Powerless

By Lauren Roberts

Hunger Games meets superpowers in an epic new trilogy.

The Ugly Truth:

I think this may have been the longest I have gone without reading a book in the past year, so, to my non-existent fans, I apologize for the delay.

I would like to apologize even more that I, OF COURSE, flipped back to my regular scheduled program of fiction and fantasy, but I will say that for those like me who love this genre, this should definitely be the next one you pick up.

As said above, Powerless is the exciting first installment of a new action fantasy romance trilogy, and I am already counting down the days until book two is released. Overall, this is a fast read with much of the book following the blueprint of others (The Hunger Games, The Selection, From Blood and Ash) with just an added twist of mutations and superpowers. The novel really only follows two key characters, Kai and Paedyn, with the chapters switching between their two perspectives on their surrounding worlds and the trials that they are thrust into. Without giving too much away, their love story is a classic fantasy one that had me curling my toes and giggling at the pages as they wrestled between emotions of guilt, angst, passion, and friendship for one another. I will admit I questioned if Roberts knew how to flirt for the first hundred or so pages as I felt that the dialogue was choppy and too “try-hardy,” but halfway through the book, it felt as though our characters got their rhythm.

While I enjoyed our leading characters a lot, I do feel that their love story was really the crux of the book. As readers, we were constantly being introduced to unique characters that I believe could have been utilized by Roberts to push the story along. Additionally, she included a lot of “tell” vs. “show,” which eliminated any possibility of surprise or mystery from the plot. Finally, I felt as though I got glimpses of what the world was, but was continued to be battered with the same sad sagas from the same characters each time that it was hard to see how the world was for anyone else involved in the novel. I am really hoping the second book brings in more peripheral characters and descriptions.

 More or less, I needed a book to get me out of my first-ever reading slump, and this definitely got the job done. I was not lying earlier when I said I am eagerly looking forward to the next novel and am intrigued to see where Roberts will take us as the reader.