J.A. Vodvarka‘s first Blacksea Odyssey novel starts out well enough, if a bit shaky due to the rather large chip the protagonist has on her shoulder. By the halfway point though it becomes far too hard to look past the combination of her weirdly self-destructive actions and the runaway’s idiocy. Like… you obviously don’t want to stay free all that much if you never mention the void collar or don’t keep hammering on about how corrupt the first master was.
The first book in Lauren Roberts‘ Powerless Trilogy has a different problem: The atmosphere. There’s this persistent sense of dread hanging over the proceedings that make it somewhat difficult to read, although it wasn’t quite bad enough to get me to drop it until ‘the Resistance’ suddenly popped up and became a central plot point. You already have all this drama with the powerless secret, death games, and forbidden romance; did you really have to toss in highly questionable spy games (she literally just met these people) on top of all that?