All My Series Reads … Why I can’t finish them, and Will I Ever?

I wrote a couple of offhanded notes throughout the year lamenting about dropped series. Why can’t I finish what I start? Why is it so hard to finish series when you’re a book blogger? P.S. for my purposes, I’m calling a trilogy a series but really I consider them 4+ books.

I’m going to briefly talk logistics, then share the series I finished in 2022 (yay go me) then … Ack .. you’ll see my abandon or continue list 😅😅😅🤣😭😭😭

Let’s talk about series logistics

My personal preference is to wait until a series is finished before reading it. The reason is that I have trouble remembering books, so if there’s a considerable time frame between publications I will forget what I read. The downside is that committing to a full series read takes a considerable amount of time away from ARCs, buddy reads, book tours, and other things that bloggers (myself included) like to do.

For a slower reader like me, it’s impossible to keep up sometimes.

Another point I made while reading Stephen King’s Gunslinger series, and it applies to the Wheel of Time too, and many other series: the books tend to get longer and longer as they go! It takes forever for me to read a 1000+ page book, like it’s impossible for my reading schedule! If I have deadlines to meet, don’t have time, and can’t find it on audio…that’s the main reason I will drop a series.

The Reasons I Drop Series

Increasing book length vs time available (see above)
Availability – Hello @ my local library and Libby app. Sticking with my prior examples, Gunslinger and WoT: they only have up to book 4 for each one. Audiobooks are extremely cost prohibitive as well
Getting Annoyed: this is pretty self explanatory. I didn’t finish The Conqueror Saga because I got annoyed by the second book. At this point I’d have to reread the first two and don’t really want to do that.
Forgetting: this feeds into the time thing. I made time last year for a The Faithful and the Fallen by John Gwynne buddy read. I made it through Malice and had already fallen behind, then didn’t have time for book two. Now I’m afraid I’d have to re read to remember all the nuances.
Blog content: I mean hello yeah again for bloggers like me who rely on review content and tend to read slower, getting sucked into an 8 or 12+ book series with long books leaves us pretty high and dry for content sometimes 😅

So let’s take a look at all the series I read in full in 2022

Noting that the ones I finish tended to be on audio, or a mix of audio & print 😅

The Lunar Chronicles (6 books) by Marissa Meyer (loved it) on audio
The Murderbot Diaries (6 books) by Martha Wells – Audio & print mix
The Magicians (trilogy) by Lev Grossman – audio
The Dreadbound Ode (trilogy) by Jordan Loyal Short – actually read these, and loved them
The Harbinger Series (5 Books) by Jeff Wheeler – mix of audio & print

I’m actually really happy with this. There are also the series that had their final books published in 2022, which I finished:

The Song of Kamaria (trilogy) by T.A Bruno
The Guardian League (4 books) by Stephen Morris
The Draco Sang Trilogy by Mary Beesley

(These actually all released within days of each other and having so many powerful endings at month gave me the biggest book hangover EVER)

Hardcover Copies of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan — The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

Lastly- let’s see the series I STARTED in 2022 and if the goal is to continue or not

The First Law (trilogy +) by Joe Abercrombie: continue. For sure. Just ran out of time at the end of the year.
The Wheel of Time (14 books) by Robert Jordan: Abandon. I DNF’d The Shadow Rising (book 5) and don’t plan to continue
Arc of a Scythe (trilogy) by Neal Shusterman: I read Scythe & Thunderhead. MAYBE will read the end
The K Team, and Andy Carpenter series by David Rosenfelt: I read the first two books in each series and will continue if I see them somewhere.
Malazan by Steven Erikson (how many books? 31 according to GoodReads?) I read the first two and do plan to continue while I still remember them
The Fionavar Tapestry (trilogy) by Guy Gavriel Kay – Abandon. Just, abandon.
Skullduggery Pleasant (15 books) by Derek Landy – Abandoned after four books, especially knowing the content of the “rebooted” series
Frontlines by Marko Kloos (8 books) – I read the first four this year and will continue when I have time
Song of Echoes by R.E. Palmer – I believe he is planning four books, and I’m reading as they come out so yes I’ll read #3 if it releases in 2023!
Blacktongue by Christopher Buehlman – yes I’m ready for whenever the next one comes, not sure how many he is planning
The Founders (Trilogy) by Robert Jackson Bennett – I … Omg this list is ridiculous. Yes Shorefall and Locklands are on my 2023 reading list 😅
Gunmetal Gods by Zamil Akhtar: not sure how many he is planning, I read #1 and yes, Conqueror’s Blood (#2) is on my TBR
Mara of the League (4 books) by Thomas Kane – Abandoned after book 2.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King (8 books) – continue when I have time to read them in print 😅
Hybrid Helix (Trilogy) by JCM Berne – read #1, will definitely continue!
(Green Rider ((9 books?)) I don’t expect #9 until at least 2025 but #8 came out this year, and I’m counting it as an ongoing series)

Books in the Green Rider series by Kristen Britain — Green Rider series by Kristen Britain

There you have it! This list may not be complete but I did the best I could looking at my GoodReads completed books. My main goal for 2023 is to clean up these series so I can start new ones without feeling guilty!

Hint: I’d really like to do a cover to cover Warcraft read-through …. Finish Malazan … Get into John Gwynne … Read the Prey books like I meant to in 2020… Ugh 😅

What thoughts do you have on series after reading this? Do you abandon them too? What series do you want to read or continue in 2023?

6 replies on “All My Series Reads … Why I can’t finish them, and Will I Ever?”

I’ve been doing a lot of one and done with series recently just as a way to find as many new authors as possible. I still prefer nice long series though.

If you’re looking at series as an issue for getting content out, have you tried staging buddy reads and doing content around stages in the book? Know it doesn’t work for everyone but it does potentially solve a few issues.

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That would be a really good idea if anyone were interested and stuck with it! There are a few GoodReads groups that do monthly buddy reads and series but don’t discuss as they go, fizzle out, sometimes they chat sometimes they don’t, etc, it’s fun if people participate though but I get that’s it’s a hard commitment!

Anyway ha hopefully I can wrap some of these up in 2023, my only real goal is to keep reading books off my shelves so hopefully!

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I think there’s a definite trend I’m blogging to focus on the first books only, so I enjoy seeing love for and updates on later volumes in a series.

In terms of reading, I skip around between series. I try and keep up to date with series currently being released, but with older books I don’t mind leaving breaks. Something I’ve started recently is reading trilogies with standalone books between each volume. That stops me getting bored of the trilogy, and also keeps me on my toes.

Agree because we want to feature different authors and new things to draw people in! Skipping around is good too but it’s just getting hard to keep track of so many series so I’d like to focus on one or two to finish definitively .. and then I can start seeing new ones 😅

I typically LOOK for a series. Single books usually are too little to fill my reading belly. That said, I’ve read very little since I started writing–full time job, writing, and family… just not much gas left in the tank.

Hey, good to hear from you!! I hear you on the single reads, I love series too but you’re right that it’s a time commitment, and you’re super busy too. Hope all is well!