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2.5 stars


Fearless, the long-awaited conclusion to a trilogy I once felt genuinely hopeful about, ended up being a frustrating, chaotic, and emotionally hollow finale—one that somehow managed to drag down everything that came before it while offering little to nothing in the way of payoff. I didn’t go into this book expecting brilliance—not after Reckless, which had already shaken my confidence—but I was still holding on to the faint hope that the author would pull things together in the end, give the story some emotional closure, and deliver a finale that, while maybe not groundbreaking, would at least feel satisfying. What I got instead was a mess of rushed revelations, recycled plot lines, clunky writing, and the kind of repetitive drama that made the book feel like it was just going in circles until it finally gave up and collapsed under its own weight.

Let’s take a step back for a second. I was one of those readers who genuinely enjoyed Powerless. I picked it up during a rough patch where fantasy had started to feel stale and formulaic to me, and somehow that book managed to remind me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. Was it original? Absolutely not. It leaned hard into tropes we’ve all seen a hundred times before. It borrowed pretty openly from other, more well-known fantasy series. But despite all of that, I found myself invested. The romance between Paedyn and Kai was compelling enough to keep me turning pages, the pacing moved things along quickly, and even though I could see every twist coming, I didn’t really care. I was having fun. And for me, Powerless didn’t need to be a masterpiece—it just needed to be enjoyable, and it was.

Then came Powerful, the novella that honestly made me believe that this series might be building toward something genuinely impactful. That story, focusing on Mak and Adena, was everything I’d hoped the main series would become. It was raw, emotional, and beautifully written. I could see the potential for deep character arcs and meaningful storytelling. It was the emotional high point that made me believe there was still hope for this series.

But then�� Reckless happened. And things started to fall apart in a big way. That book remains one of the most stagnant, filler-heavy sequels I’ve ever read. Characters spent hundreds of pages doing nothing of importance, the plot never moved forward in any meaningful way, and the constant repetition made it feel like I was stuck reading the same three chapters on a loop. Still, I kept reading, hoping that the author had a plan—that Fearless would somehow tie it all together and make the long, slow buildup worth it.

But instead of redemption, I got chaos.

Fearless felt like it was trying to be a blend of what worked in Powerless and what it thought worked in Reckless, but it never managed to find its footing. The pacing was all over the place, the writing took a nosedive in quality, and the emotional heart of the story—the thing that made the early parts of the series feel worthwhile was completely lost.

I don’t remember the writing being this cringy in the earlier books, but in Fearless, the dialogue was downright painful at times. It felt melodramatic and stilted, with characters speaking in these overly aesthetic, pseudo-deep one-liners that seemed designed more to look aesthetically pleasing than actually resonate emotionally. There’s this constant, exhausting push to sound profound, but the weight just isn’t there.

And it doesn’t help that the characters�� emotional maturity has completely stalled out. Paedyn and Kai are still trapped in this endless cycle of “we’re just pretending,�� even though literally no one believes them anymore. They sneak off to kiss in secret, get caught or almost caught, then go back to pretending it didn’t happen. And this happens over and over. It stops feeling romantic and starts feeling like a plot device that the author forgot to resolve. It drove me fucking crazy in Reckless and it drove me even more crazy in Fearless.

The pacing—The first third of the book moves so slow, filled with scenes that serve no real purpose and could have easily been cut without changing the story. Then, suddenly, the book shifts into overdrive, throwing in twist after twist—none of which feel earned. These aren’t clever twists. They don’t come from character growth or careful foreshadowing. They’re just there to shock you, and they don’t land because there’s no emotional or narrative groundwork laid beforehand.

Worse, most of them are immediately resolved—no tension, no consequences, no time to breathe. Just shock, move on, repeat.

The characters suffered the most. Paedyn was constantly pissing me off. Kai was lost in his brooding. Kitt became unbearable. And then there were the new side characters—people who were suddenly introduced and treated like we were supposed to care about them, despite having no time to understand their relevance. They added nothing but noise to an already cluttered narrative.



🚨SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS🚨



Specific problems that I had:
�� Paedyn being royalty: I mean�� seriously? This reveal was so telegraphed, especially once Edrik got a pov that it didn’t even feel like a twist. It was the most basic, recycled fantasy trope, and it didn’t change anything or add emotional depth. Just another checkbox ticked.
�� Mak’s storyline: After Powerful, I had such high hopes. But in Fearless, he has one conversation with Paedyn, barely appears in the entire book, and then gets killed off?? Be so fucking for real right now! His storyline deserved so much better.
�� Paedyn’s father reveal: Yet another “twist�� that’s introduced and wrapped up in one chapter??
�� The half-sibling twist: This was weird as fuck.



SPOILERS END



Overall, would I recommend this trilogy? Maybe. If you’re new to fantasy and looking for something trope-heavy, fast-paced, and romance-driven, this might work for you. It’s easy to read, dramatic, and filled with the kind of angst that can be fun if you’re not looking too hard beneath the surface.
But if you’ve read widely in the genre, if you want meaningful character arcs, smart worldbuilding, or even just emotionally satisfying storytelling, this series will probably leave you feeling pretty empty.