If you’ve been around, you know that I don’t often post negative reviews. It has nothing to do with getting the book for free (thanks, Simon Teen for this one!), like some suggest about book reviewers who only share positive reviews. This is a place of hype, not negativity, but sometimes, I need to rant and maybe there’s a point in there somewhere.

I enjoyed Lauren Roberts’ debut, Powerless, as well as the series’ first novella, Powerful, but things took a turn after that. The second novel, Reckless, felt like filler and the third book, Fearless, was entirely forgettable to the point I never posted a review because I couldn’t remember what even happened. Despite that, I decided to pick up the final novella, Fearful, anyways… and I have regrets.

Fearful [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is a dual POV novella about Kitt and Mara, aka death. Mara is there to collect Kitt’s soul once he passes from taking the plague, but she’s also keeping an eye on Blair and Lenny to see if one or both of them will also die.

I didn’t enjoy much of this book, if anything. The writing style for Mara’s point of view drove me nuts. It’s riddled with ‘you see’ and odd parentheticals, as well as just feeling off in the way Death is referenced. It’s giving talking in third person, if that makes sense. Plus, I never really cared about Blair and Lenny in the first place, so watching them start to like each other slowly was just a drag. Kitt’s chapters were the most interesting, but I don’t feel like this gives him the justice he deserved.

And then there’s the ending…
Just…. what on earth?!

I initially thought I was being too harsh, but then I read a few Goodreads reviews and found my thoughts to be in line with the majority.

Honestly, this book didn’t need to exist. It truly feels like a money grab. I know it was in Lauren’s plans to have a second novella, but this wasn’t worth the effort of writing it, or reading it, for that matter. It feels as though once Lauren lost the training wheels of Red Queen and The Hunger Games from book one, which is a source of controversy on its own, she didn’t really know what she was doing or where the story was going.

The difference between Fearful and Powerful is that the latter actually added to the story. We cared about Adena and seeing more of her lent itself to feeling her loss more, as well as setting up that one detail in Fearless. While we cared about Kitt, this didn’t really give us more reason to feel his ending more, and was a detour from the vibe of all the previous books entirely. Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t care what happened to Blair, but this was just a bore.

I undderstand the idea of capitalizing on a book’s success with additional titles, but when it’s poorly done, I feel like that’s more of a disservice to the author and reader than a benefit. Yeah, she’s making money, but at what cost? There are a lot of unhappy readers who didn’t like this book and might not pick up her next one because of it.

Quality over quantity, my friends. I want my time back.

Let me know your thoughts. Did you like this one and think I’m just too harsh? Do you prefer quality story over number of books in the series? Drop a comment below.