Series I Won't Be Finishing

[@tiffanyh5355]

I’m with you on the Kingkiller Chronicles. There is no point until we know if there will be a third book

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

especially with how long those books are!

[@thegoblinempress]

I'm with you on Murderbot! Read the first novella and found it just fine? I didn't dislike it, but barely anything about it has stayed in my brain.

[@SFF180]

The new version of the Oxford English Dictionary came out and the definition of “overrated” is just a photo of Patrick Rothfuss.

[@CapeMan344]

As much as I don't like the term, I would categorize Maas's writing as a guilty pleasure. I've read both ACOTAR and Throne of Glass, and while I knew that the writing style wasn't great, I was always having a great time reading them. I usually save them for after I read a big epic serious story.

[@PureMagma]

I like the Throne of Glass series much better than I like Crescent City series (which has the most unrelateable FMC). I bought a used set of TOG that I was planning to disassemble and create a book entirely about Dorian and Mannon, but my friend discovered that the books were all 1st run 1st editions with a rare cover style. So I sold them and turned $20 yard sale grab into $1,400... 😅

[@rayyanasif634]

Out of so many booktubers I watch I feel like your and mine taste in books is the most similar so I feel like I can trust you the most because of the past books you reviewed and rated I rated those very similar as well

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

Love that - thank you!

[@booksvsmovies]

I'm affirming your decision to DNF the Throne of Glass series as someone who attempted to do a big reread to finish out the series a few years ago. It was probably one of the most miserable reading projects of my life. And especially if you're a Chaol girl like me there is truly nothing for you in the rest of the series.

[@patriciaa65]

I tried to read for Manon, but gave up lol. Does anyone like Aelin, seriously

[@booksvsmovies]

@patriciaa65 Unfortunately, the Manon/Dorian romance was one of my least favorites. I liked Manon, but Dorian was a bottom tier character for me

[@patriciaa65]

@@booksvsmovies exactly, I read spoilers on their romance. Not for me

[@katkay9923]

I loved Manon and Dorian originally but did not at all love how Sarah J Maas took away so much of Manon’s badassness for him. (Spoilers) There was a part where he’s going on a dangerous mission and she literally GETS ON HER KNEES and BEGS him to stay while offering to MARRY HIM if he does. Like sorry this complex badass literally maneating war machine who leads other badass women on dragons with a secret heart of gold and fierce protectiveness for her loved ones GROVELING FOR A MAN IS A NO FOR ME

[@patriciaa65]

@@katkay9923 that is exactly why I noped this series

[@olgagicala7886]

My problem with The Kingkiller Chronicle is that the books in the series just don't wrap themselves up nicely enough to make the series worth reading without the third book being out. For most authors, you get to some kind of conclusion after finishing a books - some questions are answered, character arcs are closed etc. You could finish reading Stormlight Archive at any point and you'll still at least get this feeling of partial completion. But Rothfuss' books are more like LOTR - one long story that is separated into multiple books (though I think that even LOTR is more self-contained). With Rothfuss we are presented with many questions in the beginning and second book resolves almost none of them. At that point I would settle on getting a 10 page long pdf with a bullet list of what's supposed to happen - there's no other series that left me hanging so much and it's frustrating. Also, Rothfuss' fandom can be... Intense. I heard multiple fans of his claiming that TKC "ruined" fantasy for them because Rothfuss writes so beautifully and other authors apparently don't.

[@AWalleye]

For me it's the Zodiac Academy!!! I couldn't finish the first book and I can't imagine stomaching the first book to only hear it gets better after the third book. 😅 I learned Bully romances are NOT for me!

[@mglarson5936]

I’m with you on Murderbot, they were fine but I didn’t feel super strongly about them in either direction so I will also not be continuing.

[@ashleyoreads]

I love murderbot so much - so im sorry you don't feel it

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

I'm definitely in the minority! I'm the only person I've ever heard not like it. Again, I wonder if it's the audio that didn't work for me because in theory I should love them...

[@Fela_rof]

I'm so disappointed regarding Patrick Rothfuss. I mean it's completely fine to struggle but there's so much weird stuff going on when it comes to the third Kingkiller Chronicles book. Like him promising to release chapters of the book if a certain donation goal will be accomplished and he never fulfilled his part of that deal. Ot his editor saying she has never seen a word of the third book for years. In the beginning i kinda felt sad about it and reallly hoped to see the series finished but I don't care anymore. Even if there will be a third book I'm pretty sure I won't read it 😅

[@MariaMightReadThat]

So glad I never started the Kingkiller Chronicles. What a mess. I'm attempting Throne of Glass for the first time currently and am up to book 4. If book 2 is the reason people hate Chaol so much.... I don't get it?? I actually thought it was a really interesting nuanced conflict. All that to say, so far I'm team Chaol too haha. But also think I may have missed the right time for me to read this so we'll see if I make it all the way through.

[@klatte1493]

honestly the books are a guilty pleasure, but i genuinely believe they got better every book. I immediately compared the first two books to something akin to the specific fanfiction i used to read as a teen- and Maas did start writing it at 16 which completely tracks lol. I have some issues with the ending but honestly I freely admit I cried twice during the last book

[@Clamfaced]

GRRM at least has proof he's writing Winds of Winter because sometimes he releases preview and sample chapters, has that ever happened with Patrick Rothfuss? I think with George he keeps writing on it but GOT becoming this big franchise and him working on so many different projects like the various TV shows in development, all the spin off books, all the other spin off content like lore apps etc. That he just genuinely doesn't have the time. I think Patrick Rothfuss just has barely written anything and thats why he gets particularly pissy when people ask him about it. I think also the stuff remaining for the story thats expected to happen, no way is it gonna be one single book. If it is it'll be like 2k pages. Maybe thats the issue thats scaring him?

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

exactly - yeah I think he's honestly kind of a jerk and wrote himself into a corner and lowkey hates having to deal with fans so has little incentive to keep writing it

[@Katiedora122]

I remember reading Name of the Wind in 2015 and saying I would continue once we got the date for book 3 (since book 2 had already been out for years at the point)😅😅🤣 As for Sarah J Maas, I think I was lucky enough to experience her books in a bubble with friends. Like I read all of ACOTAR and Throne of Glass (which I much preferred) between 2016-2018, and I think I'm all good with her now, lol. Because of that, I do have some nostalgia for ToG and I'm a little tempted to reread it, but I think I would rather spend that energy on revisiting some of my Cassandra Clare favorites.

[@anybethmae]

I'm FLABBERED over your thoughts for Murderbot. Valid, but def not my experience lol

[@anybethmae]

I will forever be MAD about Rohfuss because he's a local author for me and it was COOL to share central Wisconsin with such a successful fantasy author. But he's been a bit sketch for several years and I'm not having it. I'm not going to trash a person I've never met on the internet, but I'm also not going to sing his praises. Another novella in the world was released and I REFUSE to have anything to do with it and will have the same attitude with anything else. It's also frustrating because it's been so long and I am such a different person that I suspect revisiting the first two books will not effect me the same and I doubt a conclusion would manage anything for me at this point either. Just a shame

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

yeah he honestly seems like not a super nice person in interviews and stuff. Honestly Murderbot surprises me too because I should love it. Maybe it's the audio and I should read it on ebook instead or something!

[@Ashtiel]

​@@ThoughtsOnTomes I will say I had a similar issue, the audiobooks for murderbot definitely don't convey the vibe. I have to read them physically and much better experience

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

@@Ashtieloooh good to know! In that case, I may try that in the future.

[@maybeimacat3183]

I'm abandoning Caraval. I knew I wasn't going to love it, but I tought it'd be an entertaining read with magical elements (kind of like the nutcracker), but It had more circus vibes than I wanted. I know everyone loves the 2nd book, but I just can't, the vibes and the writing aren't there for me, unfortunately 😔

[@BellaOfTheBrawl]

I am convinced Fourth Wing gets the hype it gets because people are THIRSTY for a spicy romance version of Eragon 😂 hint to aspiring authors: that's a hungry market, just saying 😉

[@Cloudberry-fp9rc]

Agreed on Kingkiller.. dude is never going to write it, I abandoned and unhauled both books ages ago. Although I have more faith in GRRMartin finishing his series (and doing Daenerys justice), I also abandoned Song of Ice and Fire. It just got really depressed me with how nothing good ever happened to the characters, who were mostly children, particularly Aria's storyline hit me hard, because she is.. just a little girl.

[@thegoblinempress]

I'm with you on Murderbot! Read the first novella and it was just fine? I didn't dislike it, but nothing about it has stayed in my brain.

[@AnnaPatriceThePhoenix]

As much as I didn't like Fourth Wing, I was considering going into the second one if ppl said the problems from the first were remedied, but even the ppl who loved the first one hated the sequel?! Noooo thank you lol Also, I read Vampire Academy like 10 years ago and it'll always be one of my fave series, however, I REFUSE to ever reread it 😂😂😂 I gotta keep my "nostalgia goggles" in tact lol.

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

oh yeah leave that one in the past for sure lol I also heard the same thing about the second Fourth Wing book!

[@riankoch9126]

The gasp I gasped when you said no Murderbot Diaries. I think I even clutched my fiction pearls. But you’re completely right about the SJM fandom. I find them to be incredibly toxic. Remember the lash out over one artist doing an Asian Manon? I’ve held off on reading CC3 because I think it’ll finally be the book to get me to break up with her.

[@star71135]

Same feelings towards murderbot. It has all of the elements I usually would love but I couldn’t emotionally attach to anyone which isn’t a problem I usually have so I planned to continue and try to gaslight myself into liking it 🤣

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

Lol I did the same thing!

[@shemiahwalker]

Read what you want to read ,not what people tell you to read.❤❤❤

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

I wanted to like Vampire Academy lol

[@angelmuse93]

I really need to go through my series and DNF some. Kingkiller Chronicles def lands in a I'll read it when I'm bothered. I just know Stormlight 10 will be out before book 3 of Kingkiller

[@crystalross7943]

Karie Marie Morning Fever series was good in the beginning but I couldn't finish it. Spoiler but there was a gangbang rape and I couldn't finish it. My mom finished the original ending and said it was good. But then she wrote about, Dany?, who is a teenager having adult relationship with two male adults and my mom had to stop. She has better books but they are romance books first and has certain tropes that are hard to shake. I did like that the fae were dangerous instead of just beautiful but it got dark and I didn't like the guy she ends up with because i feel like he was never truely honest with her.

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

yeah older paranormal romance definitely has the rape trope very often and a lot of other problematic tropes

[@eriklonnrot3578]

yeah … Patrick Rothfuss checked out a loooooong time ago … We’re never getting The Winds of Winter either, but at least GRRM managed to get 5 tomes out before stopping. Credit where credit is due? 😬

[@natasagajic1061]

I just dnf-ed The Raven Cycle yesterday 😴 I trying to read the second book for like 6-7 months but there's really no need to force myself through it

[@hearthhobbit]

Even getting attached to murderbot in the first two books didn’t prevent me from falling out of love with the series 😔

[@cloudymondays]

I also dnf'd Throne of Glass and Vampire Academy. I got half way through the first ToG book before just simply losing interest. Vampire Academy was just soooo dated and I think I waited too long to read it, so I missed my time with it and don't have "nostalgia goggles" for it either. I'm willing to give it another try but, we'll see. Lastly, I only got a few chapters into Dark Fever before it was a hard NO for me. Also very dated, and not in a good way lol.

[@jackiesliterarycorner]

This is sad, but I opted not to continue the Vagrant Gods trilogy. It's sad because I have no good reason except I never got around to buying the third book. I've been going back and forth with SJM, because her books are fun, and I enjoy the worlds, but I don't think about them as much. I opted not to continue The Saxon series by Bernard Cornwell. The plot feels repetitive and formulaic and would rather just watch the show. I've been hemming and hawing about Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I have situations where I waffle about my feelings on books/series and The Vampire Chronicles is one of those.

[@lynnthomas8457]

I JUST bought Fourth Wing because I heard it was amazing and I miss dragon rider series, now I'm kinda worried, because I agree wth most of the rest of this list. I got to book 2 of Vampire Acadamy when I WAS a teenager and it pissed me off SOOO much. There was another YA vampire series, House of Night, which in the 3rd book had the MC cheating on her boyfriend with a *teacher*, and this was framed as a good thing, that the boyfriend was in the wrong for getting mad at her for it. I put it down and never looked back.

[@JayGTheAwkwardBookworm]

I still haven’t read fourth wing 😵‍💫

[@TheFran2555]

Thanks all gods I only read Throne of Glass , never have the courage to continue this series

[@debbieg.4882]

A Song of Ice and Fire and the Kingkiller Chronicles are series i won't finish. I donated the books. Tired of waiting years for the authors to finish them.

[@Amanda-nq6mw]

Oh yeah definitely Rothfuss. Everyone puts him on a freaking pedestal when the second book doesn't even continue the story enough for a thousand pages 😐

[@tomswift3482]

I read the physical first 2 Murderbot books, and had an almost identical result. Cardboard characters, very little story, therefore very little progression, and basically I felt it to be a sort of Neo-Next-Wave-Short-Attention-Span tale, catering to very modern readers. A bot who does things but would really rather be lazing, watching pirated soap operas. And the prices of the books? Ridiculously expensive for what are mainly - short novellas. I cannot even read them from the library, because I think the public library has better things to purchase, with their hard earned monies.. Okay writing, but very shallow end of the pool.

[@JulieTheReader]

Completely lost interest in the Kingkiller Chronicles. These Violent Delights was also a one-and-done for me. I’m unlikely to follow up with A Tempest of Tea (we were promised a tea house/vampire hangout and mostly got characters being distracted by how attractive they found other people on their team). I was about to bring up the Alex Stern books and just realized I never picked up Rule of Wolves. Eh.

[@tigerdp123]

i think the murderbot series would be better if the books were a bit longer

[@johnstoddart5523]

Always toss a book that starts to disappoint

[@lenore8767]

Couldn’t finish Southern Reach either. Didn’t care for Annihilation at all, although there were some elements that, if my brain cells aligned so I could write, deserved…begged an entire critical essay. For that reason, I read Authority, actually enjoyed that just as a pleasure read, but gleaned no real critical insights. So, lights out for that. I’m surprised that, after reading Tasha Suri’s The Lotus Empire, I just didn’t care enough to continue w Burning Kingdoms. I was hopeful for this series. It struck me as something that would’ve benefited from more time in the editorial slow-cooker. The prose just required too many on-the-fly mental gymnastics to restructure sentences. It’s written in a far too passive voice. Give me action, give me all the active-voice verbs! Tinker with the tense, narrator! But first, give those editors (or code the AI with) a thesaurus. I’m not the one getting paid to structure this-I want to fix this, I guess. And while we’re at it, let’s see about the typos, eg. “Callous” when it’s “callus.” “Taught” when it’s clearly “taut.” These nitpicks ruin perfectly fine worlds, personally. The inability to trust the prose just creates undue work for readers. This book exhausted me.🤷🏻‍♂️

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

isn't lotus empire the final book??? or is there more??

[@SissouLoveVideo]

What about Kate Daniels ? Where are you at ?

[@ThoughtsOnTomes]

I've read the first 3 or 4. I didn't have time to get to more this year because of other reading goals and series I wanted to finish but hoping to pick it back up next year!

[@SissouLoveVideo]

@@ThoughtsOnTomes Oh okay nice ! I was afraid you didn't want to continue, can't wait for your reviews !

[@elizabeth.n1187]

Murderbot WAS SO BAD. Like they do not read as a Bot and every side charater has more time spent describing their relationship preferences than characteristics. Like i read four of them and i remember NOTHING beyond every freaking couple was poly lol