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Spellbinders #3
Spellbinders: Overpowered
Rewrite the rules of the game in the next installment of this hilarious and epic illustrated series about a middle schooler whose gaming fantasies become his reality.
"My favorite new fantasy series.”
—Max Brallier, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Last Kids on Earth series
After the universe-altering events of his last adventure, Ben Whitlock is trapped in an endless magical nap, and nobody across the realms knows how to wake him. But that won’t keep his loyal quest party from trying their hardest. Merv searches the seemingly endless House of Reflection for a cure, while Niara, Agnes and Drake return to Lux, where it all began, to find answers from their ultimate enemy (although they have so many these days, it's hard to keep track).
Meanwhile, Ben is stuck with the Spellbinder who first got him into this mess in a mind-bending dream world...and it appears his mind is the one that's bent. Can he escape before it finally breaks? Fighting their way back to one another, the party must face their greatest desires and their greatest fears. But when you play with magic, the rules are always being rewritten...and nothing is as it seems.
"My favorite new fantasy series.”
—Max Brallier, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Last Kids on Earth series
After the universe-altering events of his last adventure, Ben Whitlock is trapped in an endless magical nap, and nobody across the realms knows how to wake him. But that won’t keep his loyal quest party from trying their hardest. Merv searches the seemingly endless House of Reflection for a cure, while Niara, Agnes and Drake return to Lux, where it all began, to find answers from their ultimate enemy (although they have so many these days, it's hard to keep track).
Meanwhile, Ben is stuck with the Spellbinder who first got him into this mess in a mind-bending dream world...and it appears his mind is the one that's bent. Can he escape before it finally breaks? Fighting their way back to one another, the party must face their greatest desires and their greatest fears. But when you play with magic, the rules are always being rewritten...and nothing is as it seems.
411 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 3, 2025
6 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Auseon
13 books26 followersAndrew Auseon is a writer of novels for young people, and a designer of video games. He holds a B.A. from Ohio University and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from the prestigious Vermont College.
He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, Sarah Zogby, and their two daughters.
He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, Sarah Zogby, and their two daughters.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 11, 2026
Good book. Loved the themes of Ben's dissociation and his fears of facing reality, the characters were endearing. The ending seems very rushed and made the timeline incredibly hard to grasp; another author not quite getting timelines and timeloops, and using timeloops as a scapegoat for reasoning. It would be so much more interesting if the mystery as to who spread out the spellbinder's books wasn't just a timeloop, even Ben says he hates timeloops in the book.
Ben's and other characters problems are grasped, but never quite cleanly fixed, Andrew just expects you to assume each character's problems got fixed but they never do, and sometimes they do off camera instead of showing us they got fixed. He also struggles with actually mentioning mental illness and other conditions and it feels like he's trying to delicately walk around them as to not "offend anyone" when it's more offensive with how he was stepping around things.
The weird vague romance aspects between Ben (12 yrs) and Niara (14 yrs) is incredibly weird and misplaced as well, same with Merv and Ruby's romance. Andrew seems weirdly obsessed with child romance to the point it just seems like it's added for little to no reason other then to reference his old books and for his own tastes.
The writing is fluffy and endearing, and I quite liked how the characters are based on common tropes that take themselves seriously and twist them to their own characters. Cash was redeemed in this book, but it was sloppy and quick, and then they later died for basically no reason other then Auseon being lazy with their redemption.
The ending was just upsetting and boring, for a book about video games you'd think it would end with an Epic Final Boss, but it just had the main characters failing to save the day and failing to use everything they learned in previous books, with Cash just appearing and then dying for literally no reason other then for some symbolic meaning that Andrew never grasped in the books. Cash was a good character, incredibly charming and how similar they are with Ben broke my heart a little, but then their character, was wasted, and so was every other character in the end because they're never pushed to their limits. The after-ending just felt bland and depressing with all the magic being gone, it just felt like it missed the point by a landslide, and after the climax the book began to drag on.
Good book, good trilogy, Andrew struggles with taking his own characters and writing fully seriously and leading it up to a plot to the point where it felt lazy and the timeline became messy. Definitely could use some fixing but this trilogy is perfect for a good, funny, comfort read, with some tearful parts here and there.
Ben's and other characters problems are grasped, but never quite cleanly fixed, Andrew just expects you to assume each character's problems got fixed but they never do, and sometimes they do off camera instead of showing us they got fixed. He also struggles with actually mentioning mental illness and other conditions and it feels like he's trying to delicately walk around them as to not "offend anyone" when it's more offensive with how he was stepping around things.
The weird vague romance aspects between Ben (12 yrs) and Niara (14 yrs) is incredibly weird and misplaced as well, same with Merv and Ruby's romance. Andrew seems weirdly obsessed with child romance to the point it just seems like it's added for little to no reason other then to reference his old books and for his own tastes.
The writing is fluffy and endearing, and I quite liked how the characters are based on common tropes that take themselves seriously and twist them to their own characters. Cash was redeemed in this book, but it was sloppy and quick, and then they later died for basically no reason other then Auseon being lazy with their redemption.
The ending was just upsetting and boring, for a book about video games you'd think it would end with an Epic Final Boss, but it just had the main characters failing to save the day and failing to use everything they learned in previous books, with Cash just appearing and then dying for literally no reason other then for some symbolic meaning that Andrew never grasped in the books. Cash was a good character, incredibly charming and how similar they are with Ben broke my heart a little, but then their character, was wasted, and so was every other character in the end because they're never pushed to their limits. The after-ending just felt bland and depressing with all the magic being gone, it just felt like it missed the point by a landslide, and after the climax the book began to drag on.
Good book, good trilogy, Andrew struggles with taking his own characters and writing fully seriously and leading it up to a plot to the point where it felt lazy and the timeline became messy. Definitely could use some fixing but this trilogy is perfect for a good, funny, comfort read, with some tearful parts here and there.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review