Top 5 Popular Series That I’ve Never Read (and Probably Never Will)

I got this idea from the brilliant @ May’s Book Vault, so please check out her post after mine! I thought this was the perfect follow on from my childhood favourites series, because instead of hearing about the books I have read, you get to hear which ones I haven’t!

I’ve decided to just focus on popular series that I haven’t read, but I might do a similar post for stand-alone books in the future.

Without further ado, let’s begin looking at the big gaps in my reading of popular literature!

The Divergent Series

This series followed The Hunger Games (which I have read) to dominate popular culture when I was a teenager. I actually own all the books, but I just never got round to them. I was told not to watch the films until I’ve read the books, and subsequently I’ve completely missed the Divergent series.

I think it was purely just a timing problem, because I think I bought them at the same time as the Maze Runner series, which went on to being one of my favourites. I don’t really see why I would read these now, especially considering I remember hearing some more negative things about the later books. This was definitely a series I should’ve read in my teenage years.

The Mortal Instruments Series

This is one I am quite sad that I missed, and once again it is a simple matter of timing. I actually borrowed City of Bones from the library, but I was reading Pride and Prejudice at the time so I had to return it before I got the chance to start it. I’ve seen rave reviews about it, and everyone on BookTube was obsessed with these books years ago, so it really is on me.

The main reason that I wouldn’t read this series now is because I think I’ve outgrown them. It’s also a matter of buying books that aren’t my favourite genre just for the sake of it (I’m really trying to reduce my book buying). I’d never say never, but my never reading them is as close as possible.

The A Song of Ice and Fire Series

A.k.a The Game of Thrones series. What could be more popular in modern times that this TV show? Unfortunately, I never started watching it, and by the time I realised it was something I should watch it was far too big of a task to catch up. The same applies for the books; it’s not my favourite genre, and the books are all very long, so I’ve just never felt the urge to read them.

I know a lot of people read the books because of the TV show, so I think it’s quite logical that I would have not read them. I’m not too sad about missing out on this one, because I know they wouldn’t be my favourite. There are a lot more long books out there for me to tackle that would be more to my taste, so I think I’m fine with avoiding these!

The A Court of Thorns and Roses Series

I know, booktok is going to hate me for this one. I’ve heard a lot of people praising this series as being amazing, and I’ve had a lot of people urge me to read them, but I just can’t see it happening. I’m not really a series reader anymore, and honestly I don’t think I’d ever reach for them.

Fantasy is something I don’t read much of anymore, and if I do I like to stick to stand-alones. I think if this series had been popular in my early teens I would’ve read them for sure, but unfortunately I think that time has passed for me.

The His Dark Materials Series

Finally, we move onto the series I feel most guilty about not reading. I really don’t know what went wrong with this series, because I do own The Golden Compass. Maybe it was the film that didn’t click with me and put me off reading the book, or maybe it was starting with the second book in the series. Whatever it was, I begrudgingly have memories of being actively disinterested in this series when I was younger.

For similar reasons that I’ve mentioned above, I just don’t see myself ever reading this series. Now when I read literature aimed at younger age groups, it tends to be re-reads or by authors I know I like. I just don’t see where these books would fit into my tbr, and if they did I think they would just consistently be pushed to the bottom.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the series I’ve managed to skip over the years. I’m sorry if your favourite was listed- try and convince me otherwise in the comments!

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Childhood Favourites: First Series

This week I reorganised my main bookshelf and I found some of the first series that I remember loving as a child. I’ve been feeling nostalgic about these books and my memories of reading them when I was younger ever since, and thought it might be fun to share them on here.

When I think about the books I read and enjoy now, I think my tastes have changed quite a lot since reading these series, but maybe this will show how certain books helped this development to happen. It might even encourage me to revisit certain genres or tropes that I’ve abandoned in recent years.

These are a selection that I enjoyed up to about the age of 12, and I will probably make another blog post that features YA series that I loved when I was a teenager. I think this could be a really nice idea for a series that tracks my main reading likes and dislikes over the years.

Hopefully some of these trigger some nostalgia in you, and maybe even inspire you to take a walk down memory lane and rediscover some of your childhood favourites!

The Harry Potter Series

The Harry Potter Series

You probably guessed that this would be featured on this list, but I couldn’t not include this just to be less predictable. This is the first series that I remember reading that I really immersed myself in the world and the first thing I would’ve called myself a ‘fan’ of (me and my childhood best friend had a secret harry potter club, it was really cute). This cemented my enjoyment of reading as a hobby rather than something that was required by school, and it’s where my book buying habits started (I have 3 copies of each book).

I don’t really read fantasy anymore, but I’d like to start getting back into that genre again. Even if this hasn’t had a lasting influence on my reading tastes, I’m sure I wouldn’t be half the bookworm I am today without this series.

The Percy Jackson Series

The Percy Jackson Series

Another potential obvious selection for this list, I haven’t met many avid readers who didn’t at least read the first Percy Jackson book at some point. I remember finding these books really funny, and I definitely still look for that same sense of humour in the books i read today. It also showed me how much I loved history and introduced me to the idea that the two could go hand in hand (enter historical fiction and the basis of my degree). I also just recently read Stephen Fry’s Mythos (you can read my review here), which is a re-telling of Greek mythology, so clearly Percy Jackson still influences my reading tastes.

Overall, they’re just exciting and well-written, and I refuse to let my memory of how great this series is be tainted by the awful movie adaptions. Speaking of awful things, I’ve included a picture of my copies of the series so you can share the pain of them not matching.

The 13 Trilogy

The 13 Trilogy

Onto a more obscure one now: the 13 trilogy. I don’t remember the general plot of these very well, but what I do remember is that there was a girl who could see fairies and goblins who gets sent to her grandmother’s house that is full of secrets. It was a classic fantasy series, and it helped me to realise I like the genre in general, not just the Harry Potter series. I also became obsessed with charm bracelets for a while (a charm bracelet is important in the first book), so it was probably the first time that reading a book influenced my fashion choices as well.

As I mentioned before, I don’t really read fantasy book anymore, but I do like the Gothic, so I wonder whether reading these books about houses with secret passageways and rooms had any role in that.

The Gallagher Girls Series

The Gallagher Girls Series

I remember the Gallagher Girls series because it was the first time I had read that kind of female character, and it was so refreshing (even at the age of 9). I really loved the school for spies idea and it started to take my interest beyond the magical fantasy bracket and into a more YA/romance genre. It might be cheating to include this because I know there are more books in this series than I’ve read (I’ve only read the five books in the picture above and I think there are two or three more), but I’m counting it.

I think of all the series I’ve included this is the one that’s closest to what I read now, and probably had the most influence on the books I read in my teenage years.

The Animal Ark Series

The Animal Ark Series

I got most of my Animal Ark books from various charity shops, and I don’t think I ever had the complete collection, but getting these books is almost as fond of a memory as reading them. This probably is another cause of my current book buying problem. I love animals, and reading about a young girl getting to interact with all the animals you could ever imagine in often funny and unusual ways was very entertaining. I’m definitely going to give my copies to any children that I or another family member might have, because they’re just so pure and lovely.

I can’t really say that these books are very close to or have influenced my current reading tastes that much, but they helped with my general desire to read.

The Rainbow Fairy Series

I was just going to stick to five series for this list, but I wanted to include these books as a bonus pick. The Rainbow Fairies books were another series I loved to collect, and although they didn’t form a cohesive narrative (as far as I can remember) they were a childhood staple. My sister and I are very different, and she hated reading, but we both loved these books so I have a lot of fun memories because of this series. I was also a very big fan of having my name on a book, especially when a fairy was named after me too!

Once again, I can’t really say that these have influenced my reading tastes more than just sustaining my desire to read. One interesting thing I do remember is choosing which books to buy based on the fairy on the cover, so maybe that’s where my habit of buying books with pretty or interesting covers comes from?

I hope you enjoyed that journey down memory road, and took something from this indulgence in my nostalgia. It’s always interesting to look back on where your reading journey started, and this has shown me that maybe I should take more inspiration from the genres my younger self enjoyed.

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