In late 2023, I stumbled upon the major TikTok hype Powerless by Lauren Roberts. I started reading this book with the expectation to kind of like it. However, it was a quite quick DNF for me. Apparently, I just couldn’t put the book aside completely, because I still was curious nevertheless. So, I gave it another chance. How did this work out?

About the book

Powerless by Lauren Roberts
Series: the Powerless Trilogy #1
Published by Simon & Schuster on November 7, 2023
Pages: 523
ISBN: 9781665954884
Genres: Dystopian, Fantasy, Young adult

She is the very thing he’s spent his whole life hunting.
He is the very thing she’s spent her whole life pretending to be.

Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya—the exceptional, the empowered, the Elites.

The powers these Elites have possessed for decades were graciously gifted to them by the Plague, though not all were fortunate enough to both survive the sickness and reap the reward. Those born Ordinary are just that—ordinary. And when the king decreed that all Ordinaries be banished in order to preserve his Elite society, lacking an ability suddenly became a crime—making Paedyn Gray a felon by fate and a thief by necessity.

Surviving in the slums as an Ordinary is no simple task, and Paedyn knows this better than most. Having been trained by her father to be overly observant since she was a child, Paedyn poses as a Psychic in the crowded city, blending in with the Elites as best she can in order to stay alive and out of trouble. Easier said than done.

When Paeydn unsuspectingly saves one of Ilyas princes, she finds herself thrown into the Purging Trials. The brutal competition exists to showcase the Elites’ powers—the very thing Paedyn lacks. If the Trials and the opponents within them don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for certainly will if he discovers what she is—completely Ordinary.

My review

Since this was my second and final chance for this book, my expectations were already diminished compared to December 2023 when I first started reading this novel. Back then, my expectations were probably too high for what this book was able to provide me with. So, I went into this read with this knowledge in the back off my mind and decided to have no expectations at all. I was just hoping to get further into the story than I did last time and to maybe even enjoy it. I quit right after Paedyn was announced to be a competitor in the trials.

Our main characters are Paedyn and Kai. Both get their own POV and therefore we get to know them both. My main concern upon my first try was that I didn’t like Paedyn. I still didn’t really like her this time around, but somehow she grew on me. She shows her fierceness and that she’s a force to be reckoned with despite her lack of powers. She knows how to handle herself with her body and how to use it as a weapon. However, real weapons aren’t foreign to her either. Unfortunately, we barely get to know her personality besides her will to fight and survive. To me, Paedyn seems to fall in love easily, even after all she has endured. I’m sure we will explore more on this in the next books in this trilogy. We get glimpses of her past which makes curious for her backstory. On the other hand, there’s Kai. We also get to know him enough for the story and there also seems more to him than we get to know now.

The writing style of this book is okay. It’s not that hard to grasp so therefore it’s easy to read. However, it’s not whymsical or anything, it’s straight forward and quite generic. Is this bad? Not per se. I liked the short chapters and the POV switching between Paedyn and Kai. I think this would have been a totally different story if Roberts didn’t include those switches. However, the writing was not too engaging for me, hence why this book was a DNF for me at first.

If you are familiar with both The Hunger Games and Red Queen, you will deffinitely recognise elements of both books within the plot. The tournament is of course inspired by the first book, and the elite having powers by the second. The combination of these two work quite well. The themes the author explores in this book are definitely loyalty, fighting to survive and questioning what’s good or bad. These themes have been elaborated quite in depth, but they will definitely be followed up on in the next book. Even though the plot is predictable, I enjoyed it more than I initially thought. The intrigue and logic are fine, but for me it felt like a thirteen-in-a-dozen book nonetheless. For starters on YA fantasy, this book is definitely a good one since it will suck you in from start to finish, but I’ve seen more of this type of stories.

I’m glad I decided to give Powerless by Lauren Roberts a second chance after putting it aside the first time a few months ago. This was just the quick and easy dystopian/fantasy type of story i needed in this particular moment of time. Admitteldy, it’s not that unique or surprising, but in the end I liked how the characters are written and how there’s obviously more to them than the author shows us in this first book of the trilogy. They will definitely be developed more in the next book, alongside several themes that are expplored. Although the writing is not extremely engaging, I managed to finish the book quite fast. Even though I was not fully engaged, I still wanted to know what would happen next and what the next book in this series will bring. Therefore, I will give Reckless a try sometime this summer.