Book Recommendation: Powerless

Written by Scarlett Claasens and Lilah Scheewe

Author: Lauren Roberts

Age rating: YA 13+

Genres: Fantasy, Romance

Personal Rating: 5/5 Stars

Online Rating: 4/5 Stars

Paedyn Gray, an ordinary, lives in a world of elites who hunt ordinaries. Living a life filled with thievery and deception, Paedyn ends up stealing money from a man who is none other than Prince Kai, who is known for his brutality as the enforcer. All of a sudden she's thrust into the purging trials, supposedly an honor, but for her, her worst nightmare, forced to hide the fact she’s ordinary right in front of the whole kingdom, including Kai. She must survive the trials to get back to her only friend, Adena. As Paedyn fights her want for revenge against the king for her fathers death 5 years earlier she also wants to fight her fathers old battle the Resistance, a growing group of individuals who want equality for ordinarys.  

“This is easily the best book I have ever read. The plot just gets better and better the farther along you go, and there was never a single moment where I found myself bored or uninterested. The series gets better as you go along and the first book is kind of like The Hunger Games mixed with Red Queen. If you found yourself enjoying Hunger Games then I really think that you will love Powerless, as Lauren Roberts flawlessly enhances tense moments with romance and secrets. There is so much depth to this book and an incredible amount of thought has gone into the foreshadowing which hints to the surprising outcome.” - Scarlett

Lauren Roberts wrote Powerless as a "shower thought" idea that flipped the "chosen one" trope: she wondered what it would be like to write about a character who is the only one without powers in a world full of them. She shared the idea on TikTok, received positive feedback, and was inspired by her online community to write the book, which she initially self-published at 19 before signing with a traditional publisher.

Bibliography:

(Roberts, Lauren. Powerless. Simon and Schuster, 2023.)