I read Skyshade, the third book in the Lightlark series; IT'S BAD

I don't usually write reviews for books. This is mostly because I'm very easy to please; give me an epic moment or two and something to keep me engaged and I'll consider you a worthy read. I read Lightlark after hearing about all the controversies and it was bad but digestible. Nightbane was bad but I enjoyed it more than Lightlark. However Skyshade is truly horrible, so much so that Alex Aster is probably the worst author currently writing. I genuinely believe the publishers who refused to sign her we're doing god's work.

Skyshade is book three in the series and nothing happens for most of it. Isla is still thirsting over Oro and Grim, despite both of them being outlines of caricatures of characters. The only dialogue those two ever have is a) talking about how much they love Isla, how they can't live without her, how she made them love life again or b) some pointless fact about their tragic childhoods. Matter of fact I don't think a single character in the entire book talks about anything other than Isla. Enya, Zed, Astridia (definitely butchered her name) always talk to Isla, about Isla, how Isla affects Grim or Oro, etc. There isn't a single memorable character in all three books; they can all be killed off in the first chapter of the next book and the narrative wouldn't change. Azul and Cleo are so useless that is feels like Alex added them into the book as a checkmark.

Isla herself is a pile of nothing. She is scared of the "evil" within her, despite the fact that we never see her do any actual evil. She never kills people who don't deserve it. They keep coming back to the time she destroyed the village in Nightbane, but that wasn't even intentional? Somehow she goes from having no powers and not knowing how to use the powers she has, to being a god. She is proficient in all of the realms powers SOMEHOW. And when there's something she can't do, Alex Aster will have her "push further than she's ever have" and suddenly she developed a new ability. Skyres are introduced as a way to make her more powerful except we're told the trade off for using them is your soul or something. However Isla makes like four of them and feels absolutely no negative effects.

The story is nonsense. Every new revelation is a retcon of the previous books. The three original founders of Lightlark (who were mentioned once or twice before) are suddenly alive and are the bad guys. However aren't we told that once a ruler has offsprings they begin to grow old and die? So how did Lark and Cronan have offsprings yet are still alive?

Nothing makes sense and everything is explained with our main characters as being infinitely powerful. The power scaling off the walls; Oro and Isla have all of the powers of all of the realms and Grim (despite only having Nightshade powers) is even more powerful than them. Suddenly Isla also has a never before seen power to absorb the powers of others when killing them.

Shademade is a new OP item, a metal that can stop people from using power. Despite not existing before this book, suddenly everything is made of shademade, and everyone uses shademade. The blacksmith from Nightbane comes back and is so over powered, to the point that he can create any device needed for the plot. Alex had to nerf him by making his sole goal to die. To point out just how bad Alex Aster is; in Nightbane she gives the blacksmith the name Baron. However in Skyshade she pretends like he never had a name, and then gives him a DIFFERENT name, Ferror. HUH?

The book so obviously favors Grim that Oro even being in the discussion feels pitiful. The love triangle is only there so Alex can post cringe Tik Toks that say "She loves the king and his enemy" or "When she loves both but they are enemies and she marries his enemy". Speaking of cringe, it is off the charts in this book. Grim and Oro keep making these grand proclamations of love all of which sound like a high school death poetry leftovers. "I would kill the world again and again to be with you Heart" (not an actual quote, but might as well be) or "I'll believe you don't love me when you stop moaning my name at night".

The last 30% of the book is also written horribly. Alex isn't a good author but in the beginning she has a semblance of pacing and writing skill. However at around the 70% mark the pacing goes out of the window. Travel between places and events happen in the span of two lines. On the same page Isla is in the Winter Palace, travels to somewhere else, draws skyres on a tooth, then does something else. Sentences become chopped and flavorless "Enya demanded. Zed looked haunted".

There is no world building in sight and more plot holes than actual plot. To end of this review I'm just gonna list a bunch of problems. There are evil storms that come from a different world. Why? There are creatures in the storms. Why? (The creatures are never given names or reason to exist, all of them have "scales and too many limbs"). Storms can be trapped in stones and rings. How? Cleo and her armada spend the whole book out on the sea. Doing what? Why were the snakes so prominent? Why was Isla born with so much power that her mere birth resulted in a castle collapse that killed her parents? If her mom had the ability to see the future and knew they would die from the collapse, why didn't she give birth to Isla outside? How is it possible for her mom to put her future-seeing flair inside of a ring? Why didn't Isla immediately use the future-seeing flare to know what's going to happen? (I'm not kidding this stupid b*** says " I could look at the future or I could trust in my plan" and then chooses not to look into the future). If in the end of Nightbane Grim tells Isla to come with him and he will call off the attack, why does everyone consider her a traitor? Why do so many characters not have names (augur, blacksmith, snake-woman, Isla's mom and dad)? Why did Isla's mother need to put her flair in a bracelet to pass it down to Isla? Didn't Isla kill her? Doesn't Isla automatically receive the powers of all the people she killed? Didn't she receive her father's powers when she killed him? Why wouldn't she just receive her mother's powers? Do you see how Alex Aster has no thoughts when she is writing - she writes purely based on vibes and aesthetics.

Also the only reason this book has a dragon is because Fourth Wing blew up.

Edit: The more I'm thinking about this book the more I realize it makes no sense. The big bad Lark is put into a slumber within a shademade coffin so that she can't use her powers. However she somehow wakes up and uses her powers to destroy all of the nightbane. Then Isla pricks her finger on a feather that is housing a piece of Lark's soul, which frees her. But for some reason Lark and Isla communicate to each other through the feather ala Tom Riddle and Harry Potter. Except Lark (who wants to kill Isla) actively gives her information on how to become more powerful, and how to find the portal which Isla later uses to beat her. LIKE?

Edit: How does Isla get powers of the people she killed. For example her parents weren't killed by her per se, they were killed by the castle collapsing on them. So can Isla dig a hole in the ground with some spikes underneath and then get the powers from every person who falls in?

Edit: It's also just laughable how powerfull Isla is by the end of the story. She has the powers of every realm, flight, energy shields and weapons, control of fire, ice, healing, control of wind, control of shadows, invisibility. Through her love bond with Grim she is able to do everything he is, and most importantly TELEPORT anywhere. Through her love bond with Oro she can do anythign he can, like turns things into gold, and TELL WHEN PEOPLE ARE LYING. She has her fathers ability to be immune to curses and her mothers ability to SEE THE FUTURE. She absorbs powers of people when she kills them, so she can theoretically absorb every power ever. On top of all of the people she killed she also killed the OP blackmisth, so now she can create and break things that he could. There shouldn't be a single thing that can stand in Isla's way; no one could ever lie to her, she can never ber cornered, she can never not be able to escape out of a situatios, there are absolutely no stakes.