Writing this review at 1am because I have THOUGHTS

1) sorry what was that pacing……. like the pace of that felt like being on a rollercoaster that got stuck halfway thru and just as you think it’s about to end, that thing plummets

2) felt like there was NO world building or anything like that? plot points and inner monologue felt very repetitive

3) the only chapters I actually ate up was the poppy scene but even then Lauren you coulda jazzed up the dialogue

4) also if you’re giving me a map and a whole family tree, I better be travelling the continent and meeting the family so tell me why we only did light sightseeing???

5) that ending???? make it make sense

I’m convinced this book and the first was an absolute right time, right mood for me. There is objectively nothing amazing about it but boy did I have fun and was really attached to these characters by the end.

Kai Azer the man you are. Also take a shot every time Paedyn holds Kai at knife point

Uhhh I NEEEEEED the next book!

I hate this book series so so much. I read Powerless, and I truly thought nothing could be as bad as that book which is a very true statement. For some reason though (I think I was possessed), I bought Reckless and read it. I wanted to like it. I truly did. I wanted to give Lauren Roberts a second chance, and preceded to regret it. I hopefully will not be giving her a third chance. There are three reasons why this book failed me: character, writing, and world building.

1) Character:
I reeeaaalllyyyy hate the character of Paedyn. She is incredibly boring, and I can really only gather that she is insufferable and just naturally good at everything for no reason. I don't really know how Kai put up with her for the entire book (braver man than me I guess). There were a few moments of character growth I could appreciate from her, but for the most part she was bland as she was in the first book. Her relationship with Kai is so so bad as well. They immediately go back to banter and flirting even though they are supposed to despise and want to kill each other??? It felt very pandering and fanservice-y. Kai is also a very boring and one beat kinda guy. I get really pissed at these kind of books for trying to create a "morally gray slightly problematic love interest" and only give these characters a very one beat personality that keeps reminding the readers "You shouldn't fall in love with a guy like me because I'm such a mOnStEr. Allow me to put on my mAsK because the bEaSt doesn't always get the bEaUtY." I was so ready to shoot Kai. I truly was. I started to root for those bandits because I wanted Kai to shut up before I am reminded yet again what a terrible person he is without actually being shown that any of the actions he took in the books was actually awful and morally questionable.

2.The writing:
I really do not want to be mean, but I am going to be honest. Lauren Roberts needs to take a writing class. I realize this is her debut series which is great and more power to her. I could excuse the writing in Powerless because it was her first time writing a novel, but I have less sympathy for her second outing. I really hate this writing. It is legit one of the worst written books I have ever read. I know that sounds harsh, but honesty is the best policy. Granted, I thought it improved *sightly* from the first book which isn't really saying a whole lot to be honest. She used the same damn words over and over and over and over. If I had to read about one more muscle feathering, dimple showing, someone mUrMuRiNg, Kai's lips twitching, I might go clinically insane. Good writers use something called variation where they use different words to describe the same thing or have an actual descriptive writing style that draws the readers into the world the author is showing. It is ok to have unity in your writing style and use patterns, but if you are only using the same set of words to describe a character doing the same thing then it just comes across as lazy and incompetent. The writing was also unnecessarily dramatic when it did not deserve to be. It felt like a thirteen-year-old me's diary entry which only gave me embarrassment and PTSD. Lauren Roberts also likes to remind the readers of the same two events that happened from the first book every. single. chapter. of this book. It is perfectly ok to reference what happened in Powerless in this book, but there needs to actually be subtlety in that. I am not stupid. I can gather that a character is upset because of something that happened in the last book because I can actually read between the lines. Apparently Lauren Roberts doesn't think her audience is smart enough to do that (which might be true since the only people I can actually see liking this book are middle schoolers.) I do not need to be reminded how a character feels about a past event for that event to be explicitly stated. Doing this every single time just shows lazy writing and a disinterest in actually trying to be creative with the writing or story.

3. World building:
I hate this world building so so much. The idea of Illya's eLiTe sOcIeTy is so stupid I think some of my brain cells died reading this book. I learn nothing interesting about the city of Dor. I guess it doesn't have a unique culture besides sand and a hot climate? The difficult thing about fantasy is that you have to create a believable world that feels lived in with different cultures or terrains. Crafting a good fantasy requires skill and effort. Something I truly do not think an inexperienced writer like Lauren Roberts has. I would recommend trying to write a fantasy book with a much smaller scale in order to learn how to craft a good fantasy world with interesting characters without worrying about describing all of these cultures or the politics/ explicit rules of the world. An amazing example of this is Stephanie Garber's Caraval (except Ms. Garber is a talented writer.) I could also see how Lauren Roberts took inspiration from Mary Pearson's Dance of Thieves which was a terrible decision because it only made me compare that book to Reckless which only proceeded to make Reckless look even worse since Dance of Thieves was so good in its writing, characterization, and its world building.

All in all The Powerless series is incredibly unoriginal. I am only reminded of better books when I read it. I believe Reckless was truly a waste of time, and I would only recommend it to a middle schooler since Reckless is too over dramatic and lazy. I believe Lauren Roberts truly has potential to write a decent book with more experience and learning. I seriously recommend reading actual fantasy instead of romanasty like Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings and Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time in order to learn how to craft characters and a story in a fictitious world. If I could, I would give this zero stars.