Booktok 📚 discussion

The similarities between Powerless by Lauren Roberts and Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is unbelievable! I wouldn't go as far as to call it plagiarism, but the amount of common factors was wild. I understand that every writer needs a start, and Roberts did write this book at a young age, but I felt like the book was 60% Aveyard. I WANT to love Powerless, but I can't bring myself to give a 5-star rating to a book that kind of copied another.

Here are the similarities between Red Queen and Powerless - **read at your own risk, there are several spoilers**

There is a split in society between people without special abilities and people born with extraordinary ones

The fmcs (female main characters) both meet a prince when they try to steal from him

Both Paedyn and Mare have no powers and live in the slums, and have a little sister/sister-figure who has extraordinary sewing skills

Both fmcs meet the one of the two princes when they try to steal from them, and this prince they steal from ends up being the love interest

Because of a public event that the whole kingdom knows about, the fmc is invited to stay in the castle, where both characters pretend to have abilities when they're both really just ordinary

The royal family consists of two half brothers and a corrupt king who is content in splitting the two different groups of people based on their abilities (powers). One of the brothers (the love interest) is the stronger, more fierce brother, while the other brother is more sweet and kind.

Both books have a resistance group to gain equality against the higher power AND both girls join the resistance group while still in the castle AND during that resistance group attacks the royal ball

The love interest goes to the fmc's room in the middle of the night to give her dance lessons before the royal ball

The fmc goes to the ball with the love interest's brother instead of him (Paedyn goes with Kitt instead of Kai, Mare goes with Maven instead of Cal)

The sassy 'mean girl' who's constantly being annoying to the FMC and making her life harder(in Powerless it's Blair and in Red Queen its Evangeline)

During the end, the main character has to fight in an arena, which the rebel organization also attacks, giving the fmc an opportunity to escape and run away

The brother that she went to the ball with becomes king AND turns on her and orders she be hunted down

This part is from fearless/reckless, but the fmc ends up being betrothed to the prince that wasn't the love interest, but favors the other brother

Crazy huh? At the same time, I really did love Powerless, along with it's next book Reckless. If you had similar thoughts as me or opinions, feel free to reply! Thanks for reading-

also lmk which book you liked better and why

tbh i haven't read Red Queen but i would choose it over Powerless ANYTIME. The similarities are INSANE and now i don't wanna read Red Queen bcs i already know what happens (bcs of powerless). overall, i DONT LIKE POWERLESS

read both and the similarities are very there, even reckless is very similar to ‘dance of thieves’. nevertheless i will continue to read the series 😭

yasmin wrote: "read both and the similarities are very there, even reckless is very similar to ‘dance of thieves’. nevertheless i will continue to read the series 😭"
ya i noticed the dance of theives thing too 😭

Mia wrote: "tbh i haven't read Red Queen but i would choose it over Powerless ANYTIME. The similarities are INSANE and now i don't wanna read Red Queen bcs i already know what happens (bcs of powerless). overa..."

FR like i can't even enjoy the book at this point bc ik what's gonna happen 😭
i would recommend reading rq tho it was a fun read!!

First off, the dialogue was so cheesy that I threw the book at the wall, you do not need to say the exact same phrase over and over, nobody cares what his stupid title is, I got the message the first time she called him a cocky b*stard. Also we get the fact that she hates his dimples, and she does not need to “drift back into reality” every time Kai says Paedyn’s name. Also, Paedyn did not need to talk about Kitt’s eyes every time he was mentioned at all. Also we get that he is going to be the future king, that doesn't even need to be mentioned at all because we get it already, we have common sense. We do not need to be reminded of it every single paragraph. Also she should have kissed Kai half way through the book, because they literally just say the same things over and over, about how they want each other but they are too scared. We understood that, and maybe let’s think about how they were in bed together before they even kissed, that is so wrong. All in all there was just way to repetition, and the dialog was just cheesy in general, holding a knife to someone else's throat is only thrilling the first time, it’s just annoying after a while. And they don’t have to be competing over who is more violent every single time they see each other, it’s so cheesy, usually I really like romantasy and I enjoy the flirty moments but every single time they were talking to each other it made me cringe. Not to mention Kai was such a stereotypical romantasy man ( everyone swoons over him), there was no difference between him, and literally everyone else, he was so basic, he had the black hair, he was tall, and he had a tattoo. He may as well have been Maven or Cal from Red Queen or Xaden from Fourth Wing.