I love collecting series of books. I have a whole list of series that I want to buy in hard copy someday and display proudly on my shelves. A set of books is the perfect blend of entertainment and room decoration. Plus who doesn’t want to spend book after book having adventures with their favourite characters? But, for all the series that I’ve read and adored, there’s a whole list of others that I’ve dropped partway through, for many and varied reasons. I’ve done two posts on this subject before, but this list is surprisingly long. So today I thought I’d share another three series that I’ve started in the past, but not made it the whole way through. If you missed the first two instalments, here are part one and part two for your reading pleasure. Don’t follow my terrible example. Make this a series you finish!
Shatter Me Series | Tahera Mafi
It took me a while to get around to reading Shatter Me in the first place, mostly because it was quite popular, and I tend not to read books when they’re at their most popular. I refuse to be peer pressured into reading a fabulous book in a timely matter! I loved Shatter Me’s whole concept of someone’s touch being able to kill. I loved the way the main character was constantly censoring her own thoughts, shown by the struck-through text throughout the book. But unfortunately, I just didn’t love it quite enough to read the sequel. Maybe I was turned off slightly by the presence of yet another love triangle, a trope I burn out on really, really quickly, and the whole “only one person in the world is immune to my touch and isn’t it a good thing they’re so attractive” thing. I’ve never really been tempted to return to this series, so it’ll probably stay on my unfinished pile.
Chaos Walking Trilogy | Patrick Ness
I’m actually ashamed to say that I haven’t finished this series yet. I read the first book, The Knife Of Never Letting Go, a couple of years ago at least and absolutely loved it. I meant to go straight on and read the second book. Only my library never had it, and I wasn’t game enough to jump straight to book three. This is not a trilogy anyone should be skipping around inside. Then, a while back, I bought my own beautiful tenth anniversary edition of the entire trilogy, set it in pride of place on my desk, and never read any of them. I do desperately want to finish reading this series. I own all the books after all, so there is no excuse really. I just have to make the time and dive back into these amazing books.
Magnus Chase | Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series holds pride of place on my bookshelf, along with the entirety of the Heroes Of Olympus series, and The Kane Chronicles, in one format or another. These three series are just. so. good. So when I heard he was trying his hand at Norse mythology, I was super excited and couldn’t wait to see what he did with it. Unfortunately, the first Magnus Chase didn’t really grab me the way I hoped when it first came out, and I never actually finished reading it. I wasn’t a huge fan of just how interconnected it was with his books about Greek mythology, his portrayal of the gods in these books rubs me up the wrong way for reasons even I don’t really understand, and just in general, the spark wasn’t there for me to love it. Maybe it’s got more to do with the fact that I’m outside the target age group now, so it’s not really aimed at me. I still love his other three series and am planning my next reread of the Heroes of Olympus series, but sadly, Magnus Chase and I never really clicked.
Now it’s your turn. What’s one book series you’ve put off finishing for far too long? Have you ever started reading a new series by an author you love and just not enjoyed it enough to continue?
