speechlessness and disappointment:

Bruh. Literally have my hand covering my face Bruh. For future me, while taking pieces of glass out of her hands, she’s in her nightshade dress (possibly without underwear, pussy out) on his lap and she can feel him getting hard. Bruh

Also Grim has a necklace that prevent curses from working on him so he can walk in nighttime. WHICH COMPLETELY CONTRADICTS WHAT HAPPENED IN BOOK ONE

She had a theory that the Wildling forest might be a little like her—that its quelling of powers also meant other realms’ curses would be nullified. And she had been right. Grim’s jaw went slack. He stared up at the sky through the treetops in wonder. He couldn’t access the dark power that thrummed through his veins, but it seemed the view of the dark sky above was enough. (Lightlark, 85%)

I remembered this specific moment because I thought it was cool to see Grim be able to see the night again after five centuries of not being able to and reconnect with that for even just a moment. (Also because immediately afterwards he tells Isla they used to be in love and he erased her memory.) So that moment has zero weight anymore. The fact that he has the necklace doesn’t even get brought up again and exists purely to hint that he knew Isla’s father.

There’s a part where the sword is found in a dragon’s lair filled with traps. Isla accidentally sets one off and gets hit by one. Grim valiantly protects her and gets shot with TWELVE arrows. It’s so over the top it’s goofy. There’s obviously a wound tending scene. The flashbacks are filled with all the tropes booktok loves. How do they deal with the traps later? Grim triggers them himself and takes it all on. Poor tortured soul without even a concept of a braincell. Isla allllllmost gets the sword, it teleports away, which was a bunch of BULLSHIT. Then she randomly finds it in the Wildling forest later.

To Aster’s credit, she cut down on the number of plot twists, added some callback/foreshadowing and spaced them out slightly. The first book, the last couple of chapters felt like getting punched repeatedly in the face. This time, it was like getting punched, having a couple seconds to blink and then get punched more.

What does the sword do? It controls the dreks. Remember those? Yeah, apparently Grim’s ancestor Cronan (who helped make Lightlark), turned people into mindless unstoppable monsters and the sword controls them. Another (unnamed female) ancestor cast a curse on it so it couldn’t be used by the Nightshade ruling line. The dreks having been coming out a crevasse in Nightshade and Grim is the only thing holding them back from destroying it and the rest of the world. Okay.

Toward the end when it’s almost arrived at the point where Grim is going to attack Lightlark, Isla finds out that all of her people are gone. Grim kidnapped them. This is literally laughable, I can’t take it seriously at ALL. He kidnapped an ENTIRE nation in a single night. The logistical nightmare. Isla finally tugs on her necklace he gave her to summon him and he’s like “you got my note :D” about kidnapping her people and then is confused when she’s mad and doesn’t want to join the dark side.

This book tried to gaslight me in the last ~20% that I like Grim and that he’s both a villain and not evil. I refuse to let it gaslight me. Bro tries to pull the fact they made a (verbal and vague) agreement to trade that this justifies his actions, which includes removing the memories of Wildlings ridden with guilt of cannibalism (but don’t worry, they consented to it. UNLIKE ISLA).

“We made a deal….remember? Wildling help with nightbane, in exchange for a very vague assortment of whatever your people needed.” (80%)

Isla accuses him of sending the dreks to Lightlark and he tells her that was a coincidence. He then explains that he doesn’t want to slaughter Lightlark like how he explicitly did in his message and illusion showing death and destruction.

“Consider this a warning,” [Grim’s voice] said. “A glimpse at the future. You have one month to vacate the island. In thirty days, I am coming to destroy it.” Shouts. Screams. “Nothing will be left. You can choose to flee to your newlands . . . or join me in a new future. The choice is simple. Fighting is futile. The ruin coming is inevitable.” (36%)

No! Grim is innocent! There was just a series of events that coincided with his messages that unintentionally came off much more threatening than he intented. Whoopsies he’s just bad at communication. I am astounded. YOU CANT FUCKING DO THAT 80 FUCKING PERCENT INTO THE BOOK WHERE NOTHING. FUCKIN. HAPPENNNNEDDDDDDDDDD

If this was supposed to be a major twist, there *clap* needed *clap* to *clap* be *clap* BUILD UPPPP and have them question the inconsistencies

At some point in another flashback, Grim goes from dropping crazy lore about his dad to crazy lore that they live in a pocket dimension and other worlds exist. Absolutely fucking wild thing to drop and have no one go “wow that’s earthshattering information!” Anyway.

There’s the battle. It’s whatever. Oro is about to kill Grim when he tells them that 1) his life and hers is tied and 2) they’re married. They’ve been married the whole time. What. I was spoiled by this because I read reviews of these books before I read them and it still caught me off guard. Grim thinks that the other world can revive the dead (which is why Cleo joined his forces) and can save her because apparently she’s on a time limit since she technically died.

You guys remember her vision of death and destruction caused by Grim? That was a memory. Of her causing death and destruction. THIS ENTIRE FUCKING PLOT WAS BASED ON HER BEING THE MOST INCOMPETENT HUMAN ALIVE.

Here’s what happened: more dreks than ever were attacking a nightshade village, Grim will die fighting them yadda yadda and Isla teleports there via Love and unleashes her nightshade powers, killing not only the dreks but the villagers, including children, and reducing it to a wasteland. She also died. WHAT

Her memories are completely chronological except for this one little scene which she thinks is a vision and everyone else went “yeah that seems legit” despite seeing the future being something that only an oracle can do (I think). I assumed it was a Flair that nobody acknowledged but it turns out her Flair is breaking curses. Okay. Sure. Whatever. Is this an idiot plot? I don’t think it technically counts, but honestly with the end painting it as if there were a series of miscommunications from Grim and Isla, I feel like it could constitute as one. It actually made me so mad.

Isla is like “I’m a monster don’t touch me” when Oro tries to comfort her. She ends up leaving Lightlark with Grim and that’s how it ends.

Final thoughts

I need to wrap this up because at this point I’ve been putting far more effort into this than a paper for my final and a proposal for my senior thesis (that I haven’t started).

Much like Lightlark, Nightbane was A Book For Sure. I didn’t drag myself through it like I did with the first, but it is so meandering. There’s times when you and the characters need to breathe, but this is just slow. There's so much nothing. Just like Lightlark, it feels a bit aimless and urgentless even when we’re told that important things are going to happen.

Was Nightbane better than Lightlark? Not really. Is it worse? Not really. It’s bad for sure.

There’s the obvious things like “Grim is a giant creep and needs a restraining order” and the most well developed characters have as much depth as a paper plate. The plot twists are never meant for you to go “oh that finally clicks!” it’s meant to hit upside the head with a baseball bat, declaring that they live in a pocket dimension and then move on. What stands out the most for me this time around is the wasted potential.

The thing is that if you have a good and well-written story, it is easy to overlook its flaws in worldbuilding, characters, etc. When you don’t, they only stand out more. There’s a reason why I get really excited when someone leaves a comment praising my prose/writing on a craft level. Anyone can come up with a good/interesting idea. Writing it well is something else entirely.

Part of what stumps me about books like this is that I fundamentally don’t understand why some authors are content to produce stories that require you to turn off your brain to enjoy and don’t seem to want to polish their skills and writing. I totally understand the appeal of this kind story, it can be fun and low-stakes. I read fanfiction, it would be hypocritical of me if I said I didn’t enjoy that kind of thing. But the sheer volume and popularity of books like this baffles me.

If I ever write a book I want published, I want it to be thought-provoking, I want it to say something. I don’t understand authors who are cool with just copy-pasting each other’s enemies-to-lovers love triangle where the obvious choice is the brooding “morally gray” 6’9” emo man with a veneer of “government/elite bad” fantasy that accidentally feds into the very system it’s trying to critique.