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I'm not even 2 minutes in but "she ran like she was running from something" has already taken me out.

I hate how people assume YA is supposed to be poorly written. Like it being for children doesn't mean it has to suck.

Love how the author recreated reservations by “consolidating the savages” who “willingly gave their homes to the volunteers”. Very cool very nice

I swear Oro was like a 60 year old man that may or may not look like the Burger King in my head....

Intro to Grim in book 1: gives her chocolate which scares her because shes not supposed to eat anything but hearts but he already knows she doesnt eat hearts Book 2: The Wildlings have a chef! And patisserier! They love chocolate!

I ah....was not prepared for the character art where everyone looks 16 years old and like they've never been troubled by more than a late chemistry paper or a chipped nail.

Ill be really sad if the next book isnt "NightLight - the LarkBane"

It has the same stupid “love triangle” vibes that ACOTAR has that made me DNF the series. Grim just feels like off brand Rhysand.

Wouldn't it have made more sense to have had Oro and Isla have a previous relationship, that Grim made both her and Oro forget so he could make Isla fall in love with him instead. I don't even like romance books but that makes more sense than having Grim flirt with Isla constantly when he's the one who took her memories for seemingly no reason.

I ranted about this in someone else’s review of _Nightbane,_ but in my opinion, transitioning the Wildling people from an all-heart diet to a regular food diet is a far more complex and interesting plot idea than whatever _Nightbane_ is about. Didn’t Wildlings only have to eat a few times a week or month? I would be so mad if I went from being able to subsist on one heart a week to having to eat three times a day.

So, let me get this straight: Isla figures out that she’s in love with Rhysand by being able to tap into his power. This implies a protagonist so divorced from her emotions that she can only understand them via a magical macguffin. Ok. Cool. I’ll buy this. I’ve met people who can really only process and understand their emotions by intellectualizing them. This is a thing. (In the hands of a better author potentially an excellent thing.) But then it turns out that she was so emotional that the raw emotionality of her magic wiped out a bunch of tusken raider children or whatever. Hey, Aster? These are two different characters. It would have been so cool if Isla was, in fact, so divorced from her feelings that every time she said she loved Oro, he couldn’t get a read on her with his billionth superpower - because even she doesn’t know what she feels. What a cool way to for once counter a magical ability not with MORE ad hoc magic-ex-machina, but rather an attempt at real characterization instead.

"Grim is the only thing standing between us and a greater danger you can't even begin to fathom." And it turned out to be Grim's own jealous temper tantrum

I didn’t see the “readers” tattoo on the opening art at first so my sleepyhead brain thought the image meant to say “reviews are for beetles” 😂

Okay okay. I talked about this during the premiere of crow callers review but I HAVE to bring up the character art again WHY. IS. ISLA. TINY. Strength can come in many shapes and sizes, and there absolutely are athletes and such who are skinny, but she is a god damn swordswoman! She’s been training since she was like 3!! GIVE HER SOME MUSCLE also Oro looking like. that. Makes me weirdly uncomfortable. I was imagining him at least a little bit more battleworn, considering he’s. 500+ years old and a warrior. GRIM? THATS the guy we’re supposed to believe is a war criminal, a mastermind? If you’re gonna make the king of a realm whose style is basically just “slutty rave goths”, DEDICATE. Again, aster has written a character who should nor physically be a tank, so PUT HIM *IN* A TANK. give that guy some black lace and funky pants PLEASE And don’t even get me STARTED on Celeste and Cleo- they look identical!! Without the names I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one is which, it’s infuriating. Cleo is, again, a 500+ y/o warrior, WHY does she look exactly like the supposedly -25 y/o pretty princess Celeste. She should be a little worn from battle, from past centennials, from being involved with her GOD DAMN NAVY Azul, oh Azul my boy I’m so sorry. Why is he grey. Please. Why is he grey. I’m fine with everything else, the outfit doesn’t make sense but at least it looks kinda neat, but he is so desaturated it’s baffling To be clear, the art style itself is very nice I just. These designs. Oh god these designs.

I will stand by the saying: ✨️Keep it simple, stupid.✨️ Characters + World is complex, but the plot is *simple* and as a Writer myself, it should be encouraged to reread your first book/notes before continuing to the sequel.

I get Aster wanting to make the main character royalty so that she can dress her up and so there’s fashion/aesthetic content for the fandom to pull from. But why are there royals in this world at all? Clearly rulers don’t do much since isla can be locked in a room forever with no political or social repercussions for the wildlings. Do the wildlings even like her? Isla’s living expenses had to be paid somehow so I assume her people were paying for her care. But if they liked their queen enough to pay for her lifestyle, why didn’t anyone care when she disappeared from public life? The royalty thing is just so flimsy. I’d be so pissed if I had to serve a monarch who gets all the fun magic, super long lifespan, and does nothing but be pampered while everyone else is screwed over by these curses. It could have been cool if the world/magic system was more hostile towards the people or there was some type of trade off for the magic/powers of each isle?Maybe having powers hurts or there’s some other consequence. And so each group chose a bloodline to kinda take on the consequence of the magic so the rest of the people could live normally? Like maybe Isla is the only wildling with the love kills/heart eating curse and because of that the rest of the wildlings only get the good aspects of wildling magic?

I"m just now realising that the character names sound like they belong in a middle grade book - Oro (gold) Rey (king): Sunling ruler and King of lightlark - Grimshaw (dark wood) Malvere (falsely): Nightshade ruler, name could not sound more evil - Celeste (heavenly): Starling ruler - Azul (blue): Skyling ruler There's nothing wrong with naming characters to match their role/job, it's just a practice that is better suited to children's books.

"... The wand, not the children 😌" 😂😂😂, thank you for clarifying!

another video that reminds me that the only thing stopping me from finishing a book is me. so much bad stuff gets published all the time, why shouldn’t i publish my bad stuff?

This honestly sounds like a preteen's first attempt at writing fantasy (i.e. my first attempt at writing fantasy which was just as full of confusing and poorly thought out worldbuilding and clumsy plot progression, plot holes galore, bad descriptions etc etc)

i keep getting shocked at how aggressively on-the-nose their names are. like. it seems like a bit. isla crown???

for some reason, the official description/art of Oro pisses me off. In the same way as 'a 100000-year-old dragon but in a little girl's body' does. (kinda, cause that crap pisses me off more than this). He's this 500-year-old king who been in battles. Make this guy look older, give him facial hair, give this man some scars! Come on!

To be fair, the whole “Grim is holding back something worse” being retconned is also an ACOTAR holdover, in the sense that in book 1 they kept saying that “Amarantha is only the beginning and there’s so much worse out there” and there really wasn’t. Amarantha was the only worthy Big Bad they ever faced.

9:07 She spoke like she was saying something

I want this series to be adapted by Shyamalan. He is the only one who can possibly understand Aster's yolky genius 🤭

As a writer, one of my biggest fears is that I will forget when and what important information is revealed and to whom it's given and who said it. As a result, I have endless charts and documents tracking all important info. God help me if I ever wrote an entire book based on forgetting some important information that was revealed in a previous book! I would be mortified.

I can not wait for if you try to explain this book to Carlos. Those videos are just “Ahh time to rewatch my fav bookish comfort videos. Watching Rachel and Carlos rip apart objectively awful books.” Also I hope you explain the Christmas novella to him around Christmas. Like “Merry Christmas this novella has weird flying sky sex”

YA used to be so good 😭 YOUNG GIRLS DESERVE WELL WRITTEN FICTION

I have been abstaining from other nightbane content…..for the prophecy foretold this day………. 🙌🏻 ❤

man... when I got the notification for this video I ran like I was running from something

So I was listening to this as I was cleaning my dishes and I thought, “Hm. This sounds like the author actually wanted to create a fantasy webcomic, but thought writing a book would be easier.” AND THEN I LOOKED AT THE SCREEN 😂 There is NO WAY this author doesn’t read Isekai manga/manhwa (those who know, know lmao). She’s not writing a story, she’s writing character designs. A lot of the problems in this series would be mitigated (but not erased) if it were in a visual medium. Poor writing in comics sometimes gets tolerated if the art is good enough. Subpar art might be tolerated if the story is good enough. When it comes to novels? You can’t “pretty dress” your way out of technical problems. Writing might be technically “easier” than drawing (as in it’s a skill that’s often more accessible since most of us start learning it early) but that doesn’t mean it’s not still hard af to craft a good story. And I’d say reading books is so much more involved than reading comics (I can say that, I’m an artist). People are gunna notice when something doesn’t make any sense, especially if the prose is bad. they won’t be as willing to overlook mistakes.

Continued proof that she barely had enough of an idea for the first book and was scrambling to construct the second by any means (retconning) necessary.

A better way to make this love triangle work would be Grim and Isla actually do love one another. But for plot reasons they both had to forget about it and the love was thinly painted over with antagonism via magic. Oro doesn’t love Isla but for the SAME plot reasons had his legitimate feelings of affection for a daughter figure painted over with love via same magic. Then Isla had her legitimate feelings of the affection of a friend and surrogate dad turned to romantic love. If all three of these set all of this in motion BEFORE the start of the first book and both books were about uncovering all of this and the reasons why they would choose to do this it would make a better book/love triangle. Maybe not a particularly GREAT book, but certainly better and more well thought out/put together.

Honestly the whole 'where are they getting the hearts' could very easily be solved with something that Aster already wrote: The starlings, who all die at 25. I dont know what people are doing with the bodies of dead starlings, other than there's probably way more corpses on starling than any other islands just by nature of how these lifespans seem to work, but there eventually becomes the issue of 'where do you put them' and shipping them off to the wildlings seems like an efficient way of solving two problems at once. It would even create an excuse for why Isla would know Celeste despite her isolation and even feel a sense of loyalty for her, given she's helping her people not starve (I fully dont remember how Isla and Celeste met in the first book and honestly dont care). And yeah thats MORBID but if you're going to do this whole "uniquely terrible curses" angle then getting into the details would definitely help sell the idea.

I thank you for your sacrifice because I cannot, in good conscience, give this series money but I still want to know how bad it is lol

I couldn't take this book seriously because my dog's name is Grimm so every time he was mentioned I would picture my anxiety-ridden Schipperke. 😆

I remember watching your original review on Lightlark, as well as other reviews of it, and thinking “not only is this book just generally not good, it is also incompetent at being a story and a book.” I’m so pleased that you are getting into that here using actually good writing advice.

a braver writer would've killed isla off, made an oro x grim romance, and made oro black (i honest to goodness thought oro was black in every review i've watched)

[SJM spoilers ahead] From the perspective of someone who unfortunately remembers ACOMAF almost page-by-page, my guess is that the reason everyone assumes Grim is evil is that everyone assumed Rhysand was. In ACOMAF there’s a scene where Feyre spies a map on his wall, and without any context she starts begging him not to invade the human realms. Because his eeeevil reputation precedes him. This is also why there was a secret off-page marriage that gets dramatically revealed by Grim at the end of book 2. This is exactly what happened at the end of ACOMAF (and also at the end of Empire Of Storms). And I don’t think I even need to address the whole “She died so he brought her back by forming a bond between them and tethering their life force to one another.” And then she just pulls a Crescent City at the end with the whole “we actually came from a different world” nonsense, except Alex Aster doesn’t have other series, so nobody cares and this reveal doesn’t matter.

Thank You! BookTok has lost its mind and needs to stop recommending sequel books like Nightbane and Iron Flame.

i'm out of the target audience for YA now but i can't imagine late-teen/early-20's me genuinely enjoying half the booktok trends that get marketed today without putting herself into a reading slump forcing herself to finish 😭

I usually feel like I understand the plot of a book pretty well after you explain it, but this one? No clue what’s going on. Sounds like that’s how this series be.

here we go, get your popcorn, start a counter for yolky things, it's time!

I can't believe they confirmed her name is pronounces Eyes-la. That's... not how you say it. Source: I'm Isla

0:59 Will never forget describing the ocean as soup 😂

This is, as the kids say, my Roman Empire!

"I'm going to go drink" mood honestly

I just wanted to say that you look SO good with black lipstick!!! Your makeup is always so great

Your frequent uploads lately have been a GODSEND Rachel. I made the (terrible, stupid, ridiculous) decision to crochet gifts for everyone in my family and it's officially crunch time to get them done, and your videos are always the perfect thing to watch while I do it

"Silly goose business" is kind of an amazing pull quote.

33:52 Like I said in one of Lou's videos, it would be like if I wrote about a Goldling from the Goldling Isle who is greedy, has a hooked nose and works in a bank and has to be taught by "regular" people how to distribute money. I wouldn't be subverting anything; I'd be hurting my own people.

If there is one thing I hate about these royalty-fantasy based YA books is how much the royalty characters are either morons who don't know a goddamn thing despite being a ruler of a people (Isla) or their political situation is so MC centric that it doesn't make any feasible sense when interacting with other rulers (Literally Rhysand and the inner circle). The lack of idk, state craft, like the way that rulers and states interact with each other, makes this whole attempt at political intrigue stupid and lackluster. We see how Isla (cough Alex Aster cough) has no clue about Wildlings bc of her isolation from the two caretakers/abusers, that's fine and a legit explanation, but then Aster puts no effort into Isla actually learning and doing right by them or the starlings. I'm not saying that it would be interesting to read but this is showing how poorly thought out this is. But no they have this war thing to fight, even though it was poorly established and why tf would anyone want to fight for a ruler who they don't know and isn't solving your problems that have been a thing for a while. It's insane😮

This just sounds like a SJM knockoff. As in, nothing makes sense or really happens.

Something that has been bothering me with books like Lightlark and Nightbane is that some publishers and writers are pushing for YA/Teen books to appeal (and marketing) to mostly 20 years old and older (maybe cause these publishers and writers see that teens are not as likely to have a stable disposable income especially in this messed up economy) and to the detriment of teen readers who are more than smart enough to be annoyed knowing when books are being written and marketed for a different audience than them but claiming its for their demographic. Then the publishers chose to price out those teen readers out of books meant for them by refusing to release the paperbacks for the new releases of YA/Teen books and the book industry wonder why it is having a hard time getting newer readers and being able to keep them. It's madness I tell you.

6:27 theres just something special when the author cant even get the main characters name right

Thank you for clarifying that the bubble wand went in the trash and not the children 😂

As you were talking about the characters having no reason to be in love and the fact that we never saw the actual unfolding of the relationship, I had a strange epiphany. Does this kind of "we just met and are in love now" happen so often in lazily written, tropey books as a result of compulsory heteronormativity? This might be a reach, but if it's a given to a straight person that the universal experience is "You Will Meet a Boy/Girl and Love Happens" with little complication, some authors may not feel the need to fill in the gaps. "Don't worry about how, this is A Thing That Happens so I wrote it down because characters do that in stories." I'd think this would be especially true if they are very young authors with relatively little life experience. Again, I feel like I might be reaching, this could be too broad a statement to make, but I feel like this comment section might feel me. As a disclaimer, I am not assuming to know Aster's sexuality and am fully aware that comphet absolutely can hit any one of us without us knowing, no matter where we land.

@37:51 - Idk why my gut reaction was to say “Are you lost baby girl?” I’m so disappointed in myself 😅

I hate how every time Aster touches a touchy topic like indigenous people (and subsequently reservations), chattel slavery, what seems like a poor understanding of the Underground Railroad (or maybe it was just a coincidence), child abuse, abuse from romantic partner, grooming, monarchies , having diaspora despite living on the same land as your people etc. she manages to mess it up. It’s at best something she ignores like everything about Grim and at worse makes you wonder what type of person she is in real life. Like why where the Starlings, whom have gone through literal hundreds of years of chattel slavery, suddenly looking at Isla like a literal goddess/savior. As if the Wildlings wouldn’t be the biggest offenders of their enslavement. I mean the math still ain’t mathing but the Wildlings eating Starling hearts wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination. Just look at what slave owners did in real life and remember that they don’t even have a curse. Edit: going off the assumption that the Wildlings were definitely big offenders of Starling’s slavery they would also know how to do agricultural. Or at least the slaves would. Because if you keep killing slaves you’re going to need new ones and since this is chattel slavery breeding farms would be a thing and you need food for that. Also we know that starling slaves were at least around Wildlings because of that whole off-brand Underground Railroad thing that’s mentioned when at the wildling palace… Aster never thought twice about the implications of Starlings going through slavery and and Wildlings literally needing hearts to eat and it shows. The fact that there aren’t certian sects/tribes of Wildlings known for having a robust slave trade and organ market is crazy.

You mentioned after ghosts were introduced that too much was going on. I don't think that's the issue. Fantasy worlds should be rich and immersive. The problem with Aster is that there is no depth or connections between aspects of her world-building. She just takes a bunch of concepts that she likes and whip-stiches everything together without much thought. So when she introduces something new, it feels like it came out of nowhere rather than adding another interesting layer to the world. It falls back on the fact that she's an awful writer, that and I'm convinced her editor is actively doing Aster dirty. 🤣 The prose are so bad, at what point can we start talking about sabotage? 🤣🤣

36 mins in and i literally guarantee if i tried to run a dnd campaign with this as the plot (as it is, no corrections) i would get absolutely clowned on. i don't think this would've even popped off on wattpad back in the day bro

I think about my fav childhood books, books I think are well written, like The Phantom Tollbooth, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and the Wrinkle in Time series. Compare those to "She ran like she was running from something". Those are actually in the Kids' section, versus this as YA. That's one hell of a downslide.

"They had to go into the trash, not the children, the bubble wand" had me spitting out my coffee on my keyboard pleaseeee 😭also that lazy line, "she ran like she was running from something," sounds like something i would get tattooed also, the vomit of magic and powers in this book is enough to make 5 different books with hugely different plots. but the excessive plot holes are too much, you're leaving readers with a lot more question marks than answers or conclusion.

I love that the sponsor became an interactive sponsor; she used her skill share class knowledge! Btw I hope you recover well from your renal aka kidney infection.

I simultaneously have great self-esteem when even this can get published (then so can I) and also great horror because THIS can get published?? Her writing makes me feel literally nothing except sometimes confusion, which makes me annoyed. Great video as always dude!

I feel like I lost brain cells listening to the plot of this book. What even? I can't believe you made it all the way through.

38:35 lol "parts of the castle" could literally mean like a single tile or a door hinge

“She ran like she was running from something-“ GIRL I- Why are you running?!? 🤣

dear lord the flare thing irks me so much cuz I see potential for it!! having it be for people in high standing can work and have the flares correlate to what they need when theyre under an extremely pressured situation!! oros being able to tell lies can make sense if ppl are vying for his power, grims teleporting can work for an unstable safety i can see some potental and it upsets me

Wouldn't it be hilarious if they weren't actually eating human hearts and were just eating beets or something and there was a translation error? The whole kingdom could be vegetarian and everyone thinks they're cannibals because they eat something that they named based in its resemblance to a heart.

I've literally been counting down the minutes until this upload, going to binge watch this now 🙌🏿

Getting me through the last hour of my shift thank you girl 🙏

I got in on your last month offer. I love Skillshare now. I just learned how to e-paint. Thank you!

These books sound straight up like a fever dream. Not a god damn bit of it makes sense.

it's a Christmas miracle 🙇🏻‍♀️🙌🏻🏃🏻‍♀️ so keen to watch this so I can giggle and kick my feet at the nonsense whilst not having to suffer through it myself❤️

This was wacky as hell, you really are the bravest among us for putting yourself through this ridiculous book. Thank you for the unhinged plot summary, hope you read something amazing soon to cleanse the palette!

You know what I hate about all this…the book titles are actually pretty eye catching!! What is a lightark,what is a nightbane,I like book titles that make me curious about what it means and what it could be about before picking it up to read the description. Alex your good at making neat titles,but you gotta improve your craft girl,we’re not hating on your work,we want you to improve and be better

i appreciate you so much for bringing tangible aspects from your sponsor reads into the rest of the video. that is testament that this service is actually worth my time

WE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!

I've never had the urge to read either of these books, but listening to this just cements that thought. I feel like I've definitely read far better fanfiction than this convoluted plot of characters and attempted world building.

Th-th-THAT'S what Oro looks like?!? Sure he's immortal, but shouldn't Mr. King of Everybody look a *bit* older than a middle school hall monitor?

I really enjoyed your "collab" with the skillshare guy and your applying what you learned in his course to your review of this book. Was a very good format, I appreciate you doing the work to analyze...it's clearly more than this book deserves, but still...👍😁💜

The way I’ve been waiting for this video

I wonder if Alex Aster wanted to title these books "Lightling" and "Nightling", but that was the only thing her editor said no to. (side note this video didn't show up in my subscription box, which was weird because that's never happened before.)

THANK YOU for calling her eye-la. My brain couldn’t take it anymore

I read the opening card as Reviews are for Beetles 😑

yay yay i was looking forward to this review!!! also after just reading lightlark (for the bit lol) i think you're 100% right about oro/isla having no relationship ground to stand on. also grim wiping her memories only to flirt with her. like. how rad would it have been for grim to keep distance and pine from afar while isla slowly falls for oro & is unable to deny the fact that she's weirdly attracted to this other guy who won't give her the time of day but is actually working behind the scenes to help her (grim)?? and then when we find out at the end they were together isla is like "no, i could've never loved you. you aren't as *good* as oro" blah blah blah playing into grim's insecurities and yeah

me 40min into the video: WE'RE ONLY 25% IN?!?!?!

i've been waiting for this one omg

Oh my God I pictured Oro in the same way! I was so confused by the end after he'd almost gotten her killed MULTIPLE times throughout the book and shadow boy just withheld information.

58:03 made me audibly laugh out loud 😭. I was just editing some writing w this playing on the side and it took me so off guard.

i cannot emphasize enough how much more interesting the character descriptions of "If she cant end the curse this centennial will be her last" and "his smile is a mask and his jewels are deception" sound at least on the surface and how lightlark could've at least have been a passable plot & even romance if those were our main characters. like a protagonist who has an actual life or death reason to want to save her people and herself and has a reason to be clueless bc theres no adults paired with a love interest who's cunning but actually laughs and jokes and flirts with a smile instead of a scowl? almost revolutionary at this point

I‘m just reading „Reviews are for beetles“ and that’s fine too. Books for bugs. But also no more lightlark.

I was waiting for this video ever since I foud out there was a sequel. Which was like a week ago lol.

It's such a shame that this book series is so bad because "it was a demiplane the whole time" is such a fun twist, I love offshoot worlds and having a character not be from the main world and only know the demiplane could have been so cool I don't think I could get through the books and suspend my disbelief enough for this series though :/

Some thoughts as I watch your video: Why are they letting a nineteen year old girl rule TWO kingdoms? Since the curse is broken I guess people can visit lightlark but what was keeping people from lightlark except for the centennials? The curses? I swear she just comes up with random stuff as she writes which is fine but you need to decide what is actually important to character development and the plot. This could’ve been so much better if she didn’t try to shove so much into two books.

This whole review is hilarious and i appreciate the commentry so much, but for some reason every time you mention the chefs I completely lose it 😂😂😂

I hope ypu decide to do another postive review again soon. I love seeeing your positive thoughts

This is the Mystery Science Theater 3000/RiffTrax of books I don't want to read. Thank you for the entertainment.