Wrap Up - Series, Trilogies, Duologies 2017

I am a huge fan of both series and stand alones but my TBR series list is continuously getting out of hand. I am always trying to finish at least 6 series at once. 

Completed

Duologies

Alices Adventures in Wonderland & Alice Thorough the Looking Glass and What She Found There, Lewis Carrol

Shame and Daughters of Shame by Jasvinger Sanghera

Trilogy

His Dark Materials, Phlip Pullman
The Infernal Devices, Cassandra Clare
Gemma Doyle, Libba Bray
Fred The Mermaid, Mary Janice Davidson
Howls Moving Castle, Diana Wynn Jones
Age of Legends, Kelley Armstrong

Series

The Dark Tower, Stephen King (7 Books)

The Selectio,Kiera Cass (5) + Companion

Graphic Novels

Bone, Jeff Smith (9) + Prequels (2)
Overwatch, Various Authors (10)

Started

Dragonlands (3/?)
Matched, Allie Condi(1/3)
The Hatching & The Skittering, Ezekiel Boone (2/3)
Newsflesh, Mira Grant (1/3)
Fallen (3/5)
Lincoln Rhyme, Jeffery Deaver (3/?)
Aliens, Steve Perry + Various  (3/?)
The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare (5/6)
The Collector, Dot Hutchinson (1/3)
Chrestomanci, Dianna Wynn-Jones (4/6)
Verhoven, Pierre Lamaitre (3/4)
The Diviners, Libba Bray (1/3)
Stevens and Windermere, Owen Laukkkanen (1/?)
Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice (3/12)
A Song of Ice and Fire (3/6)

The Posts from Previous Years :

Update - Series, Trilogies, Duologies - 2015/2016/2017

 Series, Trilogies, Duologies Completed 2016- December 31 2016
Update - Series, Trilogies, Duologies 2015!- December 27 2015

Ongoing, Unfinished & Won't be Finishing Series - June 9 2015
Completed Series Trilogies and Duologies - June 7 2015

Wrap Up 2016 - Completed Series, Trilogies Duologies

This is 2016 only, I will be doing a bigger post with a complete list of any I have read to date. this will include  series that I started but won't be finishing, series that I intend on finishing but haven't yet, including series that are not yet completed because the final book(s) have not been released yet

Trilogy 

The Darkest Minds, Alexandra Bracken
The Strain, Guillermo Del Toro
Darkest Powers, Kelley Armstrong
Maeve'ra, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien 
Bill Hodges, Stephen King

Series 

The Lunar Chronicles , Marissa Meyer (4 books)
Odd Thomas, Dean Koontz (7 Books)

Box Sets 

*I am not including any omnibuses.
From Darkness Comes : Horror Box Set (8 Books)

Wrap Up - September 2016

Starting school this month meant that I wasn't sure how my reading routine would be set up. I was kind of hoping for about 30 minutes a day, I think I ended up with closer to 60 minutes on average. Probably closer to 2-3 hours on the weekend - with the first week of September being the long weekend. I am pretty happy with how it all ended up. I have been really bad with publishing TBR's this year and didn't get one out until have the middle of the month :(  so it was a combination of September and October (link here) . While 15 books a month seemed ridiculously ambitious at the time I might get pretty close to finishing, although I doubt it will be the books I had listed. Any of the novels with a  " *** " where on my TBR. And (for once) this months list is in the order I read them!

*The links over the novels is too the full book review

1. Omens, Kelley Armstrong ***
2. Bloodtraitor, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
3. Visions, Kelley Armstrong ***
4. The Lord of the Rings : the Two Towers, JRR Tolkien 
5. Deceptions, Kelley Armstrong ***
6. Betrayals, Kelley Armstrong ***
7. The Masked Truth, Kelley Armstrong
8. The Lord of the Rings : Return of the King, JRR Tolkien
9. Animal Farm, George Orwell
10. Finders Keepers, Stephen King ***
11. Every Heart A Doorway, Seanan McGuire
12. A Madness So Discreet, Mindy McGinnis 
13. 1984, George Orwell

Started 

1. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
2. Fairest, Marissa Meyer

I also read a few essays/short stories this month 

A Door in the Wall, HG Wells
The Open Window, Saki
The Verger Somerset Maugham
Rocking Horse Winner, DH Lawrence

Favourite Book this month was :

Book Review - Bloodtraitor

Maeve'ra Trilogy

Bloodtraitor

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

series-review-maevera-trilogy - My review of the first two novels before Blood Traitor was published.

3 stars
easy read
ya/ fantasy / shapeshifters / fiction / vampires

I was really excited about this series when I read Bloodwitch, and now I just wish it had been a standalone. There was so much potential and seeing it go to waste it heartbreaking.
These books should be published in a box set or omnibus, they really should be read back to back, in fact they are so short and easy to read if you had to add the second and third novel it should have just been one novel.
Unfortunately for me and for this book review the third novel was not yet published when I read the first two books, so there was a period of more than year between reading the second and third novel. In that period my opinions of the novels changed a little bit and much of that change was from the wait.
The first issue that started before I even started the third novel was how little I remembered from the first two, normally I can read the synopsis of all three novels again and draw the major points out of my memory, when I hit a total blank its generally a sign, and not a good sign. I had zero interest in rereading so I had to put the novel down and give up on the trilogy or go ahead and hope that it all fell into place. Obviously I took the second option.

This is where the mixed feelings come into play.
The overall story is pretty good, the characters are alright - not fantastic and I found no connections other than Vance in the first novel - the setting is terrible, the timeline is confusing, and there is a overall feeling of Incomplete. I could kind of tell where Rhodes had tried to go which leaves me wondering about her editor and the publisher who should have told her to pick method and stick with it.

Lots was missing in expressing this whole world (that was maybe semi set by a previous series I have not read?) the world couldn't decide if it was total fantasy or kinda partially reality based, throwing in names associated with certain cultures or places - past and present such as America, and Aztecs - that specifically stands out as something that took so much away from the book, those referable names added yet more confusion to an already complicated issue. I found there was so much detail that you got no information, the information you did get lead to more questions that in the end were never answered. I would start a list but it would be pages and pages long at this point.
There was little to indicate change as we jumped between past, present, future, reality, internal or external voice and visions - you did eventually figure out that you had made a leap and then when or were or who of it but why would I want to be figuring that out all the time? . I think this was supposed to add mystery or a sophisticated "layer" but failed. Then with each novel a different narrator... So much was lost by having first Vance, then Kadee, then Malachi narrate, and what is really frustrating is how unnecessary that change was, all three characters where present through all three novels. Another character problem was everyone was a main character or a minimal character. It didn't have that three or four tier layer of characters, with your protagonist, his main three or four, the supporting and then the background characters. With every single character trying to be in the spot light it has a serious case of "everyone is special which makes no one special" which is were connecting to the characters fell through.

It would have been so easy to eliminate these problems, it makes me so mad!

Series Review - Darkest Minds Trilogy

The Darkest Minds Trilogy

Alexandra Bracken

7 Stars
YA / Dystopian / Mystery / Action /
Easy Read

This was one of those overly hyped series yet again. As always that makes me wary of reading the novels because of how high my expectations are and how often the books then fall short (even if they are great books). I was really pleased with how the series progressed, I had labeled these as a younger YA then what they turned out to be. There are some pretty heavy topics interwoven into the story, including big influences from such as WW2, prisoner of war, and genocide. I will definitely be recommending these books.

The Darkest Minds

6 Stars
This is my original Book Review.  I will be adding to it as my opinions have morphed a little since.

I found the writing and the concept of the story to be everything promised by avid fans. The plot however was painfully slow and the characters are largely unappealing. Personally I found Ruby's story was told so well. It is shame her character is so repetitive, while it draws out understanding and connection in the beginning, that quickly fades into whining and frustration on the readers behalf. Liam I thought very little of, I believe he is overly sensitive and naive. An alright character but a poor love interest in this case.

I struggled to finish this novel but did want to continue the series.

Beware SPOILERS!

Wrap Up - September, October, November 2015

This list is pitifully small, I have not picked up very many new novels, although I did do quite a bit of rereading lately.

September

Off Spring, Jack Ketchum

October

Daddy's Little Girl, Tee Morris

The Doll, JC Martin

November

The Woman, Jack Ketchum

Divergent, Veronica Roth

Insurgent, Veronica Roth

ReRead's

Under the Dome, Stephen King

The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning, Jimmy Palmiotti

 The Doorkeepers, Graham Masterton

I have also started quite a few novels, with this reading block I haven't really been forcing myself to continue anything so I have a long list of partials right now.

Darkest Minds, Alexandra Bracken

The Stand, Stephen King

The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

Watership Down, Richard Adams

June Wrap-Up

Trying to get book reviews up for all of these by Mid July at the latest.

1. Midsummer Nights Scream, RL Stine
2. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black
3. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett 
4. The Gathering, Kelley Armstrong
5. The Calling, Kelly Armstrong
6. The Rinsing, Kelly Armstrong
7. Crank, Ellen Hopkins 
8. Dani's Story, Diane and Bernie Lierow with Kay West
9. Horns, Joe Hill
10. Insomnia, Stephen King 
11. The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan
12. Wicked, Gregory Maguire

Completed Series, Trilogies Duologies

Duologie

The Sight, David Clement Davies
If I Stay, Gayle Forman
The Shinning, Stephen King
Daughter of the Lioness, Tamora Pierce

Trilogy

As Dead As It Gets, Katie Alender
Inkworld, Cornelia Funk
Beka Cooper : The Hunt Records, Tamora Pierce

Complete Series

The Books of Pellinor (4 books)
Uglies, Scott Westerfeld (4 books)
Hannibal Lecter, Thomas Harris (4 books)
IceMark Chronicles, Stuart Hill (4 books)
Warriors, Erin Hunter (6 books)
The Beast House Chronicles, Richard Laymon (4 books)
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer (4 books)
The Circle Opens, Tamora Pierce (4 books)
Song of the Lioness Tamora Pierce (4 books)
Protector of the Small, Tamora Pierce (4 books)
Immortals, Tamora Pierce (4 books)
Circle of Magic, Tamora Pierce (4 books)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Rick Riordan (5 books)
Harry Potter, JK Rowling (7 books)
Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket (13 books)
The Nightside, Simon R Green (12 books)
Redwall, Brain Jaques (22 books)