Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Powerful

Wow! I'm so glad I read this! While I did enjoy "Powerless", I wasn't obsessed with it like a lot of other people were and was honestly not going to continue the series. However, I was really in the mood for a quick read and I saw this book rolling around a few months ago plus the 2nd book came out this month so I figured I'd give the novella a go considering it was only 200-ish pages.

And boy am I happy I read this! Adena is probably one of my favorite FMCs that I've read about. She's literally me (but much more optimistic)! She's bubbly! Sweet! Fragile! Curly hair. And she talks a lot. Her dynamic with Makoto reminds me a lot of my dynamic with a few of my male friends so it was so endearing to read about them (Adena and Makoto). Although, I will say their feeling for each other came very quickly to me, I wasn't too convinced of their romance until the later half of the book, and even now I still feel like their romance happened extremely quickly which negated a lot of the emotional impact for me, but it's a novella so I guess I can't fault it too much on that front. I'm not too big on tropes but this is most definitely a grump x sunshine if I've ever seen one (he could be a little too grumpy at times for me).

I think this book was extremely needed cuz although we all know what happens to Adena, I think this book gives what happened to her more emotional impact than it did in Powerless. In "Powerless", Adena is rarely in the novel which in my opinion hinders the emotional impact of her death because we don't really get to see much of her or her friendship with Paedyn. In this book, at least we get more insight into Adena and her personality so in my opinion makes her death more impactful for the reader. I actually shed a tear when reading about her death (something I didn't do when I read it in "Powerless").

My main qualm with the book is that some major questions that I wanted answered still weren't answered. We still don't know the exact reason why the king targeted Adena in the first place. Also, a pressing question I have is how the elites' powers are determined?

Like in this book, Makoto is born with two Mundane parents and yet he possesses the power of a wielder. How?

I'm very curious to see what Makoto's role will be in the next book considering what we know about him.

Poor Makoto! Both the women he cared about the most died within a few weeks of one another.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one (and the writing in here; there were some cute little quotes), and will most definitely be continuing the series now!

Content Warnings

boba_nbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.5

Spice Rating: 🫑 / 5 🌶️

Powerful added so much context to Powerless, and I absolutely loved it. Even though I knew how this novella was going to end, it still devastated me.

This novella follows Adena--the best friend of the female main character from Powerless, Paedyn. We get a small peek into Adena's life before she meets Paedyn and then follow her journey as Paedyn is going through the trials. When Adena is left alone, she meets a mysterious man named Mak who is also desperate to see someone before the trials. Together they team up to try to sneak into the palace and save their loved ones. In the meantime, Adena and Mak find out that they have more in common than they originally thought.

I knew that Adena was going to die, but her death hit SO much harder when you see it through Mak's eyes and realize that he had to watch it while he was powerless to stop it. My heart!

This is a great companion novel to Powerless. I'm dying to see what happens next in Reckless.

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emilywemily6's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

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

4.0

I genuinely liked reading this novella, but not as much as Powerless. I didn’t connect with the characters as well, and it took a bit longer than I expected to get behind their relationship; opposites attract is kind of hard to write well in such a short story in my opinion. But I was thoroughly invested and devastated by the ending. The author has some beautiful writing that is still easy to understand and feel. I wish there was less focus on the romance and more plot though- I would have loved to see the interaction between Adena and the king, or to hear more about the common people and their opinion of the Trials. If Mak isn’t reintroduced later in the series I’ll riot. This was his rebel origin story.

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literarymary95's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Despite this novella not really adding much to the original book (Powerless) other than

how Adena ended up at the center of the final trial as the sacrifice

, it was still an interesting read and see how Adena's character influenced Paedyn's.

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bujo_bellel's review against another edition

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emotional funny sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

*spoiler for Powerless*

I unfortunately couldn't fully enjoy it knowing what happens in the end T.T. I really enjoyed reading Adena's story and I loved how the author brings her to life in this book since we didn't have much time to get to know her in Powerless!! I really liked Mak and Adena's story, and I'm so sad that Adena did not have the chance to tell her about Mak!! I wonder if he will play a bigger part in the next book seeing as

He has the same power as Kai. I kind of hope that they don't meet each other early so that Kai doesn't kill him (or the other way)

I wonder how Mak will affect the characters in the next book and I am very interested to see how it plays out in the end :) Seeing as we didn't get much time with the characters, I couldn't really give the book higher than 3.5 stars, especially as I went through it knowing what will happen to Adena in the end because of Powerless :(

Content Warnings

pastorscratchy1reads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I already knew what was going to happen and I still was almost crying at the end.

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