In the last couple of months I’ve read more than series books than usual. I don’t like reviewing series after the first book, because (1) it’s too spoilerish and (2) because series books are usually pretty fluffy and there isn’t much to say about them.
I have a class ending next week and I’ve been a little busy lately, so I thought I’d just collapse these books into a few sentences instead of writing full reviews.
A few series-related items of interest:
First, Read.Sleep.Repeat has a 2014 Series Challenge, where you try to stay current on or complete as many series as possible. And second, I discovered a really cool website, FictFact, that keeps track of all your series and tells you your next book. It’s pretty complete. You can even be emailed when new books in your series are announced.
Based on my 2014 reads so far, I’m up to date on these series:
- Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs
- Veronica Mars by Rob Thomas (I think it’s a series…)
- Paradox Series by Rachel Bach
- The Reckoners Series by Brandon Sanderson
And I completed one series: The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Here’s what I read:
Honor’s Knight by Rachel Bach: This is a fluffy sci-fi/space action series that’s a lot of fun to read. My review of Book 1 here. Really fun series and I highly recommend it for beach reading, which I happily did last month. The second book didn’t disappoint. More action, less romance. The third book, Heaven’s Queen, just came out. Oops, I guess I’m not caught up after all.
Night Broken by Patricia Briggs. This is maybe my favorite series, and Mercy Thompson is my favorite heroine. Still, I don’t think her books are improving as they go (#2 through 4 are my favorites). This one features a very annoying ex-wife and the story’s on the weaker side. Briggs has some older fantasy series that are awesome too. Check out this writer if you haven’t already. But please, start at Book 1.
Insurgent by Veronica Roth: I liked Divergent, although the concept didn’t make a ton of sense to me. Insurgent started out really slow because I couldn’t remember all the details. Roth clearly expects you to read these books one after the other. That said, Insurgent was much more intense than Divergent. The story was way more complicated and more things were explained… or not. Tris is annoyingly stupid at times but I could deal.
Whisper of Jasmine by Deanna Raybourn: This novella is actually the lead-in to one book and a prequel to another. Raybourn can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned, although this novella is purely set-up for City of Jasmine.
Clementine by Cherie Priest: this one was a while ago so I don’t remember too much, but it had an awesome heroine, and I love Priest’s steampunk world. Her books are pretty loosely related, so they aren’t really a series.
Coming up next? There’s a lot to choose from, but I’m leaning towards the next George R.R. Martin, which for me is A Feast for Crows.
What series are you reading? Do you read series all in a row or space them out? And what makes you drop a series?
