Bookish Blog Hops
A Book In A Series
Must Read Book Series
Kriti @ Armed with A Book
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor is an unforgettable book for me. It is part of a duology, with the second book Muse of Nightmares being darker and heavier in feel than the wonderment that Strange the dreamer invokes.
Strange the Dreamer is the story of Lazlo Strange, an orphan boy in the city of Zasmo. At the young age of 5 years, Lazlo experiences magic for the first time when he can no longer remember the name of the fantastical city he has grown up hearing about. All he can remember is Weep and the feeling of loss and sadness that comes with it. Fifteen years later, he is a librarian, devouring books about Weep, finding everything he can about the lost mythic city. When an opportunity arises, Lazlo travels to the city with the Godslayer of Weep and his contingent of legendary heroes. His dream has finally come true, but there are mysteries and secrets that await in Weep, and some answers will only be found in his dreams.
I read both books as buddy reads and if you are interested, the book discussions can be found here. Check out this book on Goodreads to add to your shelf.
Leslie Conzatti @ www.upstreamwriter.blogspot.com
One book in a series that I’d like to mention is Cress, the third book in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.
This was a “landmark series” for me, one that I almost didn’t read because I thought it was just going to be fluffy, teen-oriented romantic smut… (which ended up being my experience with Beastly by Alex Flinn) but it wasn’t anything of the sort, and I loved the whole series so much!
The series starts with Cinder, a re-telling of Cinderella in a cyberpunk/dieselpunk dystopian world, in which the titular character is a young girl whose parents were killed in a car crash that injured her so badly that she needed a prosthetic foot and some other cybernetic parts around her head as well. She works as a mechanic, and her best friend is a robot who really wants to be an android. In this setting, Earth is trying to maintain autonomy from its own Moon which has been colonized by people who developed Fae-like abilities and consider themselves superior to those of earth in almost every way. Secretly, the Lunars are enacting a shadow plot to seize power from Earth authorities and destroy any who resist--and it just so happens that Cinder finds herself in the middle of this plot, so she has to stop the Lunar queen from gaining the power she wants, while avoiding efforts to hunt her and her friends down.
The other books in the series are all fairy tale re-tellings woven into this unique plot line, and the references abound! Meyer manages to tell the story of Cinderella as we all know it, while also telling this other story along with it. Then the second book, Scarlet, re-tells the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, introducing the Lunar’s army of human/beast hybrid soldiers that they will use to subjugate Earth… and then there is Cress, a re-telling of Rapunzel, where instead of a maiden locked in a secluded tower, it’s a clever hacker “imprisoned” on a satellite in space, where the only means she has of reaching the outside world is by coding digital messages, which Cinder’s tech picks up, and that’s how they know there’s someone in need of rescuing, because Cress has all sorts of information about the Lunar Queen and her shady past. I mention this one in particular because there was one of the most clever (I thought!) references to the source material, one that I didn’t realize until long after I’d read the book: Cinder and her friends, in order to rescue Cress, need to go into space, so they enlist the help of one Captain Thorne, and the ship is called the Rampion! I didn’t think twice, I was so wrapped up in the story… but then later, it hit me, and I knew I couldn’t love this series more than I already did! It’s just full of references like that!
Robin Loves Reading @ www.robinloves.reading.com
So difficult to respond to because I am a series fanatic! I read as many connected books as possible for every review title in my queue. The only exception is contemporary romances as sometimes I get a book for review or for a blog tour that is really far ahead in the series. Last year I knocked out more than a few series, including Leslie Meyer’s Lucy Stone series, Karin Slaughter’s Will TrentI and Grant County series. Carol Wyer’s Natalie Bennett series, Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series, J. D. Robb’s In Death series, James Patterson’s Alex Cross and Women’s Murder Club series, and so many, many more. Some of these series are ongoing and I will be continuing with them.
Vidya Tiru @LadyInReadWrites
Just like with books about bookstores, or well, simply books, picking one book (in a series) is, to say it in one word or without using analogies - tough!! I grew up on book series (not connected but one of many, like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five or The Five Find Outers, like Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, or even the comics like Asterix and Obelix, Tintin, or a myriad others). Then there are the Sherlock Holmes, Poirots, Perry Masons and etcs. While we can read most of these in any order, sometimes they contain references to incidents or people in previous books.
Next, all those series that are better read in order. Some of the first of this type include Little Women and Anne of Green Gables! Then came the many romance series, like those from Nora Roberts, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, and many others. Okay, I can keep going on this so I will cut it at this point and come to the present.
Two of the recent books in a series I enjoyed(am still enjoying actually) are Cazadora (Book 2 of Wolves of the World series by Romina Garber) and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Book 1 of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet). While I got started on these sometime ago and was truly enjoying them, I had to put them aside because of other commitments and can’t wait to get back to them soon. Each of these books is simply beautiful - the prose, the settings, the worlds the writers create, the characters - all of these elements come together to create amazing reads.
In Cazadora, Romina Garber weaves together Argentine folklore and what it means to be illegal in a timely, intimate, and emotionally powerful narrative, and yes, please do read Lobizona (book one of this series) first.
The Shadow of the Wind is a literary thriller set in Barcelona in the first half of the 20th century, with elements of mystery, historical, and comedy of manner genres but it is most of all a tragic love story which echoes through time. (description from here)
Kaili @owlbookworld
I actually haven’t been reading many series lately mostly because I don’t want to invest in a long story line, but one that I’ve enjoyed so much is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Even though it has been a while since I have read the story it has still stuck with me through all of these years. The funny thing is that I really didn’t like the first book when my cousin tried getting me into it. But it all changed with the third book. Things started to get a bit more serious. I get the first two books were pretty serious but Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is when the story started to feel a bit more mature and I couldn’t put the series down after that!
What are some of your favourite book series? Do you have a particular book from a series that really stood out?
Tomorrow you can find us at Robin Loves Reading where we'll be sharing books from our TBRs
4 comments
thank you for the bookish blog hop Jo! Is totally fun being a part of it.. With this post, I have so many book series added to my TBR ..:)
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of those series (not including HP). I love the mortal instruments books, that was a fab series.
ReplyDeleteI am like Robin - I love series but I need to binge read them to get the most out of them.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I have several series I need to catch upon. That is something I plan to rectify in 2022.
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