Nikki

I really enjoyed this book, I went into it without seeing any of the complaints and criticisms of it, and now seeing it I feel like a lot of the complaints are people who just want to create reasons for why they disliked it.

Yes, the romance book had smut, fork found in kitchen. Why are you picking up a dystopian romance and being disturbed by there being on page sex?

Also a weird complaint that people had: the worry over who is behind the pen name. That's been a common publishing occurrence since the start of book marketing (even before that, honestly) why are you sleuthing out who it could be? If it's a concern regarding the politics of the author then don't read it? Drawing more attention to the book with your detective deducing will only drive more sales.

The criticisms around dubious consent due to the position of power Cross had over Wren is valid. I have read far more egregious depictions of dub con, so maybe I'm desensitized, and while maybe the author could've leaned even more into the FMC saying it directly to the MMC, there was, I feel, enough of an acknowledgement of the disparity and the relationship overall didn't feel pushed onto her.

I feel like the complaints regarding it not being dystopian, that it uses the dystopian backdrop while not carrying themes, are largely people being gatekeep-y about a genre they like. I do want to see the author explore the politics of this world and dig deeper on the overall goals of each side of this conflict more; although I am happy with the amount given in this first book, it didn't drown in exposition. It's shown that while the Primes are monstrous and bigoted, the uprising may not be as easy to root for as was originally presented so hopefully the sequel expands on it, and I think it will. Which I guess in and of itself will be problematic to some as there may be a desire for a black and white Oppressor/Subjugated dynamic, with less grey, especially as it is depicting a genocide of the Mods.

Overall, I was compelled with the world building and entertained by the storytelling, and that's what matters to me.

This got me out of a multi month reading slump, super enjoyable. The FMC felt like her age, and I feel acted in a way that was understandable even when I, as the reader, was screaming for her to not do something. I saw the twist coming but that was more to do with my experience with the common structure/plot twists of romantasy than the story beating a dead horse and being overtly obvious.

I don't know that I've ever read a book that repeats itself quite as much as this one, not just repeating sentences/scenes from other PoVs, it repeats character thoughts and actions in the same scene too.

Powerless is an amalgamation of many popular Fantasy YA books and I feel like you can tell which ones the author pulled the ideas from as they happen, it's an odd feeling to be bludgeoned by tropes. I feel as though the author needed a good editor and a couple of revisions and it otherwise would've been a fairly standard YA fantasy/romance.

Not sure why so many booktubers/booktokers have recommended this as it's not particularly unusual in plot or characters, nor unique in prose. However, my understanding is that this is a young author, and their first book, so I'm hopeful that a future book may be better.

Two stars, only because I saw potential in it, but boy was it disappointing.

Basically a miscommunication trope into kidnapping and SA, with no groveling and an entirely unsatisfying wrap-up.

I normally only give one stars to books I end up DNF-ing but holy hell this hit every avenue of tropes for contemporary romance. including pregnancy... Everyone in this story sucks I can hardly believe I got through the audiobook.

This is more of a 2 1/2 star read for me.
I re-read this because I remember how much I enjoyed it when I first read it (when I was a teenager) and hoped it would live up to my memory, it didn't.
Whilst it was a page-turner, I very much disliked most of the characters, most of the time; a lot of the conflict felt like they were teenagers who couldn't talk out their problems and my biggest gripe was how her getting pregnant was handled.They had sex (nearly while he was drunk and she sober, Yikes), he gets mad she was a virgin and might get pregnant (no protection), they sort it out (barely), have sex again, she gets pregnant (no surprise) and he's mad that's she pregnant... like, what?...
I'll probably read through the others in the series to see if they hold up to my memory or not.
I do like Susan Mallery's writing style so maybe I'll enjoy her newer stuff more.

I wish there was some conflict in this book. there was nothing.
After they got together that was it, smooth sailing... It really just got boring for me. Also nothing really came of her parents being emotionally unavailable it was only there as a contrast to how cohesive his family was. 
I liked the writing, the dialog was good, the characters were unique and felt different but overall everything ended up feeling very bland   

kinda hated some of the dialog, and the antagoist/point of conflict felt very unconvincing, liked the characters well enough though 

the antagonist is far too evil without sufficient reasoning... Also why wouldn't the FMC just go to the prince (with all the security and intel) and say ‘hey keep it quiet but your head chef is holding my sister hostage, can you help?' doesn't make much sense other than for plot

Also the prince not knowing she was the one the device was pointing out, especially after eliminating all the other candidates is just willful ignorance.  

Just stopped caring after the introduction of the pregnant ex. Also kinda hate the ‘virgin small town girl' trope going on  

not hot or romantic, questioning if I only enjoyed the previous books because of reading them when I was younger and more forgiving of shitty romance books, 

This was a re-read from several years ago, before I tracked my reading. Again, like the first book in this series, it doesn't really live up to the enjoyment I had the first time I read it, I liked it but wasn't riveted. 

I loved this when I first read this several years ago, I will say I didn't enjoy it as much as I once did

I've been trying to find more romance books with a fictional primitive/tribal society like ‘the golden dynasty' and the ‘horde kings' series but this is not that book. It's so poorly written, no relationship buildup, and even if you look at this as purely erotica, it's not good. I'm disappointed.   

I didn't know this was omegaverse when I started reading, wish I had because I would've skipped. 
the characters didn't get enough build up to make their ‘love' seem reasonable, dialog was bad, and plot was so contrived there was no surprise

I swear the books I pickup keep getting worse.

If you're hoping this will be similar to ‘The Golden Dynasty' or ‘The Horde King' series you'd be wrong.

I know it's a short story but holy hell let some of the romance build, jesus.

 Boy, does this book exemplify why I dislike contemporary romance so much... 
The constant pop culture references, the third act breakup being incredibly dumb, characters being so unlikable because it's the only why to cause conflict. 

The writing was jaunty and fun, the plot while unlikely wasn't completely unbelievable, and whilst short, the romance didn't feel like insta-love, but the sisters are a level of unlikable that I almost stopped reading. They're so petty and childish, even Nikki the FMC, that I didn't even care when Diego and her reunited. 

this was so much better then I thought it'd be

I liked this far more than I thought I would. It didn't have the ‘I can't put this down' quality that would've made it a 5 star but I found it to be decently paced and the characters actions believable.  
A popcorn read, that hit a lot of storyline tropes that I like.

I really liked the beginning but I got so uninterested around the 70% mark that it took me weeks to pick it back up and read through to the end. I will say it did start to pick back up after the third act conflict, however I don't really feel satisfied by the resolution to said conflict. 
I overall enjoyed the books that I've read in this series so I feel like that helps carry it to a 3.5 star read for me, but losing interest 2/3 of the way in seems to be common for me with this author. 
I wish the magic of this world was more thoroughly explored.

there's no world building, no character building, and the smut isn't even that good. I was disappointed by this 

it really dropped off for me at the midway point. Wish I liked it more

I started this because a book further down in the series sounded interesting and I thought I'd wouldn't mind trying the others in order.

listened as an audiobook