For those who found the death/removal of the main characters in Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Crowthistle book annoying, the next main character stays on through the last two. Also, memory a little hazy...but there might be a good ending for the sleeping mother..
I don't think I've really ever given up properly on a series. I first read the Inheritance cycle when I was 11-ish, or maybe a bit younger for Eragon and Eldest, and I remember really liking the series. But I did give up on it on a more recent re-read of it. I don't know it just got dull and I didn't find the writing as exciting as I did when I was younger.
Oh and I gave up on the Ice Mark chronicles the year before last. The first book was alright but it went downhill from then on. Though I didn't really have big expectations for the series, if I remember right I only used it as a filler whilst waiting for the library to get a copy of TSK.
I have given up some series over the years, however sometimes its just timing. ie. when I first read Robin Hobb's Assassins Apprentice I didn't really like it, and gave up. I went back to it a few years later and was hooked. I figure at the time I started to read it, I was just a bit young and I found the pace quite slow initially- to me its one of those books that takes a while to get into- and i just didn't used to have as much patience :p
Series i stopped reading and haven't yet gone back to-
- Ellie Chronicles by John Marsden. I loved Tomorrow series but just couldn't get back into the sequel (which seems quite common in this thread so far).
- A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin. I read the first two books, but started to get bored in the third- I liked only some of the story lines (each chapter generally follows a different character, and I mistakenly decided to just read chapters to do with one character- i reached the end of the book but had only read one story line and didn't feel like going back - i realised that was probably the end of that series for me). Although I may go back to it when I have some more free time.
I'm sure there are others- but that's all I can think of at the moment. I know there are some series I have started, and liked, but due to lack of money/lack of library I haven't read the later books in the series and have then had something else come up, and just 'forgotten' about them. I guess I will eventually get back to them when I can, but at the moment I don't seem to have any time for reading apart from law books
13 years ago
Sat Apr 23 2011, 06:18pm
I have given up on the House of Night series. I read all of them before Awakened came out, but when it did I just thought...meh. Plus, I've really grown out of that sort of theme since then.
I also gave up on the Beautiful Creatures series before I finished the first book. I was too overloaded with cliches and Mary-Sues to take in any more. The girl, what's her name, if the very esscence of Mary-Sue. I knew this before I even knew what a Mary-Sue was. Thas is how bad it is.
I dropped the Evernight series after finishing the first book. The main character is just so annoying. She ditched her family for the guy who wanted to kill them! All for sing song forbidden love. Urgh, is your brain made of jelly or are you really that stupid? Love shmove! He wants to murder your family! That and it's another vampire book.
I haven't read the new book in the Immortal Instruments series because in my oppinion, it should have finished at book 3. The series was mediocre, and it finished nicely at the end of City of Glass. I read the blurb for book 4 and all it did was give me the impression that all that was new were more cliche things.
If you haven't noticed yet, I read lots of typical teenage fiction books. I have since dropped out of reading from that forbidden love theme. In fact, if you give me one, I will probably drop it and run away screaming. I am SICK TO DEATH OF THEM!
The Circle Opens Quartet I stopped reading at the first book. The quartet that came before it, The Circle of Magic, was really good, but this one was just lacking.
I haven't read Tourment, the sequel to Fallen yet, because the story wasn't that interesting to me. You never know, I might read it again sometime.
Okay, that's all I can think of at the moment. Woah, I didn't think I'd dropped that much :/
I gave up on Immortal instruments after the first book. I only bought it because I'd read Cassandra Claire's fanfiction, which was brilliant and it looked interesting.
By the end of City Of Bones it seemed very obvious to me where the series was headed and that direction seemed a little cleche.
Its probably good for a younger demographic.
Not being dumbed down was what I liked about Marsden's books as a teen. But he was an english teacher so that probably helped.
That was my initial problem with Harry Potter. I started reading them because my friends said i couldnt complain about them without reading them, and while I do quite enjoy them I find the simplicity of the language a bit annoying. (I first read them about the time book 5 was published)
Despite dealing, in the later books, with some quite mature themes, the language remains at the reading comprehension level of about 10-13.
My 10yr old niece is reading them now, without difficulty, but is not allowed to read past #4 for several more years because the content is too old for her even though the wording is not.
End rant!
At first I though - me? give up on a series? never! but after thinking about it for a bit longer - there are quite a few series that i've read the first book of and just never gone back to... not always because I didn't enjoy the book... sometimes i'm just supergood at putting things off... but I might get back to (some of) them, someday.
Series that have suffered this fate include: The Moorehawk Trilogy (Celine Keirnan), Bluebloods (Melissa de la Cruz), The Immortals (Alison Noel), The House of Night (P.C Cast) Chrestomanci (Diana Wynne Jones), The Inheritance Cycle (Christopher Paolini), Faerie Wars (Herbie Brennan), Phryne Fisher (Kerry Greenwood), The Hollows/Rachel Morgan(Kim Harrison) ... and no doubt many more have fallen by the wayside!
I am on the verge of giving up on The Southern Vampires/Sookie Stakehouse books - the last one was something of a trial to get through... Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is also skating on thin ice - although I did get a few chuckles out of the last (#16) book...
@ Wanderer - hope you haven't hit a dud Dresden Files - I read the early books one after the other so the stories have somewhat blured together in my mind - but I don't remember many dull moments! looking forward to #13!
@Axe I love Tamora Pierce books... give me the Tortall series and I'll be in. But I never could get in the Circle books. I also have not found the motivation or time to really get into the Terrier ones... I think perhaps I may have outgrown her books. I still have my two favourite quartets of The Immortals and The Song of the Lioness... but I don't know if I could be bothered getting into the other books.
I hate giving up on books, I usually battle through regardless of the pain but there are some books that defeated me despite my best efforts.
Janny Wurts: The Wars of Light and Shadow series. Um, Just. So. Boring.
Tolstoy: War & Peace. I really really tried, it being a classic and all, and I just failed half way through. I managed to finish Anna Karenina though...
I am also losing patience the Outlander series (Diana Gabaldon) because I think they are being pointlessly drawn out
I gave up on Raymond E Feist Magician spin offs because there were like 25 and I was bored with the world and the characters
Keeper of the Sherbet Lemons
13 years ago
Keeper of the Sherbet Lemons
Guildmember
I, like everyone else, gave up on the Ellie Chronicals. I read the first one and was hit by a load of WTF??? and decided it was better for my sanity to just ignore them. Like I kinda ignored the last three of the Tomorrow series out of protest.
I've dropped so many series over the years, I can't think to list them all. I have such a low tolerance for a lot of fantasy these days, I start and look them over for a bit, then generally get annoyed with the predictability and drop them.
The biggest series I ever dropped was the Devvery series by Katherine Kerr. She wrote so many books, and the story was complicated as hell, but there was so long between the last books being released, when I finally had my hands on the last book and read the blurb I realised I remembered nothing. I didn't buy the book, instead I went home and looked at the bookshelf I had dedicated to the books, and looked at them all. The thought of rereading every single one was just too much. The very next thing I did was pack them away in some handy green bags and go for a trip to my favourite second hand bookstore to take the cursed things off my hands. To this day I still can't even remember the basic plot line. There's a point when things are just too hard.
I imagine if I ever started Wheel of Time I'd be cursing the gods, too, and making another trip to the second hand bookstore with green bags in tow.
I gave up on the Wheel of Time... There were too many books and it intimidated me on how big they were D:
I gave up on the Narnia series. I got through the first four, but then got stuck...
Like alot of other people, I gave up on the Eragon books. They just seemed to be dragged out so much and nothing interesting ever really happened :(
And I also gave up on Twilight. I am such a massive Twilight-hater now that I'm ashamed I ever read any of the books :P I think I got to about half-way through the third book and almost died of boredom XXP
I've only been able to read the Trickster Series by Tamora Pierce, and I only read the first book out of the Beka Cooper series.....While I really loved the Trickster series, Pierce's books confuse me, their order confuses me, and I've tried reading The Circle of Magic Quartet but to be honest I found myself lost. I think there were just too many spin - offs in her series. I didn't know where it started or begun.
Each to her own I guess, but I love Tamora Pierce's books!!! I have all of them, and I read them all the time, on their own sometimes too, not necessarily in series.
I gave up on Dianna Wynne Jones books - I loved the Chrestomanci series, but I never really got into any of the others...
I also gave up on The Famous Five by Enid Blyton. There were just too many and they were really repetetive :( I loved them when I was about 7 though :P
Why is everyone giving up on Eragon... :( I love it. I'm uber excited about the new book coming out this year.. I can't be bothered re-reading the last one and don't even remember what really happened in it so I'm gonna have fun!
Actually I can see where people come from.. It like drags out.. a lot and takes ages for stuff to actually happen haha.
I applaud you Flit for not reading the last three books from the Tomorrow series. So not worth it and they changed my perspective about the whole series.. Would have been much better off without a conclusion. The last three books felt too random and dragged on.
Everyone is gonna hate this but I gave up on The Lord Of The Rings [act]braces self from vegetables that will be thrown[/act].. I just couldn't get into it.. Which is weird as I like Eragon and they are both fantasy.
No I'm with you Serendipity, I just could not get myself through the first book of the Lord of the Rings. I don't know what it was but it just felt like so much of an effort.
So no vegetable throwing here :)
Ashlings' guildleader
13 years ago
Ashlings' guildleader
Dreamscape Artist
Sometimes, I read Tamora Pierce books backwards ;D
I've never really given up on a series per say, because I don't think it counts if you don't make it though the first book (Wheel of Time, just couldn't get into it), but I refuse to continue with the Inkheart trilogy all together. This because in my opinion, Inkheart itself had the all time greatest ending of any book ever, or at least the most satisfying, and another of Cornelia Funk's books had the least satisfying ending of any book ever. Adding in that she initially wrote it as a stand alone and only decided to continue it after woulds and I'm very apprehensive about the following books. So there's no way I'm going to risk losing the happy glow I got after reading Inkheart on any enjoyment I could get from any of the following books. The risk/beneit analysis just doesn't support it.
As someone who's been steadily working her way through The Lord of the Rings, putting it down for a while, then coming back to it, I completely understand why some people give up on it. They're actually really difficult books to read and the fact that there's two books in every volume doesn't help, because you have to read for twice as long to get the happy buzz that comes with finishing one. Someone really should think to publish them in six separate books. I remember being 12 and being so frustrated by these books because I could only get through one or two chapters in the time it took me to read the entirety of any other book.
What I find really amusing, is the number of friends I have that claim to have given up on the Ober Chron. You should have heard them squeal when I told them The Sending was coming out in October! :P
They has so not given up.
Unlike most other people, I really liked the Wheel of Time. I loved the fact that there are so many twists and subplots and links between them all. Also, starting just before number 12 was released, it was great theat the books just kept comming and I didn't have to stop and find a new series (I read the whole lot plus a few more in about 3 months). I have to admit that I haven't tried a full reread yet, but I've been flipping through the last few books fairly regularly to remind myself what's happening.
Mostly I don't give up on books/series, I just haven't gotten around to the next one yet, but there have been a few.
- The Saga of the Exiles series by Julian May is probably my biggest fail. I read the first two/three books then flipped through the rest and gave up. I loved the basic idea but the plotline seemed to have no idea what it was doing, they'd just killed off half the main characters and i didn't even like most of the ones who were left.
- I also only read the first three books of the Tomorrow series. There, it was more a case of it seemed to be a good stopping point and it's not really my type of book anyway.
- The Saga of recluse is a series that I haven't quite given up on but can't be bothered to get into. I've enjoyed reading some of the spin-offs but it is too much trouble rying to find the main ones from the library and in the right order.
- I've been working on the newest Cronicles of Tomas Covenant book but can't be bothered to reread the first two in that trilogy so that it makes proper sense.
There are other series I've given up on as well, but since in most cases i've read one book then stopped, I can't remember them
also bracing myself for vegetables, but I have never even attempted to read TLOTR, or watched any of the movies. And I'm not sure that I want to either...
I haven't read the Inkheart Trilogy in a while, but I think the last two were fairly good. And I can't believe people don't like Eragon, I love it. I won the box set as a prize in a writing comp, and was so annoyed when I got to the end of the third and realised it wasn't finished. Can't wait for Inheritance to come out!
Dreamweavers' Guildmistress
13 years ago
Fri Oct 14 2011, 06:48pm
Dreamweavers' Guildmistress
Dreamscape Artist
No vegetables from me, though I have (obviously) read Lord of the Rings and loved it. I understand where everyone's coming from, as they were pretty dense books. I can name three people I know (excluding Obernetters) that have read the books. They enjoyed them, but they found that it took a long time to get through them. My brother is currently about thirty pages into the first book, but he loves the movies, of which I've only seen parts of. I've promised him I'll watch the set with him when I finish my exams in a few weeks.
I haven't given up on an series of books. Mentally I can't do it. Something inside me just has to read the entire set of books, otherwise I'd forever be wondering what happened in the end. Most of the time the only thing that stops me from completing a series is that the series is incomplete or I don't have the next/last book yet. Otherwise the series isn't the sort that drives me to find a copy of the next book as soon as possible. If I find a copy of the next book for a few dollars I might pick up and put it on my to-read pile, but its nothing urgent, like it is with Isobelle's books.
The Inheritance Cycle is complicated for me. I read the first two books, and got all of a page into the third one before I put it down when my dad pointed out that I was going on holidays to Perth for a week and wouldn't be able to finish it before I left and it was too heavy to take with me. He read it instead whilst I was away. When I got back it was school again, and I just couldn't be bothered picking it up. Plus, my copy went missing somewhere in the back of my dad's shelf. He has so many rows of books it is next to impossible to extract just one book without knocking others to the floor. I plan on finishing the set, but it's been so long that I need to re-read the first two before I even attempt the third.
There has only been one book that I came close to giving up on, because the writing was so strange that it didn't engage me. Attempting to read it actually gave me a headache. I ended up reading it earlier this year, pushing through and I really enjoyed it. Come the second book I was used to the author's style and was quite comfortable reading it.
At the moment I'm collecting Jean Plaidy's set of Tudor Court historical novels, but as there are twelve of them it is slow going, and I don't have the first one yet to start reading the series. I'm just trusting the blurb, and my love of historical novels.
I read the Inkheart Trilogy and loved it. I must admit that Inkheart was probably my favourite, followed by Inkdeath. Inkspell wasn't as interesting as the first.
In regards to Tamora Pierce - I love her books. My friend gave a list for chronological reading, but until actually have the books I need to start reading at the beginning I can't. I have read the Lioness Quartet and Trickster's Choice and Queen though. I will say that I don't enjoy her writing as much as Isobelle's, though my friend's the opposite. But she grew up reading Tamora Pierce, collecting the books whenever they came out. I do that with Isobelle's books instead.
With Narnia I got stuck after reading the Horse and His Boy. I didn't see how it fit in with the rest of the books, how it was relevant. In the end I picked the book up again (I have the complete set in one book) and started all over again, skipping that one book. I was fine after that and loved it immensely. [act]moves to re-read pile[/act]
