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Powerless #3
The Stasis
In book three of the Powerless series, The Stasis, Mira and her friends are assimilated into their nation’s military. As they endeavor to defend their homeland from a ruthless tyrant and his ravenous followers, Mira hopes to find what she has sacrificed so much to reclaim. Their mission becomes that much more difficult when they encounter their military leader, a man obsessed with the power of his position who proves just as life-threatening as their enemies to Mira and her friends.
Danger surrounding them on all sides, this small group of teens is forced to depend upon each other for survival. They’ve known each other their entire lives, but under these harsh and desperate circumstances their bonds will be tested as never before. Whether struggling to cope with trauma or turning affections into fledgling romances, they will all learn something different about living in the world when every breath could be their last.
On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004E9U6PW/?...
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004E9U6PW
BN.com: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/book...
Danger surrounding them on all sides, this small group of teens is forced to depend upon each other for survival. They’ve known each other their entire lives, but under these harsh and desperate circumstances their bonds will be tested as never before. Whether struggling to cope with trauma or turning affections into fledgling romances, they will all learn something different about living in the world when every breath could be their last.
On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004E9U6PW/?...
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004E9U6PW
BN.com: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/book...
- GenresFantasyYoung Adult
227 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 28, 2010
3 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Jason Letts
78 books181 followersSometimes I think writing makes me crazy, but then again I'd probably be even more crazy without it. There are a lot of things I do to balance out though: traveling, distance running, hiking, reading, orange juice, tennis, food fights, walking out of movie theaters telling the people in line that Harry Potter dies, cooking ethnic food, and competitive napping.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 1, 2011
Rating: 4.6 out of 5
Growing up. It’s hard. It sucks. Our heroes are revealed to be mortal and flawed, our presumptions about the world are constantly proven untrue, and the evils that surround us, which we’ve been gleefully naïve of in our younger days, slowly trickle into our consciousness, threatening to crush our spirit. Often, when I look back on this myself, I wonder how I was able to keep a positive outlook on life. But the thing is, that positive outlook was learned. It came from realizing that I didn’t really want to dwell on the bad, that I wanted to appreciate what I had, the people who loved me, while they’re still here.
That, in a nutshell, describes the atmosphere of The Stasis, the third of the Powerless series by Jason Letts.
As with book two, the story picks up where the previous volume left off, with Mira, the powerless girl in a world where everyone else has superpowers, leading her fellow students from Dustfalls Academy into the war after her failure to win the Rite at Shadow Mountain.
In book two, Mira learns her rather sordid history (which I will not disclose here for fear of a major spoiler for those who haven’t read it), and in The Stasis her emotional deconstructions is complete. Whereas she was once full of wonder and innocence, she now carries herself with a coldly logical hardness that is difficult to see from a character that’d once been so glowing. But it makes sense; her definition of self has been stripped away, leaving behind a skeleton of her former life that she’s ill equipped to reconstruct. So she does what people do when they’ve been abandoned by hope – she latches onto an ideal (to free her sister from the clutches of the army her people are fighting against) and pushes tirelessly and fearlessly for that goal, all else be damned.
Along the way she alienates her friends, becomes involved in a great many battles, and gets wounded (physically as well as emotionally). From there, the meat of the story deals with Mira trying to rediscover the love and purity she’s lost.
This is a very dark book, especially for something in the young adult genre. Quite a few characters are killed off (thousands, actually, if you count all the soldiers fighting in the war), and those that do survive are stricken with such difficult circumstances that their guilt threatens to overcome them. You have to remember that these are sixteen-year-old kids the author has written about here, and they’ve been asked to risk their lives for what amounts to opposing principles they haven’t the maturity to grasp. The senior officers of the army treat them like fodder and are willing to sacrifice them at a moment’s notice to simply prove a point, which brings to mind some very real circumstances that have occurred in our own military during the last ten years or so.
And yet these kids do fight, they do push themselves to the limit, and that aspect of the storyline owes itself to simple survival. When the chips are down and you don’t understand what everyone’s fighting for in the first place, it’s your own life and the lives or your friends that end up mattering more than anything. I couldn’t help but think of World War II and the stories my grandfather has told me of the young people in his platoon stepping up when their superiors went down and all seemed lost. Like the characters in The Stasis, my grandfather fought to keep his friends alive. In that way, this book acts as homage to the stories of these wars past and the grand sacrifices much-too-young individuals had to make during battle, when death surrounded and threatened to swallow them whether or not they stayed on their toes.
Speaking of battle scenes, The Stasis has a few of them, and they’re all pretty grand in scale. They’re confusing to read, what with so many different people having so many different powers that affect their surroundings in so many different ways. This could be looked at as a drawback, but I ended up appreciating the execution. When I found myself being confounded by what was going on, I put myself in the characters’ shoes; if it was difficult for me, the reader, to follow, how must it be for those involved? Reading them actually made me tense, which in books usually only happens during overly emotional scenes.
With all of this violence and the overarching spiral into different facets of the social unrest that started this war, it would’ve been easy for poignant characterization to fall by the wayside. However, the opposite happens. Even with the confusing mess of fighting, the characters actually come more alive, gain more depth, prove more of their usefulness as metaphorical vehicles. Each individual grows and demonstrates just how pure of heart and mind they are, even those that make irrevocably bad decisions. I applaud Letts for this, because he definitely didn’t take the easy way out.
I had very few problems with this book. At times I found the dialogue stilted and robotic, and still the head-hopping persists, but I’ve come to simply accept these as a part of the series’ voice. I’ll no longer dock points for it, considering that if you’re here reading this review it most likely means you’ve already read the first two books. It’s still a wonderful and emotional read, one that I’m growing to appreciate more and more with each installment.
Before I end this review, there’s one last thing I want to mention. With all the death, destruction, and ominous foreboding in this book, there is one particular scene towards the end that jumps out. Letts does something I didn’t expect – he takes these characters that he’s lead through the ringer and allows them to once more rediscover their youthful innocence, if only for a fleeting few moments. I was taken aback and made to feel rather morose. Again I thought of my grandfather, eighteen years old and trapped behind enemy lines. Did he take the time to engage in a games and laughter in the down times, those moments when the fear of imminent death took a much-needed breather? If so, did it help steel him against what was surely to come next? It seems like such a depressing state to find oneself in, and yet I couldn’t shake how real it felt. If nothing else, Letts has a handle on the emotive core of human nature.
The Stasis is a powerful work. It dares to question everything from what constitutes family and the nature of morality. It brings you into the depths of despair and then pulls you out, only to shove you back in once more. It’s a fantastic book, for all ages, and one that I’m not shy at all about giving a heartfelt recommendation to. The best of the series so far, which says a lot. By the end, you’ll think of one line Mira states at the beginning of the novel – The only inevitable truth is death – and hope that the characters will come to realize that despite the nugget of truth of that statement, there are many inevitable truths.
Death is only one of them.
Plot - 9
Characters - 9
Voice - 9
Execution - 9
Personal Enjoyment – 10
Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)
Growing up. It’s hard. It sucks. Our heroes are revealed to be mortal and flawed, our presumptions about the world are constantly proven untrue, and the evils that surround us, which we’ve been gleefully naïve of in our younger days, slowly trickle into our consciousness, threatening to crush our spirit. Often, when I look back on this myself, I wonder how I was able to keep a positive outlook on life. But the thing is, that positive outlook was learned. It came from realizing that I didn’t really want to dwell on the bad, that I wanted to appreciate what I had, the people who loved me, while they’re still here.
That, in a nutshell, describes the atmosphere of The Stasis, the third of the Powerless series by Jason Letts.
As with book two, the story picks up where the previous volume left off, with Mira, the powerless girl in a world where everyone else has superpowers, leading her fellow students from Dustfalls Academy into the war after her failure to win the Rite at Shadow Mountain.
In book two, Mira learns her rather sordid history (which I will not disclose here for fear of a major spoiler for those who haven’t read it), and in The Stasis her emotional deconstructions is complete. Whereas she was once full of wonder and innocence, she now carries herself with a coldly logical hardness that is difficult to see from a character that’d once been so glowing. But it makes sense; her definition of self has been stripped away, leaving behind a skeleton of her former life that she’s ill equipped to reconstruct. So she does what people do when they’ve been abandoned by hope – she latches onto an ideal (to free her sister from the clutches of the army her people are fighting against) and pushes tirelessly and fearlessly for that goal, all else be damned.
Along the way she alienates her friends, becomes involved in a great many battles, and gets wounded (physically as well as emotionally). From there, the meat of the story deals with Mira trying to rediscover the love and purity she’s lost.
This is a very dark book, especially for something in the young adult genre. Quite a few characters are killed off (thousands, actually, if you count all the soldiers fighting in the war), and those that do survive are stricken with such difficult circumstances that their guilt threatens to overcome them. You have to remember that these are sixteen-year-old kids the author has written about here, and they’ve been asked to risk their lives for what amounts to opposing principles they haven’t the maturity to grasp. The senior officers of the army treat them like fodder and are willing to sacrifice them at a moment’s notice to simply prove a point, which brings to mind some very real circumstances that have occurred in our own military during the last ten years or so.
And yet these kids do fight, they do push themselves to the limit, and that aspect of the storyline owes itself to simple survival. When the chips are down and you don’t understand what everyone’s fighting for in the first place, it’s your own life and the lives or your friends that end up mattering more than anything. I couldn’t help but think of World War II and the stories my grandfather has told me of the young people in his platoon stepping up when their superiors went down and all seemed lost. Like the characters in The Stasis, my grandfather fought to keep his friends alive. In that way, this book acts as homage to the stories of these wars past and the grand sacrifices much-too-young individuals had to make during battle, when death surrounded and threatened to swallow them whether or not they stayed on their toes.
Speaking of battle scenes, The Stasis has a few of them, and they’re all pretty grand in scale. They’re confusing to read, what with so many different people having so many different powers that affect their surroundings in so many different ways. This could be looked at as a drawback, but I ended up appreciating the execution. When I found myself being confounded by what was going on, I put myself in the characters’ shoes; if it was difficult for me, the reader, to follow, how must it be for those involved? Reading them actually made me tense, which in books usually only happens during overly emotional scenes.
With all of this violence and the overarching spiral into different facets of the social unrest that started this war, it would’ve been easy for poignant characterization to fall by the wayside. However, the opposite happens. Even with the confusing mess of fighting, the characters actually come more alive, gain more depth, prove more of their usefulness as metaphorical vehicles. Each individual grows and demonstrates just how pure of heart and mind they are, even those that make irrevocably bad decisions. I applaud Letts for this, because he definitely didn’t take the easy way out.
I had very few problems with this book. At times I found the dialogue stilted and robotic, and still the head-hopping persists, but I’ve come to simply accept these as a part of the series’ voice. I’ll no longer dock points for it, considering that if you’re here reading this review it most likely means you’ve already read the first two books. It’s still a wonderful and emotional read, one that I’m growing to appreciate more and more with each installment.
Before I end this review, there’s one last thing I want to mention. With all the death, destruction, and ominous foreboding in this book, there is one particular scene towards the end that jumps out. Letts does something I didn’t expect – he takes these characters that he’s lead through the ringer and allows them to once more rediscover their youthful innocence, if only for a fleeting few moments. I was taken aback and made to feel rather morose. Again I thought of my grandfather, eighteen years old and trapped behind enemy lines. Did he take the time to engage in a games and laughter in the down times, those moments when the fear of imminent death took a much-needed breather? If so, did it help steel him against what was surely to come next? It seems like such a depressing state to find oneself in, and yet I couldn’t shake how real it felt. If nothing else, Letts has a handle on the emotive core of human nature.
The Stasis is a powerful work. It dares to question everything from what constitutes family and the nature of morality. It brings you into the depths of despair and then pulls you out, only to shove you back in once more. It’s a fantastic book, for all ages, and one that I’m not shy at all about giving a heartfelt recommendation to. The best of the series so far, which says a lot. By the end, you’ll think of one line Mira states at the beginning of the novel – The only inevitable truth is death – and hope that the characters will come to realize that despite the nugget of truth of that statement, there are many inevitable truths.
Death is only one of them.
Plot - 9
Characters - 9
Voice - 9
Execution - 9
Personal Enjoyment – 10
Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)
May 17, 2018
The Stasis (Powerless Book 3) Jason Letts May 12-13, 2018 (18 chapters)
Note: I read this book as a part of the 5-book set and am giving the book review here. For the overall series review, see my Powerless Complete 5 book Set review. (Which will happen after I read all five books, of course!)
The third book in the series picks up where the second book left off.
It’s actually a lot better reading than the second book, and I enjoyed it a lot more. Mira is still fighting through her issues, which started to make itself known at the very end of book two.
I’m not going to re-hash the plot here, I’m sure many others have/can do a much better job than me. This review is more about general feeling of plot and advancement of story.
There is a point in the story where I begin to feel that everyone worth anything will be gone by the end. There are deaths in this story, but I see it more as the thinning of characters; advancement of plot; or offers growth to the core characters.
There are love interests revealed in the story. Some are obvious to some but not all. Sometimes it is hard to remember that these are teen characters in this story. I am not going to make comparisons to other stories/books, that would do this book series an injustice, only to say there are similarities.
Arm chair editors: This is a mostly clean revision. There were one or two instances where I had to go back and re-read a passage, but afterwards, I realized that it was written correctly. (Maybe the sentences could be clearer/clarified for better understanding.)
At the end of the book, my heart was breaking. I was planning on waiting a day to start book four, but the cliffhanger-like ending makes me want to start now.
Overall, a much better book than the second one. However, the second one was really needed to lay the groundwork for this one.
Four stars.
Note: I read this book as a part of the 5-book set and am giving the book review here. For the overall series review, see my Powerless Complete 5 book Set review. (Which will happen after I read all five books, of course!)
The third book in the series picks up where the second book left off.
It’s actually a lot better reading than the second book, and I enjoyed it a lot more. Mira is still fighting through her issues, which started to make itself known at the very end of book two.
I’m not going to re-hash the plot here, I’m sure many others have/can do a much better job than me. This review is more about general feeling of plot and advancement of story.
There is a point in the story where I begin to feel that everyone worth anything will be gone by the end. There are deaths in this story, but I see it more as the thinning of characters; advancement of plot; or offers growth to the core characters.
There are love interests revealed in the story. Some are obvious to some but not all. Sometimes it is hard to remember that these are teen characters in this story. I am not going to make comparisons to other stories/books, that would do this book series an injustice, only to say there are similarities.
Arm chair editors: This is a mostly clean revision. There were one or two instances where I had to go back and re-read a passage, but afterwards, I realized that it was written correctly. (Maybe the sentences could be clearer/clarified for better understanding.)
At the end of the book, my heart was breaking. I was planning on waiting a day to start book four, but the cliffhanger-like ending makes me want to start now.
Overall, a much better book than the second one. However, the second one was really needed to lay the groundwork for this one.
Four stars.
December 27, 2020
This is the third book of five. It was much better than the first two. I did read all five and I liked it better by the end. I give the series 4 stars overall.
May 5, 2017
Since I read this series back-to-back I am going to review it as one entry. The first thing you have to know about this series is that it’s set in an imagery world where they have absolutely NO IDEA how to educate children. If this is going to bother you then don’t read the Powerless Series, because it will be a big deal in the first few books and really set the underlying tone for the world-building.
The next thing you need to know is that because of the education system the military is run by power hungry dunder-heads. If an completely incompetent military will drive you nuts that you probably shouldn’t read this series.
Those things aside, this is one of the most unique worlds I’ve ever visited in a book. The author’s idea for the world is so outrageous that I just had to read through all the books to find out where he was planning on taking it.
The back drop is a world where everyone has some sort of power, everyone that is except for Mira. These powers range from useful (controlling the weather) to bizarre (sweating oil or giving birth to random animals.) Basically instead of relying on scientific understanding to get things done they reply on finding someone who has the power to do it.
We being the story with Mira, who has been kept from the outside world by her fathers ability to control the weather who has created a cloud wall around their home. Her mother (who has the power to put you to sleep with a touch) and father are afraid that a powerless person would be a freak and wouldn’t be able to make it in the outside world. So they’ve kept her at home teaching her from a series of scientific manuals.
Teenage Mira finally gets to join her peers in school and tries her best to fit in. The problem is that her peers do think shes a freak, and the education system is set up to pit power against power to see whose power can win in a fight (really, I warned you that their system was the worst.) It becomes a story about overcoming the odds, coming of age and learning to work together.
Like any series some books are better than others, but over all I enjoyed the journey.
The next thing you need to know is that because of the education system the military is run by power hungry dunder-heads. If an completely incompetent military will drive you nuts that you probably shouldn’t read this series.
Those things aside, this is one of the most unique worlds I’ve ever visited in a book. The author’s idea for the world is so outrageous that I just had to read through all the books to find out where he was planning on taking it.
The back drop is a world where everyone has some sort of power, everyone that is except for Mira. These powers range from useful (controlling the weather) to bizarre (sweating oil or giving birth to random animals.) Basically instead of relying on scientific understanding to get things done they reply on finding someone who has the power to do it.
We being the story with Mira, who has been kept from the outside world by her fathers ability to control the weather who has created a cloud wall around their home. Her mother (who has the power to put you to sleep with a touch) and father are afraid that a powerless person would be a freak and wouldn’t be able to make it in the outside world. So they’ve kept her at home teaching her from a series of scientific manuals.
Teenage Mira finally gets to join her peers in school and tries her best to fit in. The problem is that her peers do think shes a freak, and the education system is set up to pit power against power to see whose power can win in a fight (really, I warned you that their system was the worst.) It becomes a story about overcoming the odds, coming of age and learning to work together.
Like any series some books are better than others, but over all I enjoyed the journey.
January 12, 2013
I have recently read a book called The Stasis by Jason Letts. This was about a girl in a world where everyone had a power, but her. This girl had turned cold because her idol was very demented, and decides to go to war. She realizes how wrong she was and becomes nice again in the middle of a war. THis is a good book to read, after you read the first and second book.
The point of this story was to entertain the readers and tell us that you shouldn’t be stuck on the past, and to just keep on going. That is a lesson of this book because possibly, if she hadn’t been so hard, she could have handled things a lot better. This means that you should be focused on the future, not the past. This is a good lesson because if you stick to the past, you will not have any fun.
I felt this was a good book because it may have been a bit sad, but it made me want to read more. I think this book is cool because it still kept my interest throughout the 607 pages, which means I had to have been pretty interested. I wouldn’t change anything because it was a little long, but it was worth it.
I would recommend this to people who would commit to reading a 5-book series in the fantasy genre, which, I will be reading the last two. Some things you would need to know is what happened in the other two books before it.
The point of this story was to entertain the readers and tell us that you shouldn’t be stuck on the past, and to just keep on going. That is a lesson of this book because possibly, if she hadn’t been so hard, she could have handled things a lot better. This means that you should be focused on the future, not the past. This is a good lesson because if you stick to the past, you will not have any fun.
I felt this was a good book because it may have been a bit sad, but it made me want to read more. I think this book is cool because it still kept my interest throughout the 607 pages, which means I had to have been pretty interested. I wouldn’t change anything because it was a little long, but it was worth it.
I would recommend this to people who would commit to reading a 5-book series in the fantasy genre, which, I will be reading the last two. Some things you would need to know is what happened in the other two books before it.
May 29, 2011
This was actually a set of three books an there are two more in the story. It left you hanging at the end but I did like it. Bad things seem to happen a lot in this story and I can only hope by the time I finish the last two there will be some redemption. I have a feeling there will be but not completely sure. It's a story about kids that go to school to learn about their abilities and when the finish they get a mentor to learn more from them and then they go to war. You learn that right away in book one so I'm not giving anything away.
January 16, 2012
First off, I am glad Mira stopped being such a jerk. I just want to see if the Shade Fighters win! Commander Carmichael was a jerk, and I am glad he bought the farm. It was sad to see characters you followed from book one not make it to upcoming book 4. It is also sad so see the kids have to fight their own parents, after seeing their homes and city destroyed! And I am glad that in leiu of all the fighting and bad things, Vern & Aoi finally realize their own hearts!
November 17, 2011
I love this series.
The Stasis picked up where book 2 left off and at a break-neck pace. It's a very dark and suspensful book in comparison to the first two, and I liked the continued development of the secondary characters.
In short, I'm not good at reviews, so I'll just say that I'm a big fan of this series and the author. I'm so glad there are two more books to go!
The Stasis picked up where book 2 left off and at a break-neck pace. It's a very dark and suspensful book in comparison to the first two, and I liked the continued development of the secondary characters.
In short, I'm not good at reviews, so I'll just say that I'm a big fan of this series and the author. I'm so glad there are two more books to go!
February 14, 2011
i loved it. i can't wait for book 4. the end of book 3 was so abrupt and heartbreaking. need more please...
May 9, 2012
Good book. Clean, not really romantic, more adventure based.
October 3, 2013
This series has gotten slightly better with every book. Or I've just gotten used to the style.
Read
April 19, 20188 people with very special abilities have been preserved so their powers won't go back to the web.They are brought into the fight to try to stop sunfighters. They end up causing destruction to both sides. Roselyn gets killed. The sunfighters win.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews