Lightlark 2: The Worst YA Book Returns With Vengeance

Aw heck yeah. Here we go again lads. Lightlark by Alex Aster... 2! NIGHTBANE. Is it any better? Did I lose my mind? How is this video shorter when the script is longer? DON'T ASK ME.

Are the tiktok kids even losing their minds about this one anymore? Does anyone even remember lightlark? Or is it just my curse to bear?

Opened a Discord server. Check it!
Editing by: @Astrotorical

My books:
Good Angel/Bad End
(YA angel/demon friendship LGBT apocalypse weirdness duology)
Angel Radio
(Post Apocalyptic horrorterror angels adventure YA horror)

Check em:

00:00:00 Start
00:01:03 True start
00:02:45 Lightlark Primer
00:19:12 ORO
00:52:24 GRIM
01:37:21 Reflection
01:39:47 Together
02:05:41 Plottify Wrapped
02:09:22 Intermission
02:09:33 Lore
02:30:58 Characters
02:44:35 Seductive Haunts
02:48:20 Why Why Why
02:52:12 Conclusion
03:02:12 End

[NaRandall]

You might say that the author is the bane to your existence, both a cure and curse. It’s almost like the books existence both hurts you and brings you value, like some kind of bane/cure/curse thing. Almost as if you’re in some kind of eternal infinite cyclical something in which this book is your bane, your counterpart both a cure and a curs—

[cogmouse]

For some reason "You will dream of me touching you. With my hands." absolutely fucking killed me. Actual laugh out loud.

[maddy]

grim telling isla about his traumatic upbringing really was just him saying "when i was 6 i was forced to eat cement"

[kayejk]

2 Light 2 Lark: Grimcel and the Wench Throne

[Waspinmymind]

I feel like the forced to wear revealing clothing trope comes from the fact that women can’t admit to wanting to wear sexy clothes unless they’re deemed a slut.

[demongoose]

The next book is going to be an extended 500-page Grim/Isla love scene. Then the epilogue will helpfully explain why Oro was actually secretly evil and abusive the whole time, and how Grim never did a single thing wrong in his entire life, so it's actually okay that Oro's entire purpose in the story was to die unceremoniously off screen and get cucked by Bargain Bin Rhysand

[fridaythirteen]

Ok I know this is still technically supposed to be a YA novel, but I feel like Grim's whole dumb "pain makes you stronger" deal would have been so much more interesting if Aster had just had the guts to make him a full-on masochist, like sexually. Hear me out:

- Avoids glamorizing SH with the whole "enduring pain is Morally Good and also literally makes you a powerful wizard" thing; instead it just turns him on which is all anybody's reading for anyway.

- Canonically, this all comes from a formative childhood experience where he endured ritualized public punishment to win daddy's approval. That is like, a perfect lab-engineered scenario to give somebody a fetish.

- Adds a fun little twist to his existing power dynamic with Isla, where he's the gruff bad boy protector in regular life, but during sex he allows himself to be extremely vulnerable and she's in charge. Maybe Isla discovers that after having every single aspect of her life thus far dictated for her by others, being in control is exactly what she wants, and perhaps even starts exercising more agency in the actual plot as a result! Also Aster can write some long-winded descriptions of Isla's sexy dominatrix outfits or whatever.

- Makes all those wound-tending scenes a little less pointless if at least they get to be horny about it.

[Timbeon]

I like how the Nightshade land is supposed to be this edgy wretched hive of debauchery and sin, but it just sounds like the Hot Topic and Spencer's Gifts shops you can find at any suburban mall in America

[wajmgirl]

I am so confused with how helpless Isla seemingly is all the time in this book. Like, the first book went on and on and ON about who trained she was and how badass she was with sword and daggers and FUCKING NINJA STARS… and yet she’s constantly getting bodied by random NPCs

[royalscholar]

The thing about Enemies to Lovers is it's meant to be a relationship ARC. there is meant to be stages and progression. It is about starting off opposed to another character, perhaps even thinking them a monster, and then the narrative stripping down their preconceived motions of each other through their interactions. They learn to humanize each other, and this eventually grows into caring and pater love.

But so many times Enemies to Lovers just means that there is Some Guy who is a sexy asshole that abused and hurts the MC in a way that she hates but secretly finds so sexy until she finally just Gives In and admits that him being a jackass turns her on, actually. Oh and he kills a random rapist for her at some point.

It's just so boring.

[NiamhNomen]

"The falling from a hot air balloon to riding d**k pipeline" had me dying.

[thoopsy]

When Grim attacked the person Isla was about to bang consensually out of pure jealousy, I had to stop, eat a bagel, then come back. Because I was so flabbergasted.

[dustrose]

How does it feel to have better drip than anything in the lightlark universe

[Yessa-Tessa]

I enjoy the implication in that first minute or so of the video that Crow just hangs out in a dark unfinished basement between posting these.

[bp]

Forget all this mess, now I want a book about an Uber friendship polycule

[vanilloia]

lmao, 'cleo is too bitchy to attend meetings so she sends some random dude', so there really can be only 1 (one) woman around?

[nunyabiznes]

"People usually have multiple friends" ok NOW we're in the realm of fantasy

[JuniperJadePR]

Ah yes, it is time for a 3 hour essay of my favorite book: Nightbark featuring Woman Named After Boat, GOLD, Edgelord McEdgy, The Color Blue, and Cleo going to seductive haunts.

[frogmaiden]

I thought it was kind of interesting how they turned the plant into a drug and a healing medicine, but the fact that they just keep bringing it up in the most ham fisted way ever, makes it feel like they're slapping me with a wet fish

[pencilline]

grim's backstory is that he was horrifically abused and that's why you have to feel bad for him, but isla's backstory is also that she was horrifically abused so to make him seem sympathetic he has to have been abused *even harder*. oh your guardians left you hanging from a tree? well mine SKINNED ME ALIVE. in front of my DAD. so there