My All-Time Favorite Series

So, it’s February, the month that holds Valentine’s Day, the holiday of love! So, I thought that it’d be fun this month to do all the things talking about book boyfriends and all of the bookish things I love, and what better way to start then talking about my favorite series! I’ll guess that most of these will be repetitive to you if you’ve been here since the beginning, but let’s begin anyway!

(Also, note, there are no links to descriptions because most of these series are pretty damn popular, so I don’t think you guys need to read the description for the 34498018410840 time.)

(And another note: if you think you’ve seen this earlier today, you did. I attempted to post this earlier, but for some reason, WordPress keeps posting some of my posts days back so it doesn’t show up in anyone’s newsfeeds and gets completely lost, so I decided to put this one back in Draft and Re-Publish it again. If anyone has gone through this problem/knows how to fix it, feel free to talk to me, because it’s driving me nuts.)

The Raven Cycle

Okay, so a lot of people are on The Raven Cycle hype train ever since it just got super popular out of nowhere and Maggie Stiefvater became one of the Coolest Authors Alive, BUT THIS SERIES. It makes me so happy to read about the Gangsey and all the beautiful Pynch moments and laugh at all the jokes and deadpan humor and be filled with wonder at the magical world Stiefvater has created. This is one of those book series where I would literally love to be transported in.

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The Throne of Glass Series

Everyone should know that I’m one Sarah J. Maas’s biggest fangirls and that this series completely and totally changed my life. Never have I ever been so involved in a series, especially the romance (Rowaelin shipper for life, if you care that much). I just love how strong the ladies are, and the ships are all so wonderful because all the boys respect everyone and treat them like their equals! This is probably my most hated series on this list but #hatersgonnahate.

(Also, did you hear? TOG #6 is being delayed until next year, specifically May of 2018 because of some health issues Sarah’s having! Hopefully, she’s okay; that’s what really matters to me – plus I still haven’t read EOS yet.)

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Harry Potter

I don’t think this needs an explanation, but Harry! The Golden Trio! Amazing quotes! All the feels! Nostalgia! The characters! The magic! Ravenclaw!

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Percy Jackson and the Olympians & The Heroes of Olympus

And neither does this one. But Percy! Greek Mythology! Leo! Nico! Diversity! Annabeth! All the ships! Rick Riordan is a total BAMF!

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The Six of Crows Duology

This is the book series that has made me obsessed with heists in fantasy novels. Damn you, Bardugo. But, seriously, I love the beautiful world of Ketterdam and the characters are just absolutely delightful. Literally, try to ask a fan who their favorite character is. They can’t give you one because they’re all so precious.

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The Young Elites

I also love Lu’s Legend trilogy, but fantasy is my Achilles’ heel. I jus loved the idea of exploring anti-heroes, and, of course she aced the characters, and Magiano is absolutely precious. I demand more series written about anti-heroes in the future.

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Shades of Magic

This was a book (and an author) that hadn’t been recommended to me for so long that I eventually caved last year, and I haven’t looked back. I loved ADSOM, but AGOS was even better, if that’s possible. The cast of characters is so small, but so vibrant, and Schwab’s writing just makes it all the better.

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The ACOTAR Trilogy

Again, I’m an SJM fangirl. And after reading ACOMAF, this definitely solidified its place as one of my favorite series. I mean, who doesn’t want to be Feyre? Who doesn’t want to be a part of the Night Court? WHO?? Also, I love how wonderfully feminist this series is, and I think it’s highly important for girls to learn about abusive relationships and how to be brave enough to leave them and how you don’t have to suffer through depression alone and male sexual abuse and THESE BOOKS ARE SO IMPORTANT.

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The Unwind Dystology

I think I’ve explained enough in about a million different posts about why I love this series so much, so I’ll just leave you with the simple sentiment to READ IT!

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The Original Mortal Instruments Trilogy

Ok, I’m not the biggest fan of the last three books that were tacked on to the original TMI trilogy (if you didn’t know, way back in the day, the series was originally supposed to end at City of Glass, but she ended up writing three more books), but I loved this series the first time I read it back in seventh grade, and I re-read it last year and I still loved it. Malec was the original gay OTP, and nothing has changed from that (except the fact that I have even more gay OTPs).

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The Red Rising Trilogy

This is such a good series. It’s a very sci-fi heavy read on a completely different planet with a system where people’s status is determined by their colors. It’s super intense and super violent (which might put off some people, but certainly not me) and Sevro is perfect, and the world-building is amazing, and Darrow is perfect and hot, and the speeches are fantastic, and the ladies are badass, and it’s literally everything. Plus, the author’s hot, so, there’s that.

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The Lunar Chronicles

I’m pretty sure this is on everyone’s lists, but it’s just that good! I love the divers even cast of female characters, and the perfection of all the male characters (especially Thorne, who is MINE!) and the humor and the action. It’s just the perfect blend of everything and such a good series for those making the transition from Middle Grade to YA.

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The Captive Prince Trilogy

I love nothing more than a good gay romance, and since Tumblr goes nuts recommending this series, I just had to. I finally bought them, and though they were super expensive for ebooks, they were totally worth it. Politics, war, slow-burn romance, sass, and the perfection of the Damen and Laurent ship. It’s pretty much everything I wanted from the Winner’s trilogy by Marie Rutkoski except more adult and much better.

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The Penryn and the End of Days Trilogy

If you’ve been on Goodreads, you might have heard of how this series swept the website back when it was first self-published. I had to join in the hype, and I finally read it, and it was so brilliant! What’s better than a slow-burn hate to love romance between Penryn and Raffe? Literally nothing. I loved the sisterly bond and the angel lore was just so interesting. Just read this series. You won’t regret it.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

And last, but certainly not least, the Hunger Games trilogy. No explanation needed.

And that’s it for my all-time favorite series! Of course, I haven’t mentioned all my favorite series – there are still more that I just didn’t mention in this post – so there’ll probably be a Part 2 sometime in the future, but these are some of my favorites for now!

What are some of your favorite series? Do we share any of the same ones (if we do, feel free to fangirl)?

[DISCUSSION] Is It Really Too Much?

So, I thought something that’d be fun to do was have a monthly discussion – basically have a discussion around books once a month. And, I was thinking, “Hm, what should I talk about?” and I thought something that’d be interesting to talk about, in the wake of a lot of people seeming to be unenthusiastic about new Harry Potter things, was authors adding more books, movies, novellas, etc. to their world and bookworms’ slightly hypocritical thoughts surrounding these additions.

If you’ve been living under a rock for this entire year, an eighth Harry Potter book was released on July 31 called The Cursed Child, released as a screenplay. Everyone was excited. The world blew up. The book sold extremely well, and so did the play. Then the reviews came in. People absolutely hated it. The characters acted out-of-character, it didn’t have the same magic as the original seven books did, there were too many plot holes, there was just general WTF-ery, etc. 

After that, three mini short stories were released from Pottermore and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was reported to add five more movies and be published as a screenplay. After the general disappointment of The Cursed Child, people just complained. “She’s already rich.” “She’s dragging it out.” “Stop with the Harry Potter stuff.”

Yet, funnily enough, if I asked most of these people if they wanted more Harry Potter books and movies just a year ago around this time, I would be met with extreme excitement and general fangirling. How could these same people who were so excited just a while ago think that J.K. Rowling needs to stop now, just because she published one book that was a disappointment? Did they mean it when they said they wanted more in the first place?

Rowling, obviously, isn’t even the only author to come under fire for this. When Cassandra Clare is announced to have a new novel, some people immediately take to Goodreads to rate it one star and complain, even though they’re in no way forced to read the book once it comes out. Sarah J. Maas announced she was adding more books to the ACOTAR trilogy, and it was immediately met with negativity and trepidation. Rick Riordan continues to write in his magical world of Greek mythology with several spin-offs, and even long-time fans, the same ones who have mentioned once or twice that they could never get enough of Percy Jackson, are getting mildly annoyed. Sabaa Tahir and Victoria Aveyard also added more novels to their series, again, with some people being worried instead of excited.

Adding more books to series or adding novellas isn’t anything new, nor is it limited to YA series. Even back in the Twilight years, people were anxious for The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Midnight Sun, which was supposed to be Twilight, except from Edward’s POV, but never got published. The 50 Shades trilogy recently got another addition to its series by the name of Grey, which was the first book from Christian Grey’s POV. Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster turned into a whole Maddox Brothers series. Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series has been going on since 2006 – over ten years – and so has Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, which is on its twenty-third novel, and has been going on since 1994. There were two more books added to Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series, also met with complaints from some of her die-hard fans.

But should we really be complaining as fans? Is it really too much, if we’re the ones who demanded it in the first place? I really want to explore the fact that it’s not always an author’s choice, and that we, as readers, definitely play a part in this. We as readers have more influence than we think. Take the recent controversy around The Continent, a book that hasn’t been released yet, but several bloggers/reviewers took to Twitter with ARCs in their hands to discuss how problematic it was in their eyes with its POC representation. A petition was created to delay the publication of the novel, and Harlequin TEEN responded by saying it would push back the publication date to fix these issues.

So, obviously, we have influence. It can do good things, and, as with all influence and movements, it can do bad things. The thing is, publishers listen to us. So, for example, when a publisher sees that a debut has done better than they expected it to do – such as the case with Sabaa Tahir and Victoria Aveyard’s debut novels – they probably think, “Well, how can we make money off of this?” Hence, more books. Money makes the world go round, as everyone says.

I mean, why let Cassandra Clare or Rick Riordan do something new when their original series sell so well? Both of these authors have different series outside their most popular ones – the Magisterium and the Kane Chronicles, respectively – that didn’t/don’t sell as well as their main series, which basically shows publishers, “Readers don’t care about this as much as they care about that.” And bringing it back to J.K. Rowling. She has written four other books – The Casual Vacancy and the three Cormoran Strike books. The Casual Vacancy had a TV mini-series in 2015 and her Cormoran Strikes novels were picked up by HBO , and she’s writing up the next book in the series now, and might have a whole different book idea up her sleeve. Yet, I’ve seen people make false claims that “she’s not doing anything else.”

And let’s also consider the fact that these people get paid for this. So, yes, authors write more books in their popular series, because that gives them their incomes. Just because some authors might be rich doesn’t mean that they should just stop doing their jobs, and I find the phrases “They’re doing it for the money!” or “It’s a cash grab!” to be quite silly. Yeah, they are, and yes, it is. It’s their job. They need to pay bills and shop for food and support themselves just like pretty much everyone else on this earth. For some reason, only jobs dealing with the arts are treated like this. How many times have you seen directors hated for series that amass over billions of dollars worldwide that continue getting sequels? Same with TV shows with several spin-offs or based off of movies and books.

‘Iron Gold’ book cover

Not only that, but it seems that fandoms like to flip flop whether they want more of something or not. After the fantastic-ness (get it?) of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the excitement for Harry Potter is back once again. And not only that, but Maggie Steifvater announced a couple of months ago that she was penning a brand new trilogy around Ronan Lynch, and, for some reason, it was met with positivity. Michelle Hodkin is writing more books taking place in the Mara Dyer universe, also met with positive reviews. Marissa Meyer wrote Fairest with popular reviews, and she, Leigh Bardugo, and Marie Rutkoski wrote novellas adding to their worlds met with excitement. Benjamin Alire Saenz, David Levithan, and Jenny Han are releasing sequels/spin-off books to their contemporary stand-alones/series, and not many people complained about that. There’s going to be a whole new spin-off trilogy added to Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy, again, met with pure fangirling. (And all of that isn’t based off, like, scientific research, just Goodreads pre-reviews). It’s not as if Sarah J. Maas or Rick Riordan’s quality has dropped – in my opinion – so why are they met with negativity while Stiefvater and Hodkin and Brown are met with good vibes?

So is it really too much? For me, personally, if the quality is still great, then I’m ready for it. I trust my authors to do with the story the best they can. I’m super excited for Cassandra Clare’s three other Shadowhunter series, even though they probably won’t end until I’m, like, 30; I’m excited to dive into The Trials of Apollo and the Magnus Chase trilogy; I can’t wait for the Chaol novella and the three new ACOTAR stories; I’m ready for the new additions to Victoria Aveyard’s and Sabaa Tahir’s series; and, yes, I’ve been hella excited for the five new Fantastic Beast movies since they were announced, and that will never change (at least, I don’t think it will).  

But, do I see the point in ruining the excitement for those who begged for it? No, definitely not, especially if you’re excited for a totally different book/series that’s pretty much doing the same thing that you seem to hate so much. And, trust me, I’m a culprit for this as well. I was ready to write a whiny review of Twilight: Life and Death, the gender-swapped version of Twilight, and Grey, but as you can see above, I’m excited for additions to my favorite series, too. I feel like some people (and I’m talking more about Goodreads than blogging because Goodreads can be a bit…much at times) just need to realize that instead of writing up a snarky one-star review for a book you’re not even going to read (this video from Emma at her Youtube channel, emmmabooks, explains all my issues with that), that they can just leave it alone, walk away, and let others enjoy what they want without guilt-tripping people and acting like they’re above them. Isn’t that what reading’s about? Loving books no matter what genre, page number, author, etc? As long as someone is reading, it’s a good thing, whether we like that book or think it’s necessary.

Anyway, that’s it for this month’s discussion! I hope you enjoyed it and it wasn’t too sucky. I’ve thought a lot about this ever since the negativity surrounding J.K. Rowling, and I’m curious as to what everyone thinks about this topic. Feel free to leave your own comments and opinions and continue the conversation, since that’s the point of discussions!