Powerless

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selectedStore.City }}, {{ selectedStore.State }} {{ selectedStore.Country }} {{ selectedStore.Zip }} My only issue was with an element of the worldbuilding. It was simple enough to understand the history behind the Elites and the Ordinaries, but I couldn't wrap my head around the purpose of the Purging Trials. Maybe that was the point, because Paedyn didn't seem to understand it either. If they were celebrating the Plague and the magical powers it gave the Elites, why try to kill a bunch of your own powerful people in the process? In The Hunger Games, the poor fight to the death for the rich's entertainment. I had hoped for the concept of the Trials to evolve and strengthen throughout the story. i was hooked from the beginning to the end. the plot was so entertaining and even though i haven’t seen hunger games, i need to watch it after seeing many people compare this book to the movie ( series? idk really) and the trial scenes👹👹 you know in the hunger games where they tend to each other's wounds?? MAYHAPS IT IS IN HERE TOO bc i love red queen, i knew i would enjoy this book too! lauren was very true to her words that this book is if red queen and the hunger games had a baby. though powerless very much resembles her parents lol

The Powerless Trilogy by Lauren Roberts - Goodreads

the first half of this book was nearly a copy and paste of the hunger games. while some readers probably want that, it took away from originality for me. i could NOT stop comparing for storyline. (i have not read red queen, so i can’t compare to that one.) Ironic that her bright teal hair matches her name. I’d never seen the young women who conducted the interviews for the previous Trials, but I’ve heard enough about her unique appearance to identify her.” I was slightly worried that my expectations for this book were too high, especially considering the letdown that was last year's most viral (and controversial) BookTok book that couldn't follow through on its promises. It has enemies to lover trope. It has tending to wounds trope. It has the ‘who did this to you’ trope.” Okay, but what’s the book about? What is the book trying to accomplish? What makes it different from all the other books out there with similar tropes?Lauren Roberts is a new author, thus I don’t want to judge her with the same standards I judge books by experienced authors since Roberts still has room to improve. That said, I also don’t want to not speak my mind since Goodreads is one of the few places I can be completely honest. So I’ll try to be nice while keeping my words true. The worldbuilding didn't survive too much of a thinky think. I don't think it was a good idea to introduce genocide and oppression without engaging with those ideas properly. It felt very much like this book was trying to be Hunger Games but it had as much depth as the Selection. (This review is getting long but I have so many issues with the reform revolutionaries in the selection and the violent vs nonviolent thing going on there). That feels so mean to say I'm sorry but also please. PLEASE. I can suspend my disbelief about the girl getting away with being an Ordinary, but I draw the line as using revolution as an aesthetic without real political worldbuilding behind it. This bled into poor pacing. Every single time a major event or revelation happened, I noted how far it was into the book. It just felt very janky and bloated. It felt like the characters were static and nothing was really happening even tho people were quite literally dying. Every chapter ended with Kai being like "omfg what is this girl doing to me" and Pae being like "I fawking hate it here but I kinda wanna smash". The train was not moving. I was reading at the speed of light, breaking the sound barrier, and it still took sooooo long this book was so bloated. let me start by saying that i didn’t (and still don’t) know who lauren is on booktok. so this review is unbiased as possible. 🫶🏻 (please don’t forget that a 3 stars isn’t a bad rating either.) No one knows this better than Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary posing as an Elite. When she unsuspectingly saves one of Ilya’s princes, Kai Azer, she’s thrown into the Purging Trials, a brutal competition to showcase her ‘Elite’ powers.

Powerless By Roberts Lauren |The Works

So here's the thing. There are two wolves at war within me. One is like "let authors have fun and write what makes them happy" and the other is "there is a certain expectation of quality from a published novel that people are paying real American dollars for". The first part is why I don't really want to leave a review, and feel mean for doing so, and the second part is why I am leaving a review. Subjects: General fiction (Children's / Teenage) , Romance & relationships stories (Children's / Teenage) , Personal & social issues: death & bereavement (Children's / Teenage) , Personal & social issues: sexuality & relationships (Children's / Teenage) , Fantasy romance (Teenage) , Children's / Teenage fiction: Speculative, dystopian and utopian fiction , Children's / Teenage fiction: Family and home stories , Children's / Teenage fiction: General, modern and contemporary fiction , Children's / Teenage personal and social topics: Self-awareness and self-esteem , Children's / Teenage personal and social topics: Death and grief , Interest age: from c 13 years , Children's / Teenage fiction: Magical realism / Magical fantasy , Children's / Teenage fiction: Fantasy romance , Young Adult Fiction / General , Young Adult Fiction / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories , Young Adult Fiction / Dystopian , Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / General , Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Romance , Young Adult Fiction / Girls & Women , Young Adult Fiction / Magical Realism , Young Adult Fiction / Romance / General , Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Dating & Sex , Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Death, Grief, Bereavement Show He’s good at fighting, but so is every opponent in the Trials. Killing is no longer a measure of morality since murder has been recently romanticized by fantasy books, so, in what way is Kai a monster? Murder brings no consequence to the killer—not physically or emotionally—so why is murdering bad in this world? Because the book keeps on saying that people enjoy the Trials, even the Ordinary. So murder is glorified, deeming Kai a failed attempt at the whole morally grey trope. Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya... Red Queen meets The Hunger Games in the most epic and sizzling fantasy romance book of the year.

I grew up reading Wattpad, and a metric shit ton of it. So, I'm very familiar with amateur writing, unpolished writing, and writing for fun, for the sake of writing. I do think writers should be compensated for their work, I can't expect everyone who's just writing what they love to do it for free, but like... there should be standards for a published novel that elevate it above something you can access for free on Wattpad (IN MY OPINION). The book follows Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary, into the Trials of Ilya where she will either succeed or die. But in this Trials, she faces people that have been training for years for these games… sound familiar? Lauren said Powerless was like "if the child of The Hunger Games and Red Queen didn't look anything like its parents." She did not disappoint. This book took a fresh spin on those stories, combining them with some of my other favourite tropes from books like Defy The Night and Shatter Me. On top of that, there are so many unique scenes with tropes that made me scream because HELLO? Who knew it was so attractive for a man to braid hair? The characters are nothing new. Take whatever recently published fantasy book dubbed as a ‘TikTok book’, and you will find the same 2D, boring, plain characters.