Reckless by Lauren Roberts
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
The second book in Lauren Roberts' Powerless Trilogy (which includes two novellas as well), Reckless is an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Young Adult books. This is a review for the book, which originally came out in 2024. If you are looking for a summary of Reckless before tackling the last book in the series, Fearless, please take a look at our series page which includes summaries for all the books I've read so far as well as spoiler free study guides. Reckless deals with death, blood, kidnapping, grief, attempted murder, fire, injury, murder, and mentions of genocide.
Paedyn has really done it now. After being instrumental in the Resistance's infiltration of Purging Trials finale and then killing the king, she is on the run from Prince Kai. The new king, Kitt, has sent Kai to find Pae and bring her back to face judgement for all that she has done. He has almost always done what he was told to do by his father, and he hated the man. Now that his brother is in charge, Kai wants to prove that he is worthy of Kitt's trust. But finding Pae and bringing her back to Ilya where she may face death for her crimes may be the only thing he can't do. Not and still be able to live with himself afterward.
I can tell that Reckless is the middle book of the series. It was too long and barely managed any story progression. We get to meet all of two new characters, both of which have short appearances. In fact, 90% of this book consists just Paedyn and Kai. Much of the time they are alone and all of the time they are trying to convince themselves that they do not have feelings for the other person. The setting was not well detailed and was a bit confusing at times. In addition, the pacing was slow and the book could easily have been shorter. But it wasn't all bad. There was some plot points toward the end that I enjoyed, making me hopeful that the final book in the series will be better.
I'm giving Reckless 3.5 stars out of 5. I'm pretty disappointed with this book after Powerless and Powerful, but I'm hopeful that things will get better with Fearless. The series originally surprised me since it was more substantial than I expected, I hope to get back to that place as the series wraps up. Don't forget to visit the Powerless Trilogy page for summaries and study guides.
For more from the author, check out her website at https://www.laurenrobertslibrary.com/
Pairs well with homemade butterscotch syrup and a cute flowy skirt for when it's hot out.
My favorite quote: "That doesn't mean you keep suffering just because you know you can."
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