Reckless by Lauren Roberts is the second book in the Powerless Trilogy and was a book I was very excited about. It follows Pae’s and Kai’s journey back to the kingdom after Pae kills the king. Below is my Goodreads review, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the ever increasing fad of books being series. This post is a Reckless book review that delves into more that just the story.
I’m a fan of booktok and it’s helped me find numerous books to read over the last couple of years. Powerless was a book that I stumbled upon by chance before it became so popular on booktok. The book was self-published originally and it’s easy to see why it became so popular. The first book is incredibly captivating. That obviously lead to high hopes for the second book.
However, once this was picked up by a publisher, something felt like it was missing. Reckless feels like a filler book. The whole book is about the return journey. That’s a lot of words for one main plot point. A lot of things happen but they don’t move the story along.
That being said, there was also the novella released: Powerful which follows Adena’s story. We know what happens to her in the end so it felt like the publishers just wanted to milk the franchise. It really feels like a hopeless story. Most of us romantasy readers enjoy the genre because the characters end up together, so when you know it’s a sad ending, it doesn’t bring much joy to reading it; just sadness.
That leads me to the point of this post. Why are so many books being turned into long series? Is it because of the success of ACOTAR? Is it a way to make more money? Or do the authors have a clear vision for the story that needs telling in three books or more? My guess is that it’s a combination.
Take Fourth Wing for example. I’m a huge Rebecca Yarros fan and I believe her when she says that Fourth Wing needs to be a five book series. Her pacing is incredible and you get swept up in the story. She also has plenty of standalone novels.
On the other hand, you have Assisstant To The Villian, which is more like a comedy, romance fantasy and having read the first two, I’m frustrated by the fact that the plot of the first one is still the same by the end of the second. It means that it’s not really telling a story but becoming like a soap opera (something that I don’t want when I pick up a book).
All these different books being turned into series is incredibly frustrating, and quite frankly, of putting. I don’t want to commit to multiple books to find out what happens at the end of the first one. Each book should be it’s own separate story. Yes, it can lead to something bigger, but the main plot of the book should be finished by the end. Hunger Games does this fantastically in their trilogy. The first book follows Katniss as she experiences the hunger games. The second book she ends up in the hunger games with champions. The third and final book follows the rebellion.
It’s unfortunate when the quality of storytelling is lost because of financial gain and I fear that is what has happened with Reckless. I love Pae’s and Kai’s story and I’m looking forward to the third book. However, that doesn’t stop me being disappointed in the lack of pace following from Powerless. A lot of publishers are mainly focused on sales (which is understandable as a business), but there should still be a passion in the art of storytelling.
Here’s another way to think of it. When you are creating a story, you have to create plot points and map out how the story will go. That means that you would know how many books it will take to tell a story once you’ve mapped it out. Therefore, why wouldn’t publishers be able to tell us how many books will be in a series from the get go? Most likely because they want to see how it sells first before committing. Again, from a business perspective it makes sense but story-telling is an art and should be treated as such.
Anyway, that’s enough of the rant. Below is my Goodreads review on the book itself but there wasn’t much to say as not a lot actually happened. I have high hopes from the third book as it’s the final one and usually in these kinds of trilogy’s, that’s when all the main action happens.
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