Powerless By Lauren Roberts | Book Review
2/5 Stars. I have so many complaints about this book! TLDR The characters’ personalities contradict themselves and the setting isn’t explained.
First, I liked the premise! That’s why I picked up the book. The powerless person in a superhero world premise has potential and a great message. I think Roberts missed an opportunity to convey that the powerless can still be powerful.
Plot:
This story is a plot-driven narrative — the characters go from Scene A to Scene B to Scene C, etc. It’s hard to do well because the plot comes before the characters’ personalities. They end up being one-dimensional and molded to fit the plot when it should be the other way around. That’s the case in Powerless.
Characters:
The characters in Powerless have the same voice so every interaction between them is like someone talking to themselves. What’s worse is it felt like every interaction was flirtation. Even in the first two chapters where we are introduced to Paedyn and Kai, I thought they were flirting with Adena and Kitt. I was so confused! None of the relationships are believable, because the princes are flirting with each other or with the cook; Paedyn is flirting with the Imperial Guard who is part of the Resistance. And if the characters aren’t flirting with each other, they…
