Thinking About... Never Ending Series

I love reading discussion posts and I finally decided to start my own! So here's my second Thinking About...

 Never Ending Series

That there are a lot of series nowadays is nothing new. That there's no way to keep up with them all sometimes makes me sad. A lot of series sound so good! But you can't just read them all. In this post I'll discuss some series I love and what number of books in series can do. 

Two. 


Personally I don't know many of these series. Actually only If I stay / Where She Went. I've only read If I Stay and that one was beautiful. I just haven't come around to reading the second one yet. 

Pro: The story doesn't end after one book. Which is a good thing, because you learn more about the MC. Although I love standalones!

Con: With only two books the series is pretty soon over. 

Three.

I think this is the most common one and I've read (or am reading) quite a few! The Hunger Games, The Wolves of Mercy Falls, The Lord of the Rings, Under the Never Sky, Shatter Me, Elemental. I could go on and on and on. I think I love this kind of series the most. 

Pro: If you ask me how many books a series should contain I would answer three. Most of the time the first and last book are good. When the second one isn't as good, it's just one book!

Con: When there are just three books publishing houses want to stretch the publications, and so the waiting begins... 




Four.

The second best number! I think the most famous must be Twilight. But don't forget The Iron Fey, Uglies, Fallen, The Sisterhood of the Travelings Pants. Just like trilogies there are a lot of them! What I like most about them is that there really can be told different stories. The middle two could dwell on subjects that aren't important enough to tell in a trilogy. 

Pro: Like in The Iron Fey there's told more in the story. That's when you make the decision to write a saga!

Con: The two middle books are sometimes just saga makers, but nothing more. The series could have been all right with just two books. 

Five.

A five book series can work, look at Percy Jackson. A different adventure for every book with one story line in all books. Or a another example: Wicked Lovely. Different main characters, but in every book the other characters also make an appearance. 

Pro: The stories can be read apart (well, at least with Percy Jackson and Wicked Lovely that's possible). 

Con: It's on the balance of a never ending series. 

Six. 

Six is after three and four the most popular number on my book shelves. The Immortals for example, The Vampire Academy or The Mortal Instruments. And yes, I'm counting that last one. I discovered it as a six books series, not as a trilogy. And unfortunately, Stravaganza. This series would have contained twelve (or never ending), but the publishing house decided to stop after book six. 

Pro: The more the better in a series you love. (And yes I'm aware this doesn't only apply for this number:))!

Con: If you read the books when they're published you could loose the story, because there so much more told. 

Seven. 

Harry Potter. (I had the intention of only saying this, but I'll say a little more). In the case of HP it worked wonderfully! I cried my eyes out after finishing the seventh book. You really get to know the characters, and even more than in other books they become your friends. For me this is also the only series I know with this number, so it just feels good. 

Pro: Can I just say Harry Potter here? The way J.K. Rowling wrote this series works really well!

Con: It's almost never ending, but just not yet. 



Never ending. 

Everything above seven is for me never ending and I must say I never stick with them. The House of Night, Gossip Girl, I just lost interest after a while. I really liked the first books of Gossip Girl, but I thought they look very much like each other. After books six I just never picked up the seventh. The House of Night is a different story: the first five books I liked, and from there it went down the hill. The story became too stretched and hardly anything happened in a book. 

Pro: You'll never have to say good bey to the characters!

Con: My experience is that the stories tend to get the same or just a bit empty. 

Undecided. 

One of my favorite series has three books now, but I can't find anywhere how many books there will come. I'm talking about Benedict series by Joss Stirling. There are seven brothers, so you would say there would be seven books, but nothing is confirmed. 

Pro: In my case I love this, because I don't want this series to end! But if you aren't liking the series very much, but you do want to know how it ends it could also be a con. 

Con: The publishing house can decide at any moment to stop the series if the it doesn't sell well enough. I hate that. It happened to one of my other favorite series (Stravaganza) and it made me really sad. 



What's your favorite number of books in series?