Oberon, known as Obe, is an enigmatic billionaire cryptocurrency tycoon. Tati Hastings, better known as Titania, is a renowned actress and charismatic figure who has charmed millions of fans’ hearts. The duo, separated for centuries, unexpectedly reunite when a troublesome piece of their past emerges. The flower once used to hypnotize Titania is being incorporated into a new cosmetics line. This forces the two together once more to protect the mortal world in this modern take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Unfortunately Potent fell flat and was not for me.
There was a lack of world building and character development, I didn’t feel like they were their own unique characters, rather more forgettable than memorable. I was hopeful for the Oberon and Titania retelling, but it seemed like this was more of a ‘what happened next’ type of story rather than a retelling.
The dialogue was not my favorite, it seemed almost choppy/jumpy? Moods changed, people cursed out of nowhere, and there was not a good flow to the dialogue.
Several things I think really caused me to not enjoy the read of Potent:
- While I LOVE LGBTQ+ representation, and totally love using non-standard pronouns, I felt like it was moreso added in to be added in, instead of added in a way that felt purposeful and entwined with the character. Puck didn’t have any flavor if that makes sense? I feel like it would have been better if in general for all characters, there was more character development/description/getting to know the character.
- The way Orberon’s mental health issues were portrayed. I truly love books that portray mental health struggles and help expose society to these issues, but this one personally wasn’t for me. Maybe others aligned with this type of portrayal, but it missed the mark in my opinion.
- The modern world. This is a personal thing, but I personally did not like the makeup influencer daughter angle, the references to modern actors/actresses, etc. made it seem like name dropping almost?
- The final thing I will mention is the several negative references to body size. I love representation of all body types, and would love to see more characters with larger bodies but the several mentions of “they are skinny [curse word] and need to put you down because they are threatened” was extremely cringey. If we are going to write about different body types and their struggles, I think personally I receive that better when it isn’t focused on being mean and catty. Not my vibe at all.
Overall, I feel like Potent had potential, but either due to the length or the writing style, it fell flat with world building, investing the readers in the characters, and portraying the semi-political issues the author was trying to portray.
Unfortunately Potent by Tyler Wittkofsky & Kelsey Anne Lovelady did not do it for me, and I did not enjoy reading it. As always with negative reviews, this is not anything against the author/s, merely my personal opinion on the book.
Not worth a re-read.
**this book was gifted in exchange for an honest review**
See what books I think are worthy of a re-read here.
