I had an itch to read a trainwreck of a straight romantasy, and when I heard the author of Lightlark was coming out with her adult romantasy debut, I knew I wouldn’t have to look any further. If you are like me, and you are in search of a book so poor, so laughable, so woeful that it’s hilarious, then I urge you to pick up this book. If you are in search of quite literally anything else, then you need to keep looking, because Starside has absolutely nothing redeeming about it. As a little disclaimer, when consolidating all of my gripes with this book I really came to understand just why that infamous Lightlark critique video on YouTube is over seven hours long, because the amount of notes I made while reading are simply too much to include in one single review. This is to say that for every point I make here, I could make at least three more. Also, I read this book in ill-faith. This review 100% reflects my intentions.

This was my first Aster book, and I’d heard from others about the poor quality of her writing, and I’m happy to say that this met my desperately low expectations. Even though this is an adult novel, Starside reads like poorly written YA, except for the word “fuck” thrown in at every available instance and, of course, the explicit content. The language is simple and uninspired. Aster will utilise the same descriptions constantly; weapons are always described as “glorious”, everything during the Heartfall Ball scene is described as “glimmering”, Raker is “brutal” during sex with Aris seven times in the same scene. The oversaturation of certain words is incredibly disruptive of the reading experience. And do not get me started on the word orb – I’m banning it. Every single time I came upon a word that was highly repeated I was wrenched out of a story that I was never really very immersed in to begin with.

The same applies for Aster’s formatting of action sequences on the page, where she will end a sentence with an em dash, and then continue the sentence with a new paragraph for pause and dramatic effect. For example: “I run and jump just like he did, reaching out– And his fingers lock around mine.” Aster employs this format constantly, and maybe the first one or two times it was an effective way of leaving the reader wondering what will happen for just a moment longer. But after those initial instances, it becomes so glaringly obvious as a technique that it no longer lands. It instead highlights Aster’s lack of versatility and skill as a writer – was there no other way for her to achieve the same effect in a different way?

Both the repetition of word choice and formatting makes me question the level of editorial involvement, because there are some mistakes in this book that are just unforgiveable. The word Centennial appears once in this book, which is of course the name of the trial in Lightlark, not Starside. How something from one of Aster’s other books ended up in this one is beyond me, and may be one of the worst mistakes I’ve seen in a book to date. Other little things like words being missing from sentences that render them completely senseless (i.e, “According to Vander’s endless texts, they were formed by sons and daughters of the gods were strong enough to claim the first skylarks”… what???) and Aris’ narration contradicting itself (“he twirls me” followed by “he gently turns me for my first spin” on the same page in the same scene) are all the things that should be picked up by an editor that completely disturb the reading experience. The amount of small mistakes and a mistake as big as having the name of the competition from another book makes me wonder how many rounds of editing this book really received. This is a major publication under a major publishing house, and I genuinely think readers deserve better value for their money.

In regards to character, I’ll start with speaking about Aris, since her character and her narration/the narration style sort of come under the same umbrella. One of my first gripes with Aris’ character is that we do not see an adequate amount of her suffering relative to her strength. Aris of course does go through hardship, but in this instance, I am speaking of her physical capabilities. Aris does not have to work hard for her victories; countless times she narrowly avoids getting shot or sliced by sheer luck, in most situations she comes narrowly close to fatality, but it’s so repetitive that in every case you know her plot armour is going to save her. The only time where we genuinely see her struggle with consequence is during her encounter with the saberwolves in the Bone Woods (prime example of Aster’s less-than-stellar naming within her worldbuilding, but I’ll touch on that later), where she is significantly injured with seemingly no way out. I was really intrigued to see how Aster would have Aris escape this scenario, because I will only truly believe a character is strong when I see them (with reason to back it up) get back up after they’ve been pushed to the dirt. However, in this instance, she is saved by Raker. Aris is frustratingly dependant on him; he brings them food (when he shares), he trains her, provides her with information about Starside, and he saves her countless times. Aris does make a lot of decisions throughout the story, but lacks a lot of agency in relation to Raker.

Another instance where I really expected Aris to struggle was the Heartfall ball; Vander gives her an extremely skimpy dress to wear, and after having to cover up her entire body for practically her whole life out of fear of being killed by the king’s guard, I anticipated this to be a huge point of contention for Aris. If I were her – if I’d kept my body hidden to the same extremes, and suddenly I had to put myself on display in front of a massive crowd wearing a dress so revealing – I personally think I would vomit. I’d expect any character to have nothing short of a meltdown after being shoved into the deep end not learning how to swim. But Aris does not struggle with this at all. Aster writes her putting on this dress, and saying that she’s no longer going to hide, as a sort of “girl-boss” power move moment, but since there is no struggle, it comes across as hollow, surface-level, and entirely unearned. Additionally, it is Vander who tells Aris that she is beautiful, and it is only once he’s said that she is something to be admired that Aris gains these extreme and unfounded levels of confidence, once more only progressing through the story due to the support of a male character.

The common denominator of both of my above points is that Aris tends to tell us about her capabilities rather than showing us solid proof. Not only does Aris tell us most of what is needed to know, she generally overexplains, stating the obvious instead of trusting the reader, and I for one hate when a book treats me as though I am stupid. On the flip side, Aris will also provide the reader with information that is a completely out-of-bounds of the limitations of her first-person narrative, with lines like “her eyes widening as she realized no one was coming to save us” (how do you know that’s exactly why her eyes widened?) and “her eyes glazed over with memory” (how do you know a memory specifically is why they’re glazed?), I could go on. The narration is simply all over the place – the reader does not have to have everything spoon-fed to them.

Moving on to Raker; this man was absolutely unredeemable and I will stand by that. Straight romantasy girlies the bar is in hell for yall I fear. I will never be able to get over the scene in the cave with the demon; he drops her on the floor in the dark, while she topless after he’s been groping her, and he tells her that she’s nothing? And Aris is left feeling shameful? That is completely inexcusable. The only reason is that he is redeemable in the eyes of the narrative is because he is one of the only few male characters that doesn’t make some sort of disgusting sexual comment towards her. Is THIS the standard? Raker calls Aris weak, breakable, tells her to not talk, ignores her, and the reader is expected to find him desirable regardless. Okay thank you next. This is why I think straight romantasy stories that take place in a patriarchal world (without doing any real work to meaningfully interrogate said patriarchy but that’s a whole other conversation…) that has enemies to lovers as its main tagline just comes across as the man being misogynistic. He calls her all of these things and I am expected to say there’s NO underlying sexism? Just because he doesn’t actively leer and ogle at her? Again, bar is in hell.

The descriptions Aster uses in the sex scene were also sort of discomforting to me; Aris is a virgin which she makes known to Raker, and she shows no signs of hesitation or nervousness when Raker is incredibly rough with her, because why would she struggle with anything. As said above, the world “brutal” is used constantly in this scene, and the violent language used combined with how vulnerable Aris is in this state and how cruel Raker has been to her up until this point did not sit well with me at all. I did not care for him nor the glimmer of his backstory that we got.

Additionally, the emphasis placed on size difference between him and Aris in this book is too egregious to ignore. I outright cackled at “he sighs, the movement raking through his entire mountainous form” (brilliant), and could not believe that in the first twenty percent alone Aris had already run into Raker’s chest as if it were a wall three whole times, because he is of course enormous and she is so skinny and tiny. But the worst offender is the line where, when stood in the same river, the water “reaches his knees. At my height, it reaches my waist”. What do you mean, your waist is at the same height as his knees? Your whole lower body is the length of his calf??? Do we see what I mean about editing. Alex Aster your editor surely is scamming you. Get your money back girl this is crazy.

What I really also cannot figure out is why Raker didn’t kill her for her sword at the start. Aris literally asks him during their final confrontation and he just doesn’t answer. As far as I know, he had literally no reason to keep her alive from the moment they first saw each other during the Questral. Why didn’t he kill her? This is potentially something to be answered in a future book, but I don’t know… it’s too much of a loose end for me to not be bothered by it.

I’ll talk about the side characters very briefly, just as brief as they appeared in the text. Aris and Kira became close on the basis of practically nothing, Kira knew basically nothing about Aris, so her departure had no impact. Aris barely thought about her at all on her journey. Also, of course the only female companion Aris really has gets cut off right at the start of the journey and subsequently dies, because what use is a female companion in a romantasy, right? I don’t understand why she as the weakest link in their trio would make the pact of if one of them is weighing the others down, they need to be kicked out, like girl that is so obviously you, why would you do that to yourself?? Zane at, like, three points delivered the most stupid and corniest one-liners to close out a scene that would make me laugh out loud (not Aster’s intention I can assure you) and then I completely forgot about him until he showed up at the end. I knew Stellan would die from the moment we met him, and the line ‘“Fool,” he says, and then he dies’ evokes Shakespeare in the most derogatory way and is a line that I will be chuckling at for a long time. Aris did not mourn him basically at all during the Questral, and even in moments when she would think about him, her memories would hardly be tinged by sadness or grief. Cadoc and Pangus might as well have been the same character, they functioned entirely the same and there was no reason for me to discern them (not that I could). Both evil and creepy with nothing differentiating them. I have no clue why both needed to be included.

I’ll finally touch on Aster’s worldbuilding. I have not read Lightlark but have watched many a video essay dissecting it, so I know that her way of naming things is practically the same – starside and stormside and brambleside and silverside in place of wildling and sunling and skyling and starling. Names that are this simplistic I would say are too juvenile even for young adult; in my opinion, these all sound like they belong in a middle grade book. Aster doesn’t interrogate the world in any way and leaves you with so many questions: where is starside steel even found? How many gods are there? What are their names? How are they worshipped? Why do the gates to starside only open every fifty years? Why can only fifty from Stormside cross? Do immortals – like the curious scholars – not wish to cross too? I do not think there are answers to these because I genuinely think Aster does not know, and there is only so much suspension of disbelief that I am willing to do for an adult fantasy novel at the scale at which she is trying to reach. But when you have Raker cutting leaves exactly in half with his sword as they fall and Aris slicing men’s legs clean off with a single cut, you really know that the levels of suspension of disbelief required are just unachievable.

I promise I really did try to think long and hard about anything I liked about this book, but above all I really just loved laughing at how ridiculous it was, and for that reason alone I had a ball. I’m so sat for the sequel. I hope we get more Zane so he can deliver more ridiculous one liners. I’m buzzing. November cannot come soon enough.