Subscribe Twitter Facebook

Saturday, February 21

Standalones vs. Series | Discussion

Today I was pleasantly surprised with book post. I bought Atlantia by Ally Condie a couple of days ago and wasn’t expecting it to arrive until next week. However, Amazon was awesome, like always, and sent it to me early. In all honesty, when I clicked the ‘checkout’ button I didn’t know much about this book’s story or characters or anything really but the cover was so drop-dead-gorgeous that I simply wasn’t able to resist it. This means that I ended up researching Atlantia on Goodreads and found out that it is in fact a standalone – surprised again! Which consequently made me think about standalones and series in YA fiction. As a YA addict most of the books that I own are within this genre and a huge proportion of them are part of a series. Standalones are extremely rare if you’re into fantasy or paranormal YA fiction with authors like Josephine Angelini, Cassandra Clare or Laini Taylor – these sort of books tend to be part of trilogies or series. But if you look at contemporary fiction with authors like Rainbow Rowell or John Green you actually get to enjoy a lot of standalones.

Personally I can’t say that I have a favourite type of book (standalone or series) but I do wish that more YA fantasy and paranormal were published under standalones. I miss it. I miss reading a story from start to end and feeling satisfied because I actually know everything I need or want to know. I miss not having to wait years for the series to be over and be able to marathon it. I miss not having to deal with cliffhangers, and love triangles, and all that I’m-part-of-a-series stuff. I truthfully think that the YA market needs more books such as Holly Black’s The Darkest Part of the Forest and Ally Condie’s Atlantia. As a reader, I definitely need to know more in a less amount of time because when you invest in a series you’re investing years… and since you have to wait quite a few months between books you end up starting new series – it’s like a vicious cycle and at the end of the day you start feeling like you have way too many series and not enough time to read them. Still, I do appreciate a good series.

When you fall in love with certain characters or supernatural worlds you want to go back to them as many times as possible. You want to know those fictional persons better. You want to read about their dreams, and their relationships, and their lives. They become your friends. Your ‘partners in crime’ and you simply don’t want to let them go. It’s an amazing feeling when a new book is out and you can go through all of it once again. And when it’s over… it’s like your heart shatters in one million different pieces and you know, right there, in that very moment, that you will miss that world and those characters forever – in the same way that you will always remember them.

Presently I guess I prefer reading standalones due to having a lot of series started and not many finished. I continue to invest in new series as there are plenty of interesting debut books coming out but if I do find a standalone then I will most certainly give it priority.

How about you? 
Do you feel overwhelmed with the amount of new series being published every year? 
Do your unfinished series drive you a bit crazier every day?

0 comments:

Powered by Blogger.
 
Powered by Blogger