She Gets the Girl may be a YA romance, but it’s not just for starry-eyed teens. Co-authors Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick are married in real life and tell a story together that draws upon the experiences they once had. New college freshmen Alex is a little rough around the edges, and Molly is trying hard to get out of her quiet bubble. They’re opposites in most ways but join forces to get Molly the girl of her dreams, who she’s been crushing on since high school. Their friendship develops so purely as they learn the quirks and struggles of the other, and of course we can all guess how it ends. But like so many other books of this genre, we’re not really reading for a surprise so much as the emotions throughout–and it did not disappoint.
It was such a relief to me to read a YA queer romance in which the characters’ queer identities were not a plot point at all. There’s a need to represent the journeys and hardships of teens (or those around them) coming to terms with their identities, but I think it’s equally important to show the other side too: where someone of a marginalized group gets to simply be without their existence being an issue. Plus, it gave room for conflict we see less of in YA books. Alex dealt with economic issues and her mother’s alcoholism, and Molly navigated her social anxiety and how her mother’s internalized racism impacted her growth. I’ve read a fair amount of authors who were transracial adoptees themselves writing about the complexities of their experiences, but Molly was the first character I’ve read who is the child of a transracial adoptee. Written with so much emotion but readable for teens, I thought this perspective made the story richer and I’m really hopeful to read more of this type soon.
My only critique is that I didn’t quite feel the chemistry between Alex and Molly the way I wanted to. However, every good romantic relationship has to have a super strong foundation of friendship–a message YA audiences aren’t always exposed to–and the authors really carried their weight in making it clear how important it is to genuinely like the person you’re with. I love how this book stayed fairly light even while trudging through some heavier topics, good for teens as well as adults who need a break but still want to get something out of their reading experience. You can read this book as an ebook or an audiobook from eBCCLS, or get a physical copy from the Hoboken Public Library or other BCCLS libraries.
Written by: Stephanie Lodico Access Services Assistant
Booktok is a subcommunity of TikTok that is known for tiaras, their loud and proud love of various tropes, and of course, their passion for books. It is a powerful force on social media, used by both readers and authors alike to promote books they love and books they are writing and has pushed quite a few authors into massive popularity. One such author is Alex Aster.
Before her YA debut, she first published The Emblem Island middle grade duology, but it was the teasers she released for Lightlark that really seized Booktok’s attention and was quickly steeped in controversy upon its release.
On a technical level, Aster can write well, she has good use of authorial voice for things like description and her style overall is easy to read.
The novel itself has quite a few interesting concepts. An island that appears every thousand years to hold a tournament, royals fighting to the death to end curses placed upon them and their land, escaping from said tournament through a secret heist so that the characters might have a chance to live, attempting to seduce a king while a supposed enemy shows romantic interest in the main character, that and many other ideas are presented in this novel.
And that is precisely what also holds this novel back.
While many of these ideas are intriguing in concept, they all lack one main thing. Focus. Many novels have B or even C plots, all of them interconnecting back to the main events and Aster attempts to do the same with these plot threads, but it all becomes more entangled and confusing the further along you read. At one point, one of the mentioned plot threads is implied to have unknown and potentially dangerous consequences and at a later point, yet it is implied that this same plot thread will somehow lift the curses the rulers are afflicted with. It’s a moment that would make most readers raise their eyebrows and wonder why there’s even a tournament in the first place if this heist is all that is needed to lift the curse.
Readers who detest love triangles will find themselves infuriated as this one seems to play out in full, despite Aster prompting on TikTok that she was going for enemies-to-lovers. One has to wonder if Aster was attempting to subvert expectations with this. The curses are also told to the reader rather than shown to them, the novel simply telling us they’re bad. While Isla’s curse could be disastrous in the future, it doesn’t hold the same weight when the curses that face the others have far more impending consequences. Given what we learn about her later on in the novel, one would think that Aster would have selected that secret to be her curse rather than the one she decided to go with.
Pacing is another issue this book struggles with. Before the novel’s tournament can take place, there’s an event known as the Centennial, which serves as both a celebration and opening act, allowing the rulers to display their skills before they are forced to face in combat. It’s a premise clearly inspired by The Hunger Games and while that in itself is fine, Lightlark lingers on this event with little interaction going on between Isla and the other characters. The only thing that truly keeps any action going on at all is the heist subplot and even that is drawn out longer than necessary. It’s a good twenty-five chapters into the novel before we see her interact with the other characters for more than just a few pages.
The actual tournament itself takes much longer to get to then it should for a book who advertises that its plot is centered around said tournament. Had Aster attempted to put more focus into the tournament part of the plot, a good portion of the preliminaries could have been cut out and condensed into something more streamlined.
Strangest of all is the tournament itself. It is revealed that the event is something else entirely and not a tournament in the sense that most readers would be familiar with. While killing is allowed after The Centennial, there is no fighting between the rulers. Instead they all gather for a series of meetings to discuss which realms deserve to live and which one should ultimately fall. While this in and of itself is a terrifying prospect and one that could work if written well, the reader has instead been misled into thinking they would be reading about a tournament where the rulers must fight to the death to break their curses. Instead they get something akin to a political debate, which would be fine if that was what the book had been advertised as from the beginning.
A sequel is implied to be in the works and while the reception to this book has been met with mixed reception, perhaps Aster and her editors will acknowledge the criticism given and ensure the sequel is more focused and not riddled with the inconsistencies that plagued the first one.
Overall, while there was some potential, Lightlark, in my opinion, fails to deliver to its intended audience and is a frustrating read to those who simply want to get lost in a good fantasy.
What do you think? Does Lightlark live up to the hype? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Written By: Lauren Lapinski Information and Digital Services Assistant
Hoboken Library Staff Picks 