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Powerless [Full-Cast Dramatized Adaptation]
Adapted from the
New York Times
bestselling novel and BookTok sensation, this immersive audiobook edition brings to life the world of
Powerless
like you’ve never heard it before with a full cast of actors, music, and sound design!
Fourth Wing meets The Hunger Games in this sizzling fantasy romance not to be missed.
Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya . . . The exceptional. The Elites. The Elites have possessed powers for decades, gifted to them by the Plague, while those born Ordinary are just that, banished from the kingdom and shunned from society.
No one knows this better than Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary posing as an Elite. When she unsuspectingly saves one of Ilya’s princes, Kai Azer, she’s thrown into the Purging Trials, a brutal competition to showcase her ‘Elite’ powers.
If the Trials and the opponents don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for will if he discovers what Paedyn really is . . . completely Ordinary.
Follow Lauren Roberts on TikTok and Instagram @LaurenRobertsLibrary
Praise for the Powerless
‘Nothing short of epic’ Rosie Talbot, bestselling author of Sixteen Souls
‘A thrilling fantasy with the most delicious slow-burn romance’ M.A. Kuzniar, bestselling author of Midnight in Everwood
‘[A] titillating debut’ Publishers Weekly
‘A masterpiece’ Goodreads Reader Review
‘Everyone needs to read it’ TikTok Review
‘The BEST book I’ve read’ NetGalley Reader Review
‘A sizzling slice of fantasy romance’ Booksellers Review
Fourth Wing meets The Hunger Games in this sizzling fantasy romance not to be missed.
Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya . . . The exceptional. The Elites. The Elites have possessed powers for decades, gifted to them by the Plague, while those born Ordinary are just that, banished from the kingdom and shunned from society.
No one knows this better than Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary posing as an Elite. When she unsuspectingly saves one of Ilya’s princes, Kai Azer, she’s thrown into the Purging Trials, a brutal competition to showcase her ‘Elite’ powers.
If the Trials and the opponents don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for will if he discovers what Paedyn really is . . . completely Ordinary.
Follow Lauren Roberts on TikTok and Instagram @LaurenRobertsLibrary
Praise for the Powerless
‘Nothing short of epic’ Rosie Talbot, bestselling author of Sixteen Souls
‘A thrilling fantasy with the most delicious slow-burn romance’ M.A. Kuzniar, bestselling author of Midnight in Everwood
‘[A] titillating debut’ Publishers Weekly
‘A masterpiece’ Goodreads Reader Review
‘Everyone needs to read it’ TikTok Review
‘The BEST book I’ve read’ NetGalley Reader Review
‘A sizzling slice of fantasy romance’ Booksellers Review
Audible Audio
Published April 21, 2026
32 people are currently reading
13956 people want to read
About the author
Lauren Roberts
16 books63.5k followersWhen Lauren Roberts isn't writing about fantasy worlds and bantering love interests, she can likely be found burrowed in bed reading about them. Lauren has lived in Michigan her whole life, which makes her very familiar with potholes, snow, and various lake activities. She has the hobbies of both a grandmother and a child: knitting, laser tag, hammocking, word searches, and coloring. Powerless is her first novel (now a New York Times Best Seller), and she hopes to have the privilege of writing pretty words for the rest of her life. If you enjoy ranting, reading, and writing, Lauren can be found on both TikTok and Instagram @Laurenrobertslibrary for your entertainment.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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April 23, 2026I know I can’t rate it yet… but I just wanted to point out something I noticed in the description. It says “where FOURTH WING meets the hunger games,” but it used to say red queen. I mean I do love powerless but girl it is NOTHING like fourth wing
April 23, 2026
This rating is for this full cast dramatized audiobook production alone, NOT the book itself! I gave the book 5 stars when I read it, this audiobook production is just not what I would have expected or wanted at all. I’m very grateful I was able to get this audiobook on Libby instead of paying for it.
In theory, a full cast dramatized adaption of Powerless was incredibly exciting, since I loved the book so much! However, this audiobook let me down. I did stop listening at 5% because I just had no interest in continuing to listen to it, but skipped through to important scenes I remembered from my read to see if they were done better than the start. The audio of some narrators was echoey while for others it was well muted/dampened. The sound effects were random at times and felt unnecessary at many moments, like they were trying too hard for the dramatization instead of actually making an enjoyable listening experience.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks and have loved single, duet, dual, and full cast narrations, I’m not terribly picky as long as the narration is enough to keep me interested. The narrators did great jobs individually in this book but when mixed together in the full cast format they seem choppy and discordant with one another, instead of the seamless conversation feeling I expect from full cast narrations. Additionally, the sound effects for characters getting hurt sound like they aren't done by the narrators of those characters and are just random grunts/screams/pained sounds which takes me out of the scene every single time. They may have been done by the narrators but just edited in a way that makes them not sound right, I'm not sure.
I tried listening at 1x speed, 1.5x, and 2x since I know people prefer different speeds as well as using headphones vs phone speaker vs bluetooth speaker and none of them sounded like a quality I would want to pay to listen to. The voices are tinny and can be hard to focus on with some of the background noises for the dramatization. In my opinion, we don’t need to hear swords in the background the whole time a character is having an internal monologue while fighting, but just the swipe and “oof” of the culmination of that fight. And once the two main characters are done dueling, I don’t want to have their conversation hard to focus on by hearing others continuing dueling with swords in the background for the whole scene.
I really wanted to love this audiobook, I loved the book and I love full cast narration and dramatized adaptations, but this one was just not what I was hoping for. I think my issues with this come mostly from the editing of the audio and sound effects though not the narration!
One final note, about the Goodreads description of this title: This book is not similar to Fourth Wing at all in my opinion, other than it being an adult fantasy book. I think that is a very weird comp for this to have listed, because Hunger Games is a very accurate comp title but Fourth Wing seems like a random choice made just to try and get more readers.
In theory, a full cast dramatized adaption of Powerless was incredibly exciting, since I loved the book so much! However, this audiobook let me down. I did stop listening at 5% because I just had no interest in continuing to listen to it, but skipped through to important scenes I remembered from my read to see if they were done better than the start. The audio of some narrators was echoey while for others it was well muted/dampened. The sound effects were random at times and felt unnecessary at many moments, like they were trying too hard for the dramatization instead of actually making an enjoyable listening experience.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks and have loved single, duet, dual, and full cast narrations, I’m not terribly picky as long as the narration is enough to keep me interested. The narrators did great jobs individually in this book but when mixed together in the full cast format they seem choppy and discordant with one another, instead of the seamless conversation feeling I expect from full cast narrations. Additionally, the sound effects for characters getting hurt sound like they aren't done by the narrators of those characters and are just random grunts/screams/pained sounds which takes me out of the scene every single time. They may have been done by the narrators but just edited in a way that makes them not sound right, I'm not sure.
I tried listening at 1x speed, 1.5x, and 2x since I know people prefer different speeds as well as using headphones vs phone speaker vs bluetooth speaker and none of them sounded like a quality I would want to pay to listen to. The voices are tinny and can be hard to focus on with some of the background noises for the dramatization. In my opinion, we don’t need to hear swords in the background the whole time a character is having an internal monologue while fighting, but just the swipe and “oof” of the culmination of that fight. And once the two main characters are done dueling, I don’t want to have their conversation hard to focus on by hearing others continuing dueling with swords in the background for the whole scene.
I really wanted to love this audiobook, I loved the book and I love full cast narration and dramatized adaptations, but this one was just not what I was hoping for. I think my issues with this come mostly from the editing of the audio and sound effects though not the narration!
One final note, about the Goodreads description of this title: This book is not similar to Fourth Wing at all in my opinion, other than it being an adult fantasy book. I think that is a very weird comp for this to have listed, because Hunger Games is a very accurate comp title but Fourth Wing seems like a random choice made just to try and get more readers.
May 3, 2026
2.5
Well. That was... something. Not bad but well a deception nonetheless. I had the same impression when I read Quicksilver. A lot of inspirations from books I already read and loved. But the writing was immaculate. Powerless is not. That was a little painful actually I rolled my eyes so hard. That's not just inspiration... that's crossed line plagiat... I will go on with the saga because I bought the damn books already but I'm not that eager to do so
Well. That was... something. Not bad but well a deception nonetheless. I had the same impression when I read Quicksilver. A lot of inspirations from books I already read and loved. But the writing was immaculate. Powerless is not. That was a little painful actually I rolled my eyes so hard. That's not just inspiration... that's crossed line plagiat... I will go on with the saga because I bought the damn books already but I'm not that eager to do so
May 8, 2026
Rating the full cast, not the book. Love the book, but the full cast. I wished they had picked different people for Payden and Kai. I like how they kept it for the story, but I wished it had been different people.
April 26, 2026
4.25
That was a wild ride, and that ending makes me wish the rest of the series had dramatized versions already! I’m definitely going to need to continue the series.
That was a wild ride, and that ending makes me wish the rest of the series had dramatized versions already! I’m definitely going to need to continue the series.
May 1, 2026
I AM SO GLAD THIS WAS MADE!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!
May 3, 2026
It improved the book somewhat but holy fuck I forgot how unexciting the writing/narration is.
May 9, 2026
I'm curious to see where the story goes, but I really hope there's a better editor going forward. I started to physically recoil every time the word "gaze" was said.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews