Hooked on Books discussion

Hey everyone! 👋

It’s time to start thinking about our Series Buddy Reads for next year. Traditionally, we do one series per quarter, nominated and voted on by the group — and it’s been a great way to tackle big-name sagas and discover hidden gems together.

But participation tends to dip a bit once we’re past the voting stage or deep into a series, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we might add a little intrigue, variety, or structure to keep things fun and engaging!

A few ideas to consider (and you can suggest your own in the comments!):

⚔️ Keep it classic — same setup: quarterly series read, member nominations + voting.
🔮 Mystery-style selection — members only know the genre or theme ahead of time; the series reveal comes later, or alternatively you must nominate within the theme only.
🧩 Series Sampler — instead of committing to full series, we read just book one of four different series (one per quarter).
🧙 Connected Worlds — choose series with overlapping universes or companion stories rather than strict sequels.
🕵️‍♀️ “Wildcard” quarters — 2 traditional quarters + 2 experimental formats (like read book one only, or a duology).

And in the comments, please also share:

• What’s worked (or not worked) for you in past series reads?
• Any ideas for making participation easier or more engaging (like shorter timelines, discussion check-ins, extra challenge points, etc.)?

Let’s make next year’s series lineup something we all want to dive into!

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t like to read an entire series at one go. I’ve found that reading the books back to back leads to me burning myself out on the trope and the series. Maybe we commit to 2-3 series for the year, depending on the length of the series, and try to read 1-2 books from each of the chosen ones through the quarter.

I actually like this idea Aiswrya!

I like that idea too.

If we wanted to make it a hybrid, we could choose 4 series to read from over the year and still have the possibility to do 1 book per month. They could be from 1 series or spread across the 4 - this way both types of readers could approach the challenge in the manner they like best.

I like that idea too I’m same with series I can burn myself out sometimes

I often do series as a buddy reads, and I always feel like I'm in the minority since the friends I buddy with want to binge it. When left to my own devices, many times I tend to only do 1 book month, but then sometimes will take a month off. So I like the idea of somehow spreading them out. Maybe even alternating months with them.

I'm liking the hybrid suggestion. It's it often hard to read series books in a row.