The best description I have seen of this book is that it’s somebody writing tropes, and not much else. I doubt that a movie will be coming out though. My understanding is that a production company will buy dozens of movie rights for books that haven’t been released because it’s cheaper than getting the movie rights to a book that has already gotten big. Because 20 maybe books at $20k each is still cheaper than 1 guaranteed success at $3 million.
Well they actually brokered a film deal instead of just film rights, so there’s a larger chance that it’ll actually come out. Also, universal leans into making adaptations of mediocre books. I don’t have 100% faith, but I have enough of it.
I think it could have been a decent middle grade fantasy. It's that it reads exactly like a middle grade book but with random finger banging that makes it a 0 for me. It's creepy.
the author actually has a couple other published books, all of them middle grade, which explains the really young middle grade voice in lightlark. definitely makes the adult aspects very weird though.
@@aquilaorion3531the thing is YA does sometimes deal with sex it's just sex, it does matter why how the author goes about it , but sex is a human trait and young adults are humans.
@@bethanychatman9531 for sure, there’s a way to deal with sex in a ya appropriate manner that works well, but there’s a fair amount of ya that depicts very unrealistic and pornographic sex. i think it’s especially irresponsible if the audience is young adults/teenagers who are just having sex for the first time, it sets unrealistic and harmful expectations (especially around stuff like consent and communication) but yeah i’ve read plenty of ya that has healthy and meaningful depictions of sex!
@@bethanychatman9531 YA is a genre with 13-18 aged characters which are literally teenagers and could be called children fr... So having a sex scene in it is weird unless it's for sex education and ya is mostly also read by the same age group 13-18... That's why YA rarely deals with such.
So, so, soooo much worldbuilding doesn't make any sense. 1. If a storm rages on the island for 100 years, why are the towns cute and whimsical? Why are the forests lush with trees and flowers? 2. Wildlings would never be able to ever harvest enough human hearts to consume once a week (or month? either way). Unless they had a human factory farm. The author waves it away with "oh, we just kill prisoners." 1a. Which has its own implications. Is everyone who is arrested sentenced to death? The author says they imprison/kill those who come and steal their gems, so we execute people for theft now? what a corrupt judicial system they must have, but that's not explored. 1b. Also, on the heart thing, Isla gets a heart delivered to her once a week during the Centennial *that she just throws out the window* because she's not affected by the curse. AND I'M SUPPOSED TO LIKE THIS GIRL? 3. the king and others live on the island, where they can hunt for clues on how to end the curse in between the Centennial and nobody does. Isla is absolutely stupid. We've been told she's strong, smart, and has the mind of a general (actual quote), but multiple people sneak up on her, and she *falls off a balcony because the king scared her by clapping.* She has to be rescued each time she gets in trouble, but I'm supposed to believe she survived three days alone in a hurricane with no supplies? That she's been trained from birth to be a seductress though she's so painfully awkward and bratty? This book is just a shit cake with shit frosting.
I've never heard of this book until I watched this video, but the beginning premise sounds amazing. It would have made better sense if they had a fountain of youth/"lift curse" goblet in the middle island that is in a hidden cove thing that only opens every 100 years, etc. And the first island who finds it, gets it. Not a hurricane storm and a hunger games battle. It could have been even more intriguing if there a.) turned out to be no goblet and think they are cursed forever until they find the real one. or b.) they actually find the goblet and it's a whole battle thing I like the curse part, but it could have been explained better. I think the author really just liked hunger games but it would have been soooo much better if it was more lord of the rings.
4. Considering that the curse was placed 500(?) years ago, you'd think each kingdom would've developed counter measures for their curses, for example, Sunlings using a lot of clothing to cover themselves up from the sun, Starlings starting their education earlier and having a better education system, Wildlings having arranged marriages to ensure lower unwanted killings...
Ik this comment is late but for the first one the island is connected to the king so when the king was healthy so was the land and some part of the land was withered bc the wildlings left And the wildlings had a low population and in the end they were described as skinny and looked sick But other than that I agree with you
@@djdreampunk7885 The easiest example would be Isekai anime, which usually involves the protagonist getting whisked away to a fantasy, often medieval inspired land after getting killed in some accident. After the success of Sword Art Online, a pattern began to form. Good guy audience insert(who's often just a pervy loner) gets taken to a fantasy realm, somehow manages to attract a wide array of female characters for his harem but can't bring himself to settle for one girl, becomes the most powerful with little to no obstacles. Soon, nearly every isekai was just this formula but with reskinned characters and plot gimmicks.
@@djdreampunk7885 Isekai's are probably some of the biggest perpetrators of this. While I do enjoy some most of them have authors who tend look what is popular and just copy that but with a minor subversion. It's understandable to why it's done though since most of these shows are designed to be marketable and have a fanbase instead of telling a story.
Isla Crown is almost as dumb as America Singer lmao Nah but for real YA has been like this for a while. It’s all about aesthetics of something sounding cool, rather than substance. Some authors have even been reported to sell books based on Pinterest boards. On another note I just wish we could let books like the hunger games, a court of thorns and roses, and twilight go. I’m not talking about whether or not these books are good or not (personally I didn’t like any of them), but none of these books came out within the last five years. I just want something new, not a derivative of a YA novel that sold well 10+ years ago.
@@faithyu212 the book is as bad as it sounds. My favourite quote is "."I love you America Singer" he said with deep emotion". I'm not even joking, it only goes downhill.
I understand what you mean... idk if it even matters if they came out in the last five years or not, regardless it's nice to have more original fiction. And books take inspiration from other books, that's how genres are made, that's fine, but when you take inspiration it's still nice to add something and a lot of these books are just trying to make money off of being something like another book and don't add anything.
there are lots of extremely important details james forgot or got wrong, like the wildlings *also* being cursed to eat human hearts and the king of lightlark being oro and not grim, and about the purpose of the no killing period being for investigation to figure out how to break the curses, but honestly can we really blame james for forgetting this shit
@@JamesTullos grim was the king of the spooky shadow guys and oro was the king of lightlark itself. i know this because im one of those insane people who watches 3 hour videos on things and i watched a lightlark video and am now a certified Lightlark Lore Expert
@@JamesTullos Drin i th king of the darklings, Grim dark. Fitting in with cringy names. honestly i know it fromunresolved textuals tension longer fun analysis take, but yes. And apearently they never explore what 2 hearts for a person of a person , like apearently animals arent enough to substain, again i watched a fun roasting of reviewer that are picky with it, not the book, an they came up, with , it would be explore th whole how the hell do they get tat hearts or all the people, from people. but apearently its never explored othe than from "bad people" And one curse not being able to sail under the full moon?!
@@marocat4749 I watched Crow Caller's video on Lightlark's many failings and decided the constant turnover of Starlings (the ones who die at age 25) helps supply human hearts to Wildlings.
Also, if I am correct, wildlings literally cannot digest anything but human hearts, so they should be regurgitating everything that isn't human hearts. Someone sees a wildling eat chocolate with no problem and never questions it. * facepalm *
To be fair, Azul is a name in Spanish. Celeste as well, means light blue. Don't know anyone in my country named Isla thought. The only one that comes to mind is Isla fisher
The problem isn't the names themselves, it's that they're SO on the nose - the star and sky rulers are called Azul and Celeste, the island princess main character is Isla Crowne, the sun king is Oro, the dark and broody one is Grim.... Like this is a 12yos first batch of OCs, not published fantasy.
The top down premise seems like it would be more interesting if you replaced Hunger Games with Danganronpa. If the rulers are living together anyway just make it a discreet killing game to succeed rather than a manhunt 50 days later.
If your story has: -Countries that surround a main island; -One place being evil; -Things happen without resolution/for barely any reason; -The main character is secretly from two places; Its not lightlark, its fire emblem engage /j
I really think this is literally the result of hyping something up a without having the ability to provide. Being new at something isn't a crime, but publishers ignoring actual good, experienced writers in favour of tiktokers with big fanbases really is. I've spent my entire life learning how to write, analyzing books & styles & tropes etc. still learning & honing my craft every day, but all that seems to have been for nothing if all I have to do is make a tiktok with stock images saying "what if these two cishet white people fell in love in the totally-not-the-hunger-games?" Not saying I could totally make one of these books in under a month but I could totally make one of these books in under a month.
I agree with you, but I also wanna make note that this isn't the author's first book, or even her second (albeit she's been trying very hard to say otherwise, for some reason.) She's the author of the young adult Emblem Island duology as well, which - as far as I can tell - while they weren't instant smash hit successes or anything, they were received pretty well and the praise for Curse of the Night Witch (Book 1) seems pretty authentic and genuine. Book 2 also seems to be getting a fair amount of good praise, and that one only just came out this year. Lightlark just seems like it was Alex Aster's attempt to jump into the NA romance genre but not quite having practiced her craft enough to make that leap from a younger age demographic, as well as lacking in that extra "special something" that would've made Lightlark stand out in such an over-saturated market. A very common problem for authors, and we see it a lot, but it never gets less sad.
@@lichbunny3733 I didn't mean this is her first novel, I know she's written other books, I just meant that she didn't have the experience with this one. She hyped this book up on tiktok, but obviously couldn't back up her claims while writing it, either because she was rushing like hell due to all the positive attention or genuinely didn't know how to write a series like this one, either one I can understand but am also incredibly annoyed by. Obviously I can't speak for her, this is just what it seems like to me. My point was that it's a shame how someone can speedwrite a novel, in a genre of which they have no experience in, & get it published with a movie deal immediately. Everyone is saying the book is bad, but they had to have actually bought the book & read it. That's a lot of money going to the publisher, which is all they care about. And if shitty first drafts make more money than actually finding & publishing good books then what's the point anymore? Just makes trying to be good at writing feel a bit useless
The thing is, publishers want what's sellable, especially nowadays. It's like Disney remaking old movies with good track record hoping that they also make it big today. Tiktokers with big fanbase = guaranteed sales. That's what every publisher/studio wants nowadays.
@@N0noy1989 yeah, that's what I said in my previous reply to Lich Bunny. tiktok hype gets more sales, even if the book ends up shitty with 90% bad reviews. Art has been officially taken over by capitalism. makes me wanna scream
@@N0noy1989 Except that almost never seems to happen. Didn't all of Disney's recent nostalgia bait "live action" remakes totally flop? I haven't heard anyone talk positivitely about the majority of them (except for Cinderella, but it was the first LA remake ever and holds up pretty well); like... we all know they'll age badly with all these CGI scenes, so why even invest in something like this? Did we really need a new Dumbo, Lady & the Tramp or Pinocchio? At least the original movies won't look dated in a couple of years time... Ugh.
This sounds like a fledgling indie author's self indulgent first time out. If you've ever been in an indie writers' group, you know the type. You're probably been the type. They've wanted to write a book for awhile, but they never took the plunge. But, they have some friends that keep hyping them up, so they finally give it a go. They're nervous at first, unsure of themselves, constantly picking the group hive mind for ideas until, slowly but surely, they build confidence. And then, after months of hard work, they're finished. They've written A Book. They go back and read it and- it's trash. Maybe not irredeemable, but it's discouragingly awful. So, they decide that they should get a second set of eyes and show it to their writer friends to see what they think. I suspect this is where Lightlark went wrong. A good writer friend will encourage the newbie, saying things like "it's a first draft, it's supposed to be awful" and "no one gets it all right the first time." The important thing is that they encourage, while also managing expectations. And then there are the ones who get a heady whiff of their own ego and decide "you know what? Maybe I'm not bad. Maybe I'm so good, no one can understand my genius." And their friends, rather than helping keep them grounded, blow more smoke up their arse until finally, one day, they pull the trigger and decide to publish. Most of the time, the end result is a lamentably bad web novel that no one reads and the author will look back on in shame after a few years. But sometimes, ever so rarely, the right combination of connections and audience come along, and we get something like this.
This was really validating as someone with dreams of writing books and with fears of showing them to people. It helps to de-mistify the fear of rejection to hear that it's gonna happen, and I can keep going regardless.
@@tikki2340 Failure is all part of the process. The important thing is that you keep digging. I’ve been writing for about 15 years now, and it’s only in the last couple that I’ve felt confident enough to start exploring publishing options. I’ve come to love the webnovel format, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, you’ll get there, you just have to be willing to let yourself make mistakes so you can get better.
My Finnish ass bursts in laughter every time James says "Ääpö Säväläinön". But you know, Kudos to Ääpö for being a generous long time supporter of this content.
How do you pronounce it? When I see an "ä" or "ö" I revert to what I learned in German class. I think Finnish looks and sounds interesting, but all the umlauts puzzle me 😂.
@@LittleMissLounge Finns pronounce A the way it is pronounced at the beginning of words like "Alone" or "Abuse". It's actually almost the same as it is in German. Think "Achtung", for example. The Finnish umlauts are a beast I'll spare you from.
I think better curses would've been... Wildlings: they must consume hearts of any animal to feel emotion (say, love?) I feel like this would get rid of a heart supply issue pretty handily. Starings - As soon as the first stars are out, the Starlings all fall asleep in a comalike state. Moonlings - They are forced to never see the moon, running to the ocean if they see it and diving in. In this the moon is the source of their powers. Sunlings - Sun causes them to go feral Night... shades - Prolonged darkness causes them to go feral Skylings - Their power can't be used anywhere that isn't covered or completely overcast and if they do it hurts them
This was a very entertaining review but just one observation: Isla and Azul are actual names in Spanish 💀 I've never met an Isla, but I know many Azul(s?) We have a lot of names that are just colours. Blanca (White), Rosa (Pink), Violeta (Purple), Azul (Blue), Celeste (Cyan)... It may sound stupid if you're not Hispanic but they aren't necessarily stupid.
Being a latino, only Blanca sounds good to me, but maybe it's the Uruguay speaking. That said, using those names is... unoriginal. It's fantasy, you can do so much better lol
Tbh the real reason the names are stupid is that Azul is leader of the sky kingdom, Celeste of the moon kingdom, Grim of the shadow kingdom … the names (Grim aside) are fine out of context but in context that’s a kid naming their action figures
@@ryokiritani4187 another uruguyan here haha. I've met girls named Celeste and Azul, and I actually don't mind the names. But if she's a native English speaker the choice is odd and I cannot really blame the readers if they were taken back by that😅
I'm not gonna lie the one thing i absolutely love about ya novels like this is the ridiculous names. especially if EVERYONE has a weird name, then clearly it's just part of the universe or the way society has grown out of touch with how the world used to be.
I too didn't hear about Lightlark until Hello Future Me's video. To me, the attention this book is getting, as well as others like it, is a sign that the YA dystopia category still has an audience and isn't going away; its effects will be felt for some time. It's really disappointing considering the way the publishing industry seemed to push Lightlark and these types of books because it feels as though they were aware of how mediocre these stories are, but the attention these books always seem to get is what keeps motivating publishers and authors to create them. The fact is, positive or negative reviews are still attention, and still signs that these books are generating audiences and sales. As Hello Future Me states in his video, it seems like the author is being used by an industry that knows her book isn't great but will still generate discourse, attention, and ultimately $.
Azul is a common girl name in my country and in many latin american countries. I think you meant no harm but it is kinda rude to call it a stupid name. It's like calling your child Rose or Hope. Just because it is a pre-existing thing doesn't make it stupid imo.
I actually didn't know that. I think I've seen "Azul" as a middle name, but not a first name. I've always thought it was a pretty word. I agree we need to be careful about calling foreign-to-us names "weird", "stupid", "ugly", etc. Even in a shitty fantasy series. Sometimes writers draw inspiration from real life.
@@Liggliluff It's not the Swedish word for "wolf". Modern Swedish has "varg" meaning "wolf" while Ulf is a derivative of "ulv" which is an old name for the animal, back when wolves were a genuine threat that humans actively feared. (A lot of dangerous animals had so called noa words that people used instead of the actual name, for fear of somehow conjuring the animal by naming it out loud. "Ulv" was the actual word and "varg" was the noa word, meaning "stranger" or "one that makes violence".) The name Björn though, that's the actual Swedish word for bear. =)
Bethany Church sounds really funny to me because beten=to pray in German and that's probably how a German with low English proficiency would pronounce that name: Behthaneeh (no "th" sound in German, just a hard "t"). 😂😂😂
When you mentioned "a bunch of random spanish words" I though "oh, maybe one is called 'llanta' or 'queso'" lol Azul (which does mean blue) is an actual name, female tho (since I believe the name is used in a male character) but my point still stands. I did check and it looks like the name "Oro" (gold in spanish) is present. That one is bs haha
It feels like that 50 day no killing setup could be made to work, especially if the tournament ends as soon as one participant kills another. It could be 50 days of the various participants making themselves likeable or intimidating enough so that they're not the ones targeted or forging alliances, etc. Alternatively, for the less politically astute participants it could be scouting the area and making some sort of safe space to hide, etc. It sounds like the book did none of these things?
I was thinking something along the lines of you had to kill someone without anyone knowing it was you, because then the first 50 days would be to convince everyone they wouldn't kill and the last 50 days that they didn't kill.
The sad thing is that this book had some interesting ideas and concepts, but they weren't fleshed out in the slightest. This reads very much like a first draft, which is sad. I don't think the book would have been anything mind blowing or ground breaking in the spectrum of fantasy, but if it had proper time in the oven, it probably would have been an enjoyable read. What's even worse is that she's written other books, so this isn't even her first book. There is no excuse.
having tik tok doesn't mean you don't read it's just social media. you're using the Boomer's argument for those damn kids and their social media they never read anymore. which is a horrible argument as book sales have been at record highs for years, book boxes being a common thing, and it oversimplifies humans who can have multiple interests or use social media. do those 110 books I've read this year suddenly stop being read because I have tik tok or other social media no.
@@ayajade6683 i mean it doesnt stop people from reading, it just really eats time. you go to watch one video a friend sent you and 3h later you're still scrolling 🤷♂i think that's what op meant
@@Michael-tl7ki op came off as an elitist asshole I don't care their intention they're just an asshole with a Boomer's world view. nothing they say or use as a backpedaled excuse will change the fact they're an asshole with a shit take.
If it wasn’t for her getting popular on tiktok, no one would be talking about it. However, this book is bad in a special way as I have watched many videos on it and I don’t remember any specifics after the review. It’s not you or any of the other talented reviewers I watch, this book is literally that boring.
So when I saw this video, I was confused, because I thought i read those book a while ago and thought it was actually pretty good... then I looked it up anr realized that I was thinking about Larklight by Phillip Reeve, a much better book.
One day I sure do hope that our kind host will read something by R.A. Salvatore. Its high fantasy but less stupid. Even if our good host didnt like them Id still love that video.
A society where everyone dies under the age of 25 would crumble on its own. Just the decreased timespan to have children alone would be terrible, potentially irrecoverable, depending on fertility and child mortality rates. The society will likely engage in child marriage and they get flooded with orphans. Anyone over 18 would leave a child of maximum 7 years old behind when they die. There's a reason most senior positions are given to people over 40. Putting aside emotional maturity reasons, people simply will not have time to build up expertise and train the next generation before passing. Your quality of goods and services will suffer if your administrators, craftsmen and trades people have to be replaced every 5-10 years. At least two children per woman need to survive to have kids of their own if this society is to survive. It's not impossible but that curse would be a serious impediment to any complex society.
Azul is an actual name in Spanish tho. Actually any of those names could exist in any Latinoamerican country 😬 so they're not really that "random" Although I do agree they're a little on the nose, but eh, could've been worse
I think the biggest issue with this story is that we see the prophecy, and it doesn’t actually say any of the things the characters say it does. It says nothing about the rulers having to kill each other, and nothing about any kind of reward for the kingdom/ruler who fulfills the prophecy. Like, I get that prophecies are difficult to write. You need to strike a balance between being vague enough that the correct interpretation isn’t immediately obvious and being clear enough that the correct interpretation makes sense when it’s revealed, but if it’s meant to be taken as absolute fact that a prophecy says a specific thing, IT NEEDS TO ACTUALLY SAY THAT THING. That’s, you know, the BARE MINIMUM of writing a prophecy.
So the central island had people living on it? A curse that says no one lives past 25 sounds like it would be devistating for people like it would decimate a place rapidly.
3:33 I saw a 1.5 hours review of that book, and I swear i forgot 100% of it after it ended, to the point i had to search what was lightlark and then was like "wait, ai already saw a review?"
The part when he started making fun of the names, I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now. The three he listed in a row sound like they'd fit right into a JRPG, and as we all know those have very normal names.
Isnt the heartrade way worse and they neey 2 hearts a month and they never explored the heart industry? Its worse than falling in love. Not that that was explored. I heard. But might make a good story if anyone wants to steal, how do you get hearts?! Grim dark , haha , was not the king.
Say what you will, but I saw Alex Aster last weekend at the 2023 Miami Book Fair, she was part of a three author YA fantasy panel. The room was packed, and of the three her line was the longest. People spent over an hour in it, in the burning Florida weather. Says a lot.
This actually sounds more like Mortal Kombat than Hunger Games. She's young and she has something here. Nicholas Sparks started with mediocre reviews. The movies were better than the books.
I think the takeaway here is it's probably not interesting enough for me to read for badness or goodness. Not gonna lie, I would absolutely LOVE to hear your thoughts on ACOTAR if you ever decided you felt like reading it.
I mean, I've seen franchises with characters named "Azul", but they're more contextual and not all in your face, like an OC you made in second grade and is all blue, so I guess, if this was better written, it would've worked.
James Tullos has unironically made me interested in reading awful books. Just this year, I've slogged through The Selection, Save The Pearls, True Allegiance, and Throne of Glass
I have a random writer question for ppl in the comments that doesn't pertain to the book but-- if a book has a tournament in it, will it automatically be considered a "hunger games rip-off" to a lot of folks? My book that I want to self-publish is inspired by Hunter x Hunter (anime) with an exam-type tournament that involves killing, but I'm afraid people will consider it a hunger games rip-off simply bc of the word "tournament." Let me know opinions pls!
I was about to mention that the tournament arc is heavily used in a lot of anime! It's very much a shonen common place so unless you're writing a "hunt each other" type of tournament I would think you're fine
When I think Hunger Games I think battle royale style killings (last alive wins) plus the spectacle surrounding the competition, plus authoritarian government. If it's HxH inspired I think none of those elements apply.
wake up honey james tullos video on lightlark
"it's when you open it that things get bad" has got to be the biggest book roast I've ever heard
The best description I have seen of this book is that it’s somebody writing tropes, and not much else.
I doubt that a movie will be coming out though. My understanding is that a production company will buy dozens of movie rights for books that haven’t been released because it’s cheaper than getting the movie rights to a book that has already gotten big. Because 20 maybe books at $20k each is still cheaper than 1 guaranteed success at $3 million.
Lightlark definitely feels like the inevitable endpoint of this trend of describing books in tropes instead of genre or tone or plot elements
If the gospel of biff isnt filmed, which is good but rights out there,i doubt this will.
Well they actually brokered a film deal instead of just film rights, so there’s a larger chance that it’ll actually come out. Also, universal leans into making adaptations of mediocre books. I don’t have 100% faith, but I have enough of it.
Makes sense, in a “buy a pack of scratch lotto” kind of way
XD
"I've read worse."
Thats an understatement
He read Fifth Sorceress. For James, it was like killing the optional bosses before fighting the main story bosses.
He has read steven seagals.
@@abcdef27669 more like the secret boss that is actually stronger than the final boss
@Intergalactic Dust Bunny No. Not even close
'I've read worse' coming from James is like 'I've drank worse' coming from Bear Grylls.
I think it could have been a decent middle grade fantasy. It's that it reads exactly like a middle grade book but with random finger banging that makes it a 0 for me. It's creepy.
the author actually has a couple other published books, all of them middle grade, which explains the really young middle grade voice in lightlark. definitely makes the adult aspects very weird though.
The thing is the book is supposed to be YA lol
@@aquilaorion3531the thing is YA does sometimes deal with sex it's just sex, it does matter why how the author goes about it , but sex is a human trait and young adults are humans.
@@bethanychatman9531 for sure, there’s a way to deal with sex in a ya appropriate manner that works well, but there’s a fair amount of ya that depicts very unrealistic and pornographic sex. i think it’s especially irresponsible if the audience is young adults/teenagers who are just having sex for the first time, it sets unrealistic and harmful expectations (especially around stuff like consent and communication) but yeah i’ve read plenty of ya that has healthy and meaningful depictions of sex!
@@bethanychatman9531 YA is a genre with 13-18 aged characters which are literally teenagers and could be called children fr... So having a sex scene in it is weird unless it's for sex education and ya is mostly also read by the same age group 13-18... That's why YA rarely deals with such.
So, so, soooo much worldbuilding doesn't make any sense.
1. If a storm rages on the island for 100 years, why are the towns cute and whimsical? Why are the forests lush with trees and flowers?
2. Wildlings would never be able to ever harvest enough human hearts to consume once a week (or month? either way). Unless they had a human factory farm. The author waves it away with "oh, we just kill prisoners."
1a. Which has its own implications. Is everyone who is arrested sentenced to death? The author says they imprison/kill those who come and steal their gems, so we execute people for theft now? what a corrupt judicial system they must have, but that's not explored.
1b. Also, on the heart thing, Isla gets a heart delivered to her once a week during the Centennial *that she just throws out the window* because she's not affected by the curse. AND I'M SUPPOSED TO LIKE THIS GIRL?
3. the king and others live on the island, where they can hunt for clues on how to end the curse in between the Centennial and nobody does.
Isla is absolutely stupid. We've been told she's strong, smart, and has the mind of a general (actual quote), but multiple people sneak up on her, and she *falls off a balcony because the king scared her by clapping.* She has to be rescued each time she gets in trouble, but I'm supposed to believe she survived three days alone in a hurricane with no supplies? That she's been trained from birth to be a seductress though she's so painfully awkward and bratty?
This book is just a shit cake with shit frosting.
I've never heard of this book until I watched this video, but the beginning premise sounds amazing.
It would have made better sense if they had a fountain of youth/"lift curse" goblet in the middle island that is in a hidden cove thing that only opens every 100 years, etc. And the first island who finds it, gets it. Not a hurricane storm and a hunger games battle.
It could have been even more intriguing if there a.) turned out to be no goblet and think they are cursed forever until they find the real one.
or b.) they actually find the goblet and it's a whole battle thing
I like the curse part, but it could have been explained better.
I think the author really just liked hunger games but it would have been soooo much better if it was more lord of the rings.
@@specialtwice4975 could’ve been fantasy like they just figure out why there’s a never ending storm on the island
4. Considering that the curse was placed 500(?) years ago, you'd think each kingdom would've developed counter measures for their curses, for example, Sunlings using a lot of clothing to cover themselves up from the sun, Starlings starting their education earlier and having a better education system, Wildlings having arranged marriages to ensure lower unwanted killings...
Ik this comment is late but for the first one the island is connected to the king so when the king was healthy so was the land and some part of the land was withered bc the wildlings left
And the wildlings had a low population and in the end they were described as skinny and looked sick
But other than that I agree with you
Bethany Church is my drag name
Lightlark isn't a good Hunger Games, but it's not the racist furries from Save the Pearls at least
Hey, he said he read worse 😸
I can't believe you made me remember Save the Pearls
Defy the night is worse it's pro capitalism garbage
What's save the pearls
@@Emily-the-faeriesshhh, you better don't know
This book has the same problem I have with a lot of anime where it feels like it was made by a committee and not an author
Interesting observation. I don't watch much anime; what shows fall into this paradigm?
@@djdreampunk7885 The easiest example would be Isekai anime, which usually involves the protagonist getting whisked away to a fantasy, often medieval inspired land after getting killed in some accident. After the success of Sword Art Online, a pattern began to form. Good guy audience insert(who's often just a pervy loner) gets taken to a fantasy realm, somehow manages to attract a wide array of female characters for his harem but can't bring himself to settle for one girl, becomes the most powerful with little to no obstacles. Soon, nearly every isekai was just this formula but with reskinned characters and plot gimmicks.
Probably the best Isekai is Konosuba or Overlord, cause they at least make the genre different enough to feel fresh
@@djdreampunk7885 Isekai's are probably some of the biggest perpetrators of this. While I do enjoy some most of them have authors who tend look what is popular and just copy that but with a minor subversion. It's understandable to why it's done though since most of these shows are designed to be marketable and have a fanbase instead of telling a story.
@@ORCANORCA881 Konosuba kinda overated ngl, I think the best ones are Mushoku Tensei and Re:Zero
Isla Crown is almost as dumb as America Singer lmao
Nah but for real YA has been like this for a while. It’s all about aesthetics of something sounding cool, rather than substance. Some authors have even been reported to sell books based on Pinterest boards.
On another note I just wish we could let books like the hunger games, a court of thorns and roses, and twilight go. I’m not talking about whether or not these books are good or not (personally I didn’t like any of them), but none of these books came out within the last five years. I just want something new, not a derivative of a YA novel that sold well 10+ years ago.
Hey, I named my main character Clint Eastwood Newton and Roberto Napoli
that's a real book character name?!?!
@@faithyu212 Yesss. She's the main character of the selection series.
@@faithyu212 the book is as bad as it sounds. My favourite quote is "."I love you America Singer" he said with deep emotion". I'm not even joking, it only goes downhill.
I understand what you mean... idk if it even matters if they came out in the last five years or not, regardless it's nice to have more original fiction. And books take inspiration from other books, that's how genres are made, that's fine, but when you take inspiration it's still nice to add something and a lot of these books are just trying to make money off of being something like another book and don't add anything.
there are lots of extremely important details james forgot or got wrong, like the wildlings *also* being cursed to eat human hearts and the king of lightlark being oro and not grim, and about the purpose of the no killing period being for investigation to figure out how to break the curses, but honestly can we really blame james for forgetting this shit
I'm genuinely unsure if the king really was named Oro and not Grim or if he really was named Grim and you're just messing with me.
@@JamesTullos grim was the king of the spooky shadow guys and oro was the king of lightlark itself. i know this because im one of those insane people who watches 3 hour videos on things and i watched a lightlark video and am now a certified Lightlark Lore Expert
@@JamesTullos Drin i th king of the darklings, Grim dark. Fitting in with cringy names.
honestly i know it fromunresolved textuals tension longer fun analysis take, but yes.
And apearently they never explore what 2 hearts for a person of a person , like apearently animals arent enough to substain, again i watched a fun roasting of reviewer that are picky with it, not the book,
an they came up, with , it would be explore th whole how the hell do they get tat hearts or all the people, from people. but apearently its never explored othe than from "bad people"
And one curse not being able to sail under the full moon?!
@@marocat4749 I watched Crow Caller's video on Lightlark's many failings and decided the constant turnover of Starlings (the ones who die at age 25) helps supply human hearts to Wildlings.
Also, if I am correct, wildlings literally cannot digest anything but human hearts, so they should be regurgitating everything that isn't human hearts.
Someone sees a wildling eat chocolate with no problem and never questions it. * facepalm *
To be fair, Azul is a name in Spanish. Celeste as well, means light blue. Don't know anyone in my country named Isla thought. The only one that comes to mind is Isla fisher
I mean if she were inspired in book by isabella that could excuse a weird name?! If
The problem isn't the names themselves, it's that they're SO on the nose - the star and sky rulers are called Azul and Celeste, the island princess main character is Isla Crowne, the sun king is Oro, the dark and broody one is Grim.... Like this is a 12yos first batch of OCs, not published fantasy.
@@jasminv8653 Sounds more like nicknames than proper names.
@@w4t894thwl3r it's a real name it's just uncommon it use to hit the top 100 baby name charts in the 1800's
I have a friend called Isla. But i'm finnish, so it's not really a name in my language
The top down premise seems like it would be more interesting if you replaced Hunger Games with Danganronpa. If the rulers are living together anyway just make it a discreet killing game to succeed rather than a manhunt 50 days later.
If your story has:
-Countries that surround a main island;
-One place being evil;
-Things happen without resolution/for barely any reason;
-The main character is secretly from two places;
Its not lightlark, its fire emblem engage /j
Lightlark, ENGAGE!
Let’s get some more Three Houses discourse while we’re at it
It's a sad day when *Fire Emblem Engage* of all games has better writing than Lightlark.
Love this guy. Ive been watching his older videos and he is very sensible when he approaches reviews. Such a nice fella, i trust his takes
I really think this is literally the result of hyping something up a without having the ability to provide. Being new at something isn't a crime, but publishers ignoring actual good, experienced writers in favour of tiktokers with big fanbases really is. I've spent my entire life learning how to write, analyzing books & styles & tropes etc. still learning & honing my craft every day, but all that seems to have been for nothing if all I have to do is make a tiktok with stock images saying "what if these two cishet white people fell in love in the totally-not-the-hunger-games?" Not saying I could totally make one of these books in under a month but I could totally make one of these books in under a month.
I agree with you, but I also wanna make note that this isn't the author's first book, or even her second (albeit she's been trying very hard to say otherwise, for some reason.) She's the author of the young adult Emblem Island duology as well, which - as far as I can tell - while they weren't instant smash hit successes or anything, they were received pretty well and the praise for Curse of the Night Witch (Book 1) seems pretty authentic and genuine. Book 2 also seems to be getting a fair amount of good praise, and that one only just came out this year.
Lightlark just seems like it was Alex Aster's attempt to jump into the NA romance genre but not quite having practiced her craft enough to make that leap from a younger age demographic, as well as lacking in that extra "special something" that would've made Lightlark stand out in such an over-saturated market. A very common problem for authors, and we see it a lot, but it never gets less sad.
@@lichbunny3733 I didn't mean this is her first novel, I know she's written other books, I just meant that she didn't have the experience with this one.
She hyped this book up on tiktok, but obviously couldn't back up her claims while writing it, either because she was rushing like hell due to all the positive attention or genuinely didn't know how to write a series like this one, either one I can understand but am also incredibly annoyed by.
Obviously I can't speak for her, this is just what it seems like to me. My point was that it's a shame how someone can speedwrite a novel, in a genre of which they have no experience in, & get it published with a movie deal immediately. Everyone is saying the book is bad, but they had to have actually bought the book & read it. That's a lot of money going to the publisher, which is all they care about.
And if shitty first drafts make more money than actually finding & publishing good books then what's the point anymore? Just makes trying to be good at writing feel a bit useless
The thing is, publishers want what's sellable, especially nowadays. It's like Disney remaking old movies with good track record hoping that they also make it big today. Tiktokers with big fanbase = guaranteed sales. That's what every publisher/studio wants nowadays.
@@N0noy1989 yeah, that's what I said in my previous reply to Lich Bunny. tiktok hype gets more sales, even if the book ends up shitty with 90% bad reviews. Art has been officially taken over by capitalism. makes me wanna scream
@@N0noy1989 Except that almost never seems to happen. Didn't all of Disney's recent nostalgia bait "live action" remakes totally flop? I haven't heard anyone talk positivitely about the majority of them (except for Cinderella, but it was the first LA remake ever and holds up pretty well); like... we all know they'll age badly with all these CGI scenes, so why even invest in something like this? Did we really need a new Dumbo, Lady & the Tramp or Pinocchio? At least the original movies won't look dated in a couple of years time... Ugh.
Oh, thank god. So many people have only reviewed the drama without actually saying what was in the book. Thanks for stepping up to the plate, James.
He hates hard on the name Azul but I’ve met people with that name so it’s not so unrealistic
This sounds like a fledgling indie author's self indulgent first time out. If you've ever been in an indie writers' group, you know the type. You're probably been the type. They've wanted to write a book for awhile, but they never took the plunge. But, they have some friends that keep hyping them up, so they finally give it a go. They're nervous at first, unsure of themselves, constantly picking the group hive mind for ideas until, slowly but surely, they build confidence. And then, after months of hard work, they're finished. They've written A Book. They go back and read it and- it's trash. Maybe not irredeemable, but it's discouragingly awful. So, they decide that they should get a second set of eyes and show it to their writer friends to see what they think. I suspect this is where Lightlark went wrong.
A good writer friend will encourage the newbie, saying things like "it's a first draft, it's supposed to be awful" and "no one gets it all right the first time." The important thing is that they encourage, while also managing expectations. And then there are the ones who get a heady whiff of their own ego and decide "you know what? Maybe I'm not bad. Maybe I'm so good, no one can understand my genius." And their friends, rather than helping keep them grounded, blow more smoke up their arse until finally, one day, they pull the trigger and decide to publish. Most of the time, the end result is a lamentably bad web novel that no one reads and the author will look back on in shame after a few years. But sometimes, ever so rarely, the right combination of connections and audience come along, and we get something like this.
This was really validating as someone with dreams of writing books and with fears of showing them to people. It helps to de-mistify the fear of rejection to hear that it's gonna happen, and I can keep going regardless.
@@tikki2340 Failure is all part of the process. The important thing is that you keep digging. I’ve been writing for about 15 years now, and it’s only in the last couple that I’ve felt confident enough to start exploring publishing options. I’ve come to love the webnovel format, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, you’ll get there, you just have to be willing to let yourself make mistakes so you can get better.
My Finnish ass bursts in laughter every time James says "Ääpö Säväläinön". But you know, Kudos to Ääpö for being a generous long time supporter of this content.
How do you pronounce it? When I see an "ä" or "ö" I revert to what I learned in German class. I think Finnish looks and sounds interesting, but all the umlauts puzzle me 😂.
@@LittleMissLounge Finns pronounce A the way it is pronounced at the beginning of words like "Alone" or "Abuse". It's actually almost the same as it is in German. Think "Achtung", for example. The Finnish umlauts are a beast I'll spare you from.
In all fairness I would use family connections too to get my book out there or more noticed
I think better curses would've been...
Wildlings: they must consume hearts of any animal to feel emotion (say, love?) I feel like this would get rid of a heart supply issue pretty handily.
Starings - As soon as the first stars are out, the Starlings all fall asleep in a comalike state.
Moonlings - They are forced to never see the moon, running to the ocean if they see it and diving in. In this the moon is the source of their powers.
Sunlings - Sun causes them to go feral
Night... shades - Prolonged darkness causes them to go feral
Skylings - Their power can't be used anywhere that isn't covered or completely overcast and if they do it hurts them
This was a very entertaining review but just one observation: Isla and Azul are actual names in Spanish 💀 I've never met an Isla, but I know many Azul(s?) We have a lot of names that are just colours. Blanca (White), Rosa (Pink), Violeta (Purple), Azul (Blue), Celeste (Cyan)... It may sound stupid if you're not Hispanic but they aren't necessarily stupid.
Being a latino, only Blanca sounds good to me, but maybe it's the Uruguay speaking.
That said, using those names is... unoriginal. It's fantasy, you can do so much better lol
Tbh the real reason the names are stupid is that Azul is leader of the sky kingdom, Celeste of the moon kingdom, Grim of the shadow kingdom … the names (Grim aside) are fine out of context but in context that’s a kid naming their action figures
@@ryokiritani4187 Originality with NAMES of all things is overrated.
There's Isla Fisher
@@ryokiritani4187 another uruguyan here haha. I've met girls named Celeste and Azul, and I actually don't mind the names. But if she's a native English speaker the choice is odd and I cannot really blame the readers if they were taken back by that😅
I'm not gonna lie the one thing i absolutely love about ya novels like this is the ridiculous names. especially if EVERYONE has a weird name, then clearly it's just part of the universe or the way society has grown out of touch with how the world used to be.
Wow, I a British person and long time fan of James Tullos will surely enjoy this new video on the high-profile failure of the novel Lightlark!
I too didn't hear about Lightlark until Hello Future Me's video. To me, the attention this book is getting, as well as others like it, is a sign that the YA dystopia category still has an audience and isn't going away; its effects will be felt for some time. It's really disappointing considering the way the publishing industry seemed to push Lightlark and these types of books because it feels as though they were aware of how mediocre these stories are, but the attention these books always seem to get is what keeps motivating publishers and authors to create them. The fact is, positive or negative reviews are still attention, and still signs that these books are generating audiences and sales. As Hello Future Me states in his video, it seems like the author is being used by an industry that knows her book isn't great but will still generate discourse, attention, and ultimately $.
Azul is a common girl name in my country and in many latin american countries. I think you meant no harm but it is kinda rude to call it a stupid name. It's like calling your child Rose or Hope. Just because it is a pre-existing thing doesn't make it stupid imo.
I actually didn't know that. I think I've seen "Azul" as a middle name, but not a first name. I've always thought it was a pretty word. I agree we need to be careful about calling foreign-to-us names "weird", "stupid", "ugly", etc. Even in a shitty fantasy series. Sometimes writers draw inspiration from real life.
Azul in the book is a cliche gay guy tho, who only wears blue and has blue hair, so literally naming him Azul is so, so, so stupid
He'll be calling the Swedish name Ulf stupid because it's just the Swedish word for wolf.
@@Liggliluff It's not the Swedish word for "wolf". Modern Swedish has "varg" meaning "wolf" while Ulf is a derivative of "ulv" which is an old name for the animal, back when wolves were a genuine threat that humans actively feared. (A lot of dangerous animals had so called noa words that people used instead of the actual name, for fear of somehow conjuring the animal by naming it out loud. "Ulv" was the actual word and "varg" was the noa word, meaning "stranger" or "one that makes violence".)
The name Björn though, that's the actual Swedish word for bear. =)
@@EkwyFields Cool, I didn’t know that.
Bethany Church sounds really funny to me because beten=to pray in German and that's probably how a German with low English proficiency would pronounce that name: Behthaneeh (no "th" sound in German, just a hard "t"). 😂😂😂
When you mentioned "a bunch of random spanish words" I though "oh, maybe one is called 'llanta' or 'queso'" lol Azul (which does mean blue) is an actual name, female tho (since I believe the name is used in a male character) but my point still stands. I did check and it looks like the name "Oro" (gold in spanish) is present. That one is bs haha
Dang dude, British catching a lot of strays in this one.
It feels like that 50 day no killing setup could be made to work, especially if the tournament ends as soon as one participant kills another. It could be 50 days of the various participants making themselves likeable or intimidating enough so that they're not the ones targeted or forging alliances, etc. Alternatively, for the less politically astute participants it could be scouting the area and making some sort of safe space to hide, etc. It sounds like the book did none of these things?
I was thinking something along the lines of you had to kill someone without anyone knowing it was you, because then the first 50 days would be to convince everyone they wouldn't kill and the last 50 days that they didn't kill.
NOOO THE HAIR IT WAS SO LUCIOUS!
Fr ☹️
I cut my hair in January, where have you been?
@@JamesTullos not here obviously
What's better than 16 minutes of James? 17 minutes!
"weird names like Bethany Church"
I feel like I've heard of someone with that name
The sad thing is that this book had some interesting ideas and concepts, but they weren't fleshed out in the slightest. This reads very much like a first draft, which is sad. I don't think the book would have been anything mind blowing or ground breaking in the spectrum of fantasy, but if it had proper time in the oven, it probably would have been an enjoyable read.
What's even worse is that she's written other books, so this isn't even her first book. There is no excuse.
thank you for your service
I subscribed the moment I heard the intro song
The smugness in the way he said _“I’ve read worse”_ lmao at this point he’s a seasoned trash reviewer :’)
"I don't have a TikTok".
This is why you read, James. Never change this.
having tik tok doesn't mean you don't read it's just social media. you're using the Boomer's argument for those damn kids and their social media they never read anymore. which is a horrible argument as book sales have been at record highs for years, book boxes being a common thing, and it oversimplifies humans who can have multiple interests or use social media. do those 110 books I've read this year suddenly stop being read because I have tik tok or other social media no.
@@ayajade6683 i mean it doesnt stop people from reading, it just really eats time. you go to watch one video a friend sent you and 3h later you're still scrolling 🤷♂i think that's what op meant
@@ayajade6683 help why are you so triggered lmfao😭😭
@@Michael-tl7ki op came off as an elitist asshole I don't care their intention they're just an asshole with a Boomer's world view. nothing they say or use as a backpedaled excuse will change the fact they're an asshole with a shit take.
@@yinyin8769 I mean, I don't have tiktok either but they have a point.
Your becoming one of my favourite book reviewers.
"I didn't know about this at all until I saw the Hello Future Me video" so the videos were connected
i just got SO excited seeing you made a video about this book omg
YES. I was hoping you would do a video about this book.
They have a movie lined up for this? Maybe I should feel more confident about my writing...
You're probably the fourth UA-camr I've listened to reviewing this book, and I still don't remember what's in it.
If it becomes a movie the Pitch Meeting for it is gonna be fun!
If it wasn’t for her getting popular on tiktok, no one would be talking about it. However, this book is bad in a special way as I have watched many videos on it and I don’t remember any specifics after the review. It’s not you or any of the other talented reviewers I watch, this book is literally that boring.
I read it. It's absolutely shit but it was so bad to the point I found it entertaining. I just wanted to see how worse it could get. LOL
i was hoping you'd cover this book!
So when I saw this video, I was confused, because I thought i read those book a while ago and thought it was actually pretty good... then I looked it up anr realized that I was thinking about Larklight by Phillip Reeve, a much better book.
Azul is a real name, I knew some girl name like that. Some people just like to use some colors for names I guess
Im so happy you made this video
I am Costa Rican and I know a cat named Azul. Not a common name for people in my country, but it is common in other Spanish speaking countries.
I misread it as "Larklight" and got confused. I never heard of Lightlark before... but I liked Larklight XD
for my ya novel I'll go with name Rando Johnson
One day I sure do hope that our kind host will read something by R.A. Salvatore. Its high fantasy but less stupid. Even if our good host didnt like them Id still love that video.
Hearing my sisters name, Isla, described as stupid brings me a lot of joy
When you said the thorns and roses I thing of ACOTAR even if I haven’t read it yet. It ain’t easy getting books here where I am
Every single time You mentioned the character Oro in My mind i see him as the Funky street fighter character.
A society where everyone dies under the age of 25 would crumble on its own.
Just the decreased timespan to have children alone would be terrible, potentially irrecoverable, depending on fertility and child mortality rates. The society will likely engage in child marriage and they get flooded with orphans. Anyone over 18 would leave a child of maximum 7 years old behind when they die.
There's a reason most senior positions are given to people over 40. Putting aside emotional maturity reasons, people simply will not have time to build up expertise and train the next generation before passing. Your quality of goods and services will suffer if your administrators, craftsmen and trades people have to be replaced every 5-10 years.
At least two children per woman need to survive to have kids of their own if this society is to survive. It's not impossible but that curse would be a serious impediment to any complex society.
wait wait wait
i'll come back and watch this when i'm done reading. brb
That setting sounds really interesting though. What a shame.
Hearing this described just makes me want to read the Sedition arc of Hunter x Hunter.
Here I am sitting down and nodding and agreeing and from nowhere receive a bunch of stray British bullets lol
Definetly more acotar than hunger games lmao
Azul is an actual name in Spanish tho. Actually any of those names could exist in any Latinoamerican country 😬 so they're not really that "random"
Although I do agree they're a little on the nose, but eh, could've been worse
Se podría haber llamado Lluvia de Oro para hacerlo más poético /j
Never buy anything from TikTok
Words to live by
I think the biggest issue with this story is that we see the prophecy, and it doesn’t actually say any of the things the characters say it does. It says nothing about the rulers having to kill each other, and nothing about any kind of reward for the kingdom/ruler who fulfills the prophecy. Like, I get that prophecies are difficult to write. You need to strike a balance between being vague enough that the correct interpretation isn’t immediately obvious and being clear enough that the correct interpretation makes sense when it’s revealed, but if it’s meant to be taken as absolute fact that a prophecy says a specific thing, IT NEEDS TO ACTUALLY SAY THAT THING. That’s, you know, the BARE MINIMUM of writing a prophecy.
Or at least have it be clear that the people pushing those things based on "the prophecy commands!" are lying to hold power.
One of those two things
Your number one British fan agrees!
Lol. Isla was among the most popular baby girl names a few years ago. Thanks to Isla Fisher I think? It has become extremely popular.
I had no idea there was a parody character named Valentine. That’s literally my name LMAO. At least my last name isn’t Neverwoods
I just finished reading this for my book club…almost dropped out of book club 😂
So the central island had people living on it? A curse that says no one lives past 25 sounds like it would be devistating for people like it would decimate a place rapidly.
3:33 I saw a 1.5 hours review of that book, and I swear i forgot 100% of it after it ended, to the point i had to search what was lightlark and then was like "wait, ai already saw a review?"
At first, I confused the title with the children's steampunk book Larklight. Why do so many books have similar titles?
There’s only so many titles you can come up with
The part when he started making fun of the names, I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now. The three he listed in a row sound like they'd fit right into a JRPG, and as we all know those have very normal names.
Kingdom Hearts came into mind immediately, among a few others haha 😂
don't have any plan to read this book but like the review
Isnt the heartrade way worse and they neey 2 hearts a month and they never explored the heart industry? Its worse than falling in love. Not that that was explored. I heard.
But might make a good story if anyone wants to steal, how do you get hearts?!
Grim dark , haha , was not the king.
Say what you will, but I saw Alex Aster last weekend at the 2023 Miami Book Fair, she was part of a three author YA fantasy panel. The room was packed, and of the three her line was the longest. People spent over an hour in it, in the burning Florida weather. Says a lot.
Were they there for Aster or for anyone else there?
Could you please do a review of Heavens Official's Blessings?
I started this book and only made it to the second chapter sooo
I thought this was about Larklight, the fun pulpy sci-fi novel by Philip Reeve. Read that instead.
This actually sounds more like Mortal Kombat than Hunger Games. She's young and she has something here. Nicholas Sparks started with mediocre reviews. The movies were better than the books.
2:03 - Why did that made me laugh?!
Gotta bookmark this for later😂
I think the takeaway here is it's probably not interesting enough for me to read for badness or goodness.
Not gonna lie, I would absolutely LOVE to hear your thoughts on ACOTAR if you ever decided you felt like reading it.
I hope he reads decent books every once and awhile, all the shit he reads can't be good for the mind XD
Best book tuber ever 🗽🗽🗽🗽
The brightness of your shirt just emphasizes the lack of luster this book is giving off.
I mean, I've seen franchises with characters named "Azul", but they're more contextual and not all in your face, like an OC you made in second grade and is all blue, so I guess, if this was better written, it would've worked.
Someone needs to sue her.
Please put The Introduction Song in its very own #UA-camShort please!
him: "This books is kinda bad."
me: "you are selling me harder on this book."
James Tullos has unironically made me interested in reading awful books. Just this year, I've slogged through The Selection, Save The Pearls, True Allegiance, and Throne of Glass
@@Aurelian369_ that sounds miserable
About time!! 😆
I can't say I comprehend the mentality of anyone who gets book recommendations off TikTok
I have a random writer question for ppl in the comments that doesn't pertain to the book but-- if a book has a tournament in it, will it automatically be considered a "hunger games rip-off" to a lot of folks? My book that I want to self-publish is inspired by Hunter x Hunter (anime) with an exam-type tournament that involves killing, but I'm afraid people will consider it a hunger games rip-off simply bc of the word "tournament." Let me know opinions pls!
I was about to mention that the tournament arc is heavily used in a lot of anime! It's very much a shonen common place so unless you're writing a "hunt each other" type of tournament I would think you're fine
When I think Hunger Games I think battle royale style killings (last alive wins) plus the spectacle surrounding the competition, plus authoritarian government. If it's HxH inspired I think none of those elements apply.
This color suits you
Agree :)
the funny thing is that grim isn't even the king of lightlark, that's some other guy whose name I don't remember
Oro I think?
omg i couldnt help but peep ur poster, is that berserk?
funny enough azul is like. an actual name. i live in argentina and i once had two classmates named azul and celeste (blue and light blue)
Can you please review “mine were of trouble” it’s so good.