Solar storms - no electricity in the northern hemisphere leaving people to their own devices. I love world changing disaster books, so couldn't resist this one, especially after seeing the cover. Sadly though the story didn't quite hit the mark - it wasn't menacing enough, it didn't need the Middle East sections, far too much about the US president and not enough about some of the other characters especially in the aftermath. It would have been interesting to see how they got through it all, how they survived everything. A shame too that the ending was rushed. Love the idea for the book - certainly makes you think!

I could tell from the start that I was really going to like this book. It opens with the world being hit by a massive geomagnetic solar storm that destroys the entire electrical system which is basically the foundation for everything we use to function on, on a daily basis. The story is told from multiple points of view such as doctors in a hospital, the president and his staff, scientists, pilots, and families across the U.S. and it shows you how these people are effected by the loss of power, water, food, law enforcement etc. and their fight to survive amidst the chaos. It was very enlightening and really made you think. It doesn't seem too far out there to think that it could possibly happen to us one day.

I know when  severe tornadoes devastated our area several years ago we lost power too. It was only for a couple of weeks though and it was still miserable just for that short period of time. We decided to drive north until we found a hotel in another state just to get back in our comfort zone but can you imagine not having that option to go anywhere else and having to live like that for years! They literally went from living in the 21st century to living in the 17th-18th century within a day. Just thinking about it makes me want to enroll in survival skill classes and go out and start stockpiling gas, generators, food, guns, horses and anything else I can think of.

The author does a great job though of bringing the disaster to life and really making you empathize with the characters and their individual predicaments. If you like post-apocalyptic natural disaster stories, then this is a good one!

*I received this ARC from NetGalley & Kensington Books in exchange for an honest review.

The story of Kenna, the powerless of the title, is narrated in first person, present, and that might be the root of some of the downsides of the book. I did find the villains and Rebel more likeable characters than Kenna, who treads the line between trying to be determined and independent and sometimes comes across as obnoxious. (I agree with a previous comment that life would be easier if the villains' names weren't so similar to each other). She also proclaims she's smart but misses a few clues throughout the story that she's evidently seen or heard as she's the only narrator we have. And her internal monologues don’t always illuminate the character or the story and can be sometime repetitive.

There is little description of how the world is outside of the team of heroes/villains who end up working together, or how things have come to where they are, and we don't know when the story is set. The story is intriguing, and it improves as it moves along, it is easy to read, and the overall message is positive, but perhaps a more diverse point of view would help.

I love the idea of a superhero YA book, except with the exception of a few of them, they usually don’t work.  Unfortunately, Powerless falls in this trend.

I really don’t know why it’s that difficult to pull off a superhero type book.  Because there’s so many directions you can go.  From over the top campy, to dark and gritty, you can essentially do anything with superheroes.  Unfortunately, Powerless did nothing with its world.  Really, nothing.  Oh, maybe something happened in the second half of the book-I DNF’d it-but I seriously doubted it.  This book was just so dull of so many levels.

Which was really sad.

I would’ve thought the world building would’ve been stronger.  I really did.  While Tera Lynn Child’s Forgive My Fins series wasn’t perfect, there was actually some world building there.  Same thing goes with Tracy Deebs, Tempest Rising, wasn’t bad world building wise.

Oh, wait there was Doomed But even with that catastrophe, I would think the two could pull it together to create a sensical world, but there wasn’t really anything all to this world to this world other than heroes, villains, and let’s try to do Sky High  but not do Sky High because that wouldn’t be cool.

Okay, I think you get a general idea of what a hot mess the world was.  But what about the characters…

Well, I know nothing about them other than the fact that Kenna is an idiot.  Oh, wait…I do know something about them because if you take the jacket off of the book you get  this….

Yes, your very own character chart (sorry that my phone couldn’t display the entire picture.  But if you’re going to know anything about these characters you better look at this chart.  You also might get a little confused if you don’t look at either because these characters have names like Khardashians (they all start with the same damn letter based on family, to the point of stupidity.  I mean really, Draven.  I have no words).

Other than that though, the characters are pretty much archetypes and nothing else.  There’s the main character Kenna who is just dim beyond belief.  Who’s main deal is that she is powerless in a world full of super heroes-um, so was Batman but he still kicked Superman’s butt in like every episode of the JLU  ever made just saying.    Then there’s Draven who I think is suppose to be the love interest because were given a paragraph about his stupid blue eyes and about how Keena is not suppose to be attracted to him.  And there’s there’s Jeremy who is suppose to be Kenna’s ex who is basically like the Jeff Goldblum in the book (aka strangely attractive ridiculously tall nerd).   Then there’s the punky best friend and a lot of other characters I could care less for.

The best thing I can say about this one is that shit did happen.  It was sort of chaotic at best, but things still happened.  So there was that…

And yet, somehow throughout the chaos I was able to pretty much predict everything that was going to happen.  The plot was like that AU episode of The Justice League with the Justice Lords (if you haven’t you should watch that episodes it’s better than this book) mixed with Sky High. It just didn’t work.

I didn’t even care enough about Kenna to learn the truth about her pseudo Bruce Wayne background because girl was so useless she’s obviously no Batman.  She’s not even Ironman when he’s drunk and telling everyone he can use the bathroom in his suit.  She’s that useless with useless Bella Swan non-superpowers.

Overall, Powerless was a huge disappointment for me.  It had an interesting enough premises, but it was poorly executed.  To have a properly done superhero book you need a well formed world.  It can be extremely cheesy or extremely gritty, but there needs to be some sort of world that our characters are fighting for and there wasn’t here.  The characters need to be more fleshed out than a brief description on the back of a book jacket too.  And above all, there names don’t need to be Khardashian inspired.

Overall Rating: A DNF more on the failing side of this, since I had more problems with the books construction than it being a subjective DNF. But hey, at least the internet didn’t go out and everyone was acting like the world was ending like in Doomed.

Finally!!!