Book Loving Kiwis discussion

These books are the ones I've been progressively getting through from 2015 to now. Hopefully I can charge through them all before exams start creeping up on me.

Books to read in 2016 now: (sheesh that came around fast)

The Boy in Striped Pajamas
An Abundance of Katherines
Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1)
Zodiac (Zodiac #1)
Paper Towns
The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1)
Redwall (Redwall #1)
Virals (Virals #1)
All the Bright Places
All the Light We Cannot See
Gone Girl
Dorothy Must Die
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Alchemist
Life of Pi
The Great Gatsby
Yellowfang's Secret (Warriors Special Edition)
Stargirl (Stargirl #1)
Wonder
The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner #2)
Fangirl
After the Fire - must reread
The 10pm Question
Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1)
The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus #1)

I know a lot of these are books in a series. Authors these days, especially ones writing in the YA genre, seem to have an annoying habit of turning brilliant stand-alone novels into painfully continuous series that only succeed in dragging on and killing off characters. I realize that's not always the case, but as a younger reader myself I consider this trend to simply be a money-making scheme rather than time and care being put in what is being written.

Does anyone else feel this way?

Lots of good books there! The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is a short read...I think I read it in one foul swoop over 1 or 2 days. Haven't seen the movie though. I have An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns also on my tbr shelf...I read Looking for Alaska at the end of last year and thought it was great.

With regards to your question about YA series I can't say I've read many...only The Hunger Games but there do seem to be a lot of trilogies out there. I've heard editors tell new emerging writers to keep there first book shortish---probably gets more readers as some are put off by the length...so that might have something to do with it.

Erica wrote: "Lots of good books there! The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is a short read...I think I read it in one foul swoop over 1 or 2 days. Haven't seen the movie though. I have An Abundance of Katherines and Pap..."

I agree that some of the novels out there are rather lengthy - not that I have a problem with long novels, I mean, I've read each and every Harry Potter book backwards and forwards more times than I can count. But I don't want to commit myself to a 500-paged novel that may not be worth my time and have two more of equal length I have to struggle through afterwards. (It kills me to leave a series uncompleted)

I just feel like if a book needs to be a certain length and it reads well the way it is, it should be like that. I've hauled my way through some works of fiction that feel as if the author has just dragged them out to make them a certain amount of pages.

But then, maybe I'm just reading the wrong YA novels.

Good luck with your challenge.

and I TOTALLY know what you mean re unnecessarily lengthy series. I just finished the House of Night, a 12 part series! It could've been a really action packed trilogy or 6 part series... couldn't believe I stuck with it