Top Ten Tuesday #5 :: The Top Ten Series I Haven’t Finished

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of the bloggers there at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join!

Today’s topic is the Top Ten Series I Haven’t Finished. Most of these are because of time constraints, but a couple are because I didn’t like some of the books well enough to devote the required time to read the rest of them.

1) The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan: I have read the first two, and own the third but haven’t had time to read the last book as of yet. I love pretty much every single thing that Rick Riordan has released for the MG/YA age group, and I am sure this one will be no different! I just need to find the time to get The Serpent’s Shadow read.

2) The 39 Clues/Cahills vs. Vespers by Rick Riordan et. al.: I have read through book nine of The 39 Clues, although I own everything that’s been released thus far in the sequel series. Again, with the whole time constraints, I just haven’t had time to get them read. They aren’t very long, and I’m probably going to use Winter Break – when we’re off for 2+ weeks! – to just read them all straight through.

3) The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyers: I read Twilight and New Moon, purchased Eclipse, and read the first chapter of it before giving up. The characters were driving me absolutely crazy with their back-and-forth manipulations of each other and I decided I just didn’t want to do it any longer. I skipped ahead and read the Jasper chapter (Jasper! ♥) and then the end. I didn’t even purchase Breaking Dawn. It is the only series that stands incomplete on my bookshelves. (As an aside, if you want an absolutely hysterical reaction to Breaking Dawn, check out Cleolinda’s posts HERE. I promise you, you will almost die of laughter.)

4) The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott: I’ve read through the second book, and own all of them except for the last one. Truthfully, I was put off this series by the second book; I didn’t like Josh’s constant attitude, and the constant GO GO GO of the plot was a bit too much for me. I will eventually read the rest of them because I own them, and they’re hardcovers, and I’m not about to have wasted all that money on them and not read them. But this was a series I was really excited about, and now no longer am.

5) The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare: I’ve read the first three, and really enjoyed them. I sort of wish she’d stopped there, because I’ve seen a lot of reviews that say people have been let down by the fourth and fifth installments. If she’d done the thing where Simon had been the focal point, then I would have probably dove in headfirst. But I don’t want to deal with any more drama between Clary and Jace, you know? This is another one where I own them both, so will get to them, but I’m not really sure when. I do want to read Clockwork Angel, though!

6) Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston: I absolutely loved Wondrous Strange, and cannot wait to find the time to read the last two books in the trilogy. The love story hits me in all the right places, and the fact that it features faeries gets major bonus points from me, as I’m a huge faerie junkie. This is another series that I’m going to try to read over break, although I might use my five days off at Thanksgiving to check this one off.

7) The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley: I had to read the first book in this series for my Fantasy Media and Literature for Youth course in Graduate School, and really enjoyed it. I love fairy tale retellings, and this series – while definitely MG – does the retelling thing really well. I am extremely interested in seeing where the series goes.

8) Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry: I’ve read the first two books in this series, and really liked them a lot. I own the third as well, but the problem with this series is that I can’t exactly remember what happened in the first two! So this series would require me to do a re-read in order to move on with it, and due to the whole time constraints thing I just don’t have the required time necessary to do that required re-read. Maybe some day, though, because I did really like what I’ve read.

9) The Bartimaeus Series by Jonathan Stroud: Another series that I’ve read the first two of, but stalled out on the third. There’s now a fourth book as well, which I also own, but again I think I’m going to have to re-read before I can continue on because it’s been so long since I read them that I’m not sure what was happening. What I do remember is Bartimaeus’ sense of humor, and the hilarity of the footnotes included in the book.

10) Fables by Bill Willingham: Remember what I just said about fairy tale retellings? Yeah, this is another series of those. However, this series is decidedly for adults – there’s a lot of gore, nudity, and sexual content – and not at all lighthearted. I’ve read the first three, then decided I needed a break from the storyline, particularly since the third ended with two of my favorite characters having a bit of an issue. What I do love, though, is the way he’s weaved all the fairy tales together – Prince Charming is the prince from ALL the princess tales – and I love seeing the more minor fairy tale characters being given their page time. I will definitely get back to this one eventually, although I’ll probably do a couple of them at a time instead of going straight through.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (not interested in finishing); The Agency by Y.S. Lee (really enjoyed the first one!); Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (Howl’s was awesome, and I can’t wait to read the other two); Soul Screamers by Rachel Vincent (read the first one and loved how different it was from your typical YA paranormals).

So those are my choices for this week. What are yours? Please link me!