Reviews with content warning for Violence - Powerful

This book is literally emotional damage in physical form. I realise it’s unhinged to say this book made me sob and then award it 5⭐️ but look, I’m just a girl.

I thought this was such a beautiful love story. The way that Adena and Mak come together by helping one another literally healed me. She brought sunshine to his little life and the way this man complemented her for it made me cry and scream whilst kicking my feet like a little girl who has just been given ice cream.

I mean don’t get me wrong, my heart is now broken. But it was worth it for the journey there. This book is simultaneously healing and destroying. Just a really simple and beautiful short love story, that did a great job of filling that gap in between Kai and Paedyns books. But just a warning, have tissues for the whole thing because I didn’t just cry at the end!

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dkgreads's review against another edition

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emotional funny sad 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? No

4.5

Lauren Roberts must be one of those authors who drinks her coffee from a mug that says THE TEARS OF MY READERS on it, because this was positively heartbreaking. Actually, if I’m being honest, it was just plain mean 😩. Adena is so GOOD and so KIND and so DELIGHTFUL, why did she have to put us through this? Whyyyyyyy????

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sammymilfort's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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meeklovestoread's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad fast-paced

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

4.0

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!

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