Series I Won’t Be Continuing

Last week I posted my top ten series to continue reading in 2016. This week I thought I’d do the opposite and discuss series that I’ve given up on, or definitely don’t plan on giving any more chances.

I’ve read books two and three of the Harper Connolly series by Charlaine Harris, but not book one or book four (yeah, weird order, just the ones I happened to own). After the rather… almost incestuous events of book three, I have no interest in continuing this series, thank you very much.

The television series of The 100 by Kass Morgan was great, although it took me two attempts to get into it. I am more than happy to continue with that, and am looking forward to the next season. The books however? Nah. This is a case of the adaptation being VERY different from the book – not so unusual – but also the adaptation being a much better version. Not something that seems to happen very often. The book felt lifeless compared to the show.

I bought the first three books of The Power of Five (also called The Gatekeepers) by Anthony Horowitz from a charity shop for 50p each, as it was a series I’d always wanted to read. However, I think I got to this one far too late. If I’d read it in my teens, maybe I would have enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, it doesn’t work for me, and I’ll be taking those books back to the charity shop…

I was so sad that The Empty Throne series by Daniel Polansky just did not work for me. I saw it before release, admired the cover, and then was sent a copy by Hodder. Unfortunately it was just lacking something to make it really work for me. But just look at the cover of the second book – so gorgeous!

The first book of the Night Angel series by Brent Weeks was a Fantasy Book of the Month for my Goodreads book group, and I’m normally pretty happy with what we choose. I even already had this one on my shelf. Unfortunately, it was not at all what I’d expected. It felt so flat, boring and disappointing. Maybe some of Brent Weeks’ other work is for me, but not this series.

All I want to say here is that the first book of The Blackcoat Rebellion series by Aimee Carter was hands down the worst book I read in 2015. I think that pretty much sums it up.

I was hoping that the Asylum series by Madeleine Roux would be a Miss Peregrine style story infused with creepy photos. It turned out to be an absolutely rubbish story with the worst characters, and photos that served no real purpose.

The very thought of the House of Night series by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast makes me shudder. I read the first three books a couple of years ago, as my sister owned them and I was home from university for Christmas, reading everything I could in the meanwhile. They’re the sort of books that are so bad you kind of want to keep reading, like when you drive past an accident and don’t want to look but human nature makes you. Absolute trainwrecks.

This makes me a little sad, because I really wanted to love the Earth Girl series by Janet Edwards. I met Janet at Bristolcon and she was lovely, she even took part in the first Sci-Fi Month – but I cannot stand Jarra, the main character of this series. I wanted to bitch slap her so hard.

Sorry Charlaine Harris. Midnight, Texas is your second series on here. I love you for writing the Sookie Stackhouse novels, but I don’t seem to have much luck with the rest of your work. The first book was just so… uneventful, I have no interest in reading any further.

Are there any series you’ve given up on? Have you read any of these series, and if so what did you think?

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Review: House of Night – Legacy by P.C. Cast, Joelle Jones et al

3 out of 5 stars

I have read the first three books of the House of Night series, as my sister owns them – I think I actually read them all in two days. They’re very easy reads, but the characters are so vapid, shallow and frustrating that this series is often the target of snarky reviews. So even though the series had not previously impressed me, I wanted to give the graphic novel a try because I love the cover art, and I like graphic novels.

My immediate thought was that it wouldn’t be fair to rate this book on the story, since I didn’t enjoy the books too much – but actually, it’s not too bad and isn’t just a graphic novel adaptation of the first novel. Somehow the characters are different, although we barely see the personalities of anyone but Zoey, and she’s lost her bitchy, hypocritical ways.

Anyone who has read the books will remember the opening scene – some random guy just appears next to Zoey at school, points at her and BAM! She’s a vampire. Seriously. I’m so glad this just skipped straight over that part and starts about a month into the school term. This also means it skips the slut-shaming and various other frustrating things about Zoey.

The basic story covers Zoey trying to fulfil five tasks set by Nyx, and involves her and her friends reading through their Fledgling Handbook, which recounts stories of previous famous vampyres and the elements, all of them historical figures. These historic narrations were really interesting – the Odysseus one even has a completely different art style which is really lovely and abstract compared to the rest of the book. However, there were a couple of issues with these scenes. One is about Boudicca and is set in ‘Briton’… that’s the people of Britain, not the country itself. It also claims that Boudicca travelled to the West Midlands after laying siege to Londinium, but she in fact moved on to Verulamium which is in the east (yeah, my ancient history nerd is showing…). On a more serious note, I would say that the novels are suitable for young teens, but the graphic novel has some more disturbing scenes which may make it only suitable for older readers.

I enjoyed the use of several different illustrators throughout the book – the main story was drawn by one artist, whereas others contributed full page drawings between chapters. However, this means that the story art looks nothing like the cover art, which is a shame. That’s not to say it’s bad however – it uses an interesting mix of bright, bold colours in contrast with the ‘dark’ story matter. The characters have striking, angular features which work very well, but some of the panel backgrounds are a bit plain, and there’s a lot of empty space.

Overall, I was quite surprised by this book – Zoey is practically a different character, the art style is lovely, but the characters honestly fall a bit flat and the stories are rather disjointed. There’s not much to connect them together, just Zoey and her friends going ‘Oh, let’s read more of the Handbook’. If the House of Night series was a disappointment to you, but you still read more than one, I think you’d be surprised by this graphic novel. It feels more like a side story than part of the main plot, but then I’ve only read the books once, and it was a while ago.

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