Alex Aster's Book 'Lightlark' Is Generating Drama on BookTok — What We Know

Aug. 18 2022, Published 4:37 p.m. ET

The phenomenon referred to as #BookTok on TikTok has been a quick trail to luck for several authors. Olivie Blake, who wrote The Atlas Six, turned into an overnight sensation and secured a publishing deal following the book's skyrocket to popularity on the app. Others like Colleen Hoover have raced to the most sensible of Barnes & Noble sales for the same reason.

Another e book that has risen to popularity recently is Alex Aster's Lightlark, which has been pitched as A Court of Thorns and Roses meets The Hunger Games. While initial hype for the e-book used to be through the roof, just lately, it sort of feels the approval for the novel has taken a flip.

Here's what you need to learn about the Alex Aster Lightlark BookTok drama.

What is the BookTok drama with Alex Aster's 'Lightlark'?

Alex Aster started her adventure on the TikTok app as the writer of a middle-grade novel referred to as Curse of the Night Witch, which received a Kirkus Star in 2020. She additionally launched a debut single, "Divine," which was used as a legitimate through Queen of TikTok Addison Rae the same 12 months. But Alex's biggest accomplishment arrived in March 2020, when a viral clip advertising her first YA novel, Lightlark, went viral on BookTok.

The video, which has since racked up 364,000 likes and thousands and thousands of views, scored Alex a six-figure ebook take care of Amulet Books. Lightlark follows a competition between six rulers in a delusion realm, each of whom is afflicted through a curse. They know one must die for the others to continue to exist. The primary persona, Isla Crown, is cursed to kill any person she falls in love with and will have to navigate relationships and struggle for her own survival.

Fans had been instantly drawn in by way of the intriguing premise, and Alex's movies following the book deal detailed her highway to publishing. Some of her videos element how one in every of her exes printed out a chapter to make a laugh of it and how her first agent dropped her two years ago earlier than she made it giant.

Many of Alex's videos promise readers sure tropes and "spice" or sexual content in the e-book. Some videos tease snippets of the e-book itself. In one video, Alex writes, "I think readers are really going to love the high stakes mystery, powers, and plot twists in my book," after which adds, "The dark-haired morally grey enemy who says things like, 'I'm not sure what I enjoy more ... seeing the way you grip a sword or the way that dress grips you.'"

The pleasure surrounding Lightlark got here to a head in July 2022 when Alex announced on TikTok that Universal Pictures had obtained the rights to Lightlark and were developing a film according to the e-book with the manufacturers of Twilight.

Readers were to start with excited when early copies, or Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of Lightlark was to be had thru e-book platforms comparable to Netgalley and Edelweiss. However, this pleasure quickly became to an onslaught of derision when evaluations for the e-book started pouring in on the book-rating app Goodreads.

One assessment writes, "Over half the tropes the author kept posting about [aren't] even in the book. We all knew this book was a red flag once we saw her constantly marketing her YA book as spicy, right??"

Another wrote, "I found it lacking in plot, and the main character was a disappointment. It seems the author was just rushing to get to the plot twist, which is fair, it was a great plot twist, but there's a whole 300 pages before the plot twist that needed to be a main focus."

Is Alex Aster an trade plant?

Immediately following the information of Alex's film deal combined together with her e-book quilt unveiling on a billboard in Times Square, many social media users have been fast to accuse her of being an "industry plant." Authors like Victoria Aveyard abruptly refuted those arguments, as publishing does no longer serve as the approach that different industries do, thus the term "industry plant" is rendered faulty.

However, suspicion about Alex's apparently overnight success did galvanize some to research her additional. Alex's dual sister is Daniella Pierson, who was once featured in a Forbes article in 2022 for being price over $2 hundred million and founding a mental well being startup Wondermind with Selena Gomez. At 19, Daniella also founded the female-led newsletter corporate The Newsette, which is these days price $Forty million, in step with Forbes.

Daniella claims in her Forbes article that she took out a $15,000 mortgage from her folks to begin the company, which she has since paid again. Many users suspect that Alex, who has claimed on TikTok she has not taken money from her circle of relatives to fund her e book career, in truth has a good quantity of toughen from them.

Alex did cope with a few of the feedback on TikTok, writing in the comments section of a up to date video, "I am proud that I had/used zero connections in the publishing/film industry. Just cold emails. I did have the privilege of writing mostly while I was in school. And was able to live with family after school while having a job. I'm also Latinx/indigenous but white-passing. And I have no student debt. I am also on my partner's health insurance. All these made struggling more comfortable!"

Some reviewers on platforms like Goodreads had been accused of "review bombing" the e book due to sadness with the false TikTok commercial and personal vendettas in opposition to the author. It's vital to notice that readers will have to read the e-book for themselves before drawing conclusions about the author or the tale.

Lightlark might be printed on Aug. 23, 2022.

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