*this review will contain light spoilers*
I’ve got to be honest. I really hated this book.
Usually, when I go to purchase a book, I check the reviews on Goodreads first. When I went into Barnes and Noble and saw this book, I thought the description looked really good, and I purchased it without a second thought. That was a big mistake.
The whole idea of this book is very similar to Caraval. It centers around a girl who is sent to a magical island to try and remove the curse put on her people. Leaders from other regions are there, all competing for the same thing.
All of these different regions have a different leader, different magical gifts, and different curses placed upon them. The main issue with this is that it’s not ever actually discussed in the book. Rather, there is one page in the very beginning with a list of the curses and gifts, but I feel like the worldbuilding wasn’t good enough for this approach, as I found myself constantly flipping back to that page to re-read it.
Our main character is very forgettable. She’s ‘special’ in that she is immune from the curse placed upon her people. The people who raised her placed her in all kinds of situations to prepare her for the lightlark competition, but it seems like she’s still a wimp despite it all.
On the island of Lightlark, the other leaders of different regions are introduced. I forgot their names SO many times because they were not well explained or developed.
The king of the Lightlark island itself is Oro. He never says a word the entire time but is described as ‘glaring’ at our main character, Isla, on about every other page
The competition has many different parts across time, but they are spaced out so awkwardly, they are so uninteresting, and are not built up at all. I feel like there should have been way more suspense built up around these events and how they work, but in reality, they were unremarkable and dull to read.
The main plot of this book actually isn’t about the competition at all, despite what the back cover might imply. Instead, this book is about Isla and her friend breaking into a variety of places in an attempt to steal an artifact that could lift their curses.
This is silly for many reasons. First of all, nobody likes the curses, so why would the person who owns it hide it instead of using it to save themself? Also, the way they go about trying to find and steal this artifact is mind-numbing.
For a girl who was raised to be prepared for Lightlark, she uses her brain remarkably little. I was screaming at her to wisen up about every page, and it wasn’t in a fun way, either.
I spent a week reading this book ( that is slow for me ), and I only made it about halfway through before I had to stop reading it. It was genuinely bringing me stress.
I would not recommend this book at all.
Happy Reading (but not this book),
Ashley
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