Reviews with content warning for Child death - Beztroska

This book could have given a little more, and felt a bit middle-book-syndrome-y. I am still a fan of the series and cannot wait for the next book in the series to drop.

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wanted to carry on with this series because this series has been all over the book community and trusting Booktok hits can either be hit or miss and this one was a hit.

This book has two points of view. The first is Paedyn Grey, and she has survived the purging trials, but she has killed the King and people now know was born as an Ordinary. She has also kickstarted a Resistance through the kingdom of Ilya. She is on the run from the one person she had wanted to run to. She is determined to be free from Ilya and away from Kai and Kitt, but will she be able to stay one foot in front of Kai. The second point of view is Kai Azer, and he is now official Ilya’s enforcer, loyal to his brother Kitt, the new King. He has vowed to find Paedyn and bring her to justice. As long as he can keep his feelings in check for her because once he finds her, she will be sentenced to death. Across the deadly Scorches, and deep into the hostile city of Dor, Kai purses the one person he wishes he didn’t have to. But in a city with Elites, the balance between the hunter and hunted shifts – and the battle between duty and desire is deadly.

This book was brilliantly written, and I enjoyed this book. I loved the characters – Kai and Paedyn were hilarious separately and together and how they were avoiding each other but then they didn’t want to avoid each other and wanted to be around each other. Paedyn could kick my ass and I would thank her for it. I love how blunt she was and how she didn’t give a shit who she was talking to. I loved her being in disgust as Shadow and yet she was kicking the ass of grown-ass men. Kai was still a golden retriever, and you knew he wasn’t going to kill Paedyn no matter what and how jealous he was getting over random ass strangers flirting with Paedyn. That man still needs to learn to hide his emotions better as he was a complete open book. The whole “let’s pretend” was so adorable but you could tell that Kai wasn’t pretending.

My only issue was it was all still a bit predictable, just like the Maze Runner and the Scorch. The different being that WCKD was Kitt and that they didn’t want to kill her because they had other plans where Paedyn was just like if you are going to kill me, kill me quickly.

The ending was cruel again and now I have to wait until NEXT YEAR for the next book. I hope Kitt doesn’t become cruel even though he was betrayed because it will just hurt my heart. Even though we could see glimpses of his cruelness hopefully he ends up standing up with Paedyn and fixing everything in time.

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hxlleann's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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theresamothinmyroom's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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mary_catherine's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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boba_nbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Spice Rating: 🫑 / 5 🌶️

This sequel to Powerless was a similarly fun read in the romantasy series, though I believe it suffered a bit from "second book syndrome."

The trials have ended, and Paedyn is running for her life. The princes who once considered themselves friends of Paedyn are now hunting her down. Kitt finds himself in charge of the kingdom and sends the Enforcer, his brother Kai, to find Paedyn and bring her to him alive.

Readers get a few small snippets from Kitt's perspective alongside Kai's and Paedyn's points of view. The game of cat-and-mouse between Paedyn and Kai plays out multiple times throughout this novel, and this does get old after a while. What doesn't get old is the romantic tension between the two. The banter and near misses are top notch.

Though Reckless wasn't a 5 star read for me, that ending left me reeling. I'm going to read the next book regardless, but I do hope to see more plot in the third installment of the trilogy.

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pricklybutnice's review against another edition

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emotional relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

Honestly the majority of the book was ok, but 75% was redundant.

We spend basically the first 75% flipping between Paedyn being the captive and Kai being the captive.

As such the plot never seems to progress. Especially since all this happens in basically the same setting. Basically nothing happens in the first 75% of the book which is too long. There’s also the matter of the weird data dump that is clearly because the author got a lot of criticism on book 1 for missing motivations. I think this book had a lot of potential it just missed the mark.

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