Weekly Lists #71: Series that got worse with every new book

I got my inspiration for this one from the Top 5 Wednesday-group on Goodreads – amazing group, by the way, you should definitely go check it out! Because I’d already done (somewhat) the first two topics for January, I figured I’d go back to December for some post-ideas. This prompt was originally meant to inspire a post on December 14th, but oh well… I guess today’s as good a day to talk about series that got worse with every new book as any other day?

This post is not sponsored in any way or form. It does, however, contain affiliate links.

1. Twilight

If anybody doubted that this series would be in here, that one’s on you. To be completely honest: I really liked the series at first. That’s to say, I got the first book on Christmas day. Bought the second one two days later. And then my sister and me got the third and fourth one on New Year’s Eve. We basically finished the entire series in one week. Oops? The first time, however, I was just enthralled by the story. The second time, I started paying attention to the writing. And that’s when things went downhill. I mean, not only does Bella’s behaviour get more and more unhealthy, the descriptions at one point just felt like repetition after repetition of the same 3 thoughts.

The best part? I still re-read them all, like, 3 times ànd went to see the movies. After that, I luckily grew out of it.

2. House of Night

This one I read in the full-blown era of YA-vampire-loving, and although I loved the first 3 or 4 novels in this series, everything after that was just sort of a chore. That doesn’t mean I stopped reading this series though – oh no. It just means that I almost started resenting the series for being such a drag. In the end, though, I am quite happy that I did finish it because – quite frankly – the series as a whole actually was pretty good. It was just a petty that it kept being dragged out so much.

3. Divergent

Now, by the time I got to this series, I have to admit that I was just on the brink of being through with this sort of series. You know, a girl main character who is somehow different, 3 books with about 20 extra novellas, and so on, and so forth. However, I don’t think that was actually the reason for my increased apathy towards this series. Where the first book was pretty darn awesome, the second one was just okay, and the third one ended up just being decidedly meh. Even with all of that, though, I’m still one of the (small) group that actually really appreciated the ending. Sure, it was heart-breaking. But it also felt really believable that finally one of these series would end like this. Quite honestly, there were at least 2 other series where I kind of expected this finish. So it ended up almost feeling like a relief that we actually got it over with, for once.

4. The Selection

I read this series just last summer because I wanted something nice and easy to pass my time after having to retake an exam. And I actually really liked The Selection – to start out with. You see, the entire first three (full) books of the series, everybody seems to at least somewhat agree that the Selection is an outdated ritual. So it made absolutely no sense to me that the last two books would literally consist of America and Maxon doing it to their daughter. I mean, come on, what about character development? What about consistency? What about logic? Yeah, I didn’t really understand that part. At all. Also, the relationship of Maxon’s parents, as depicted both in the novella The Queen and during the actual series? Yeah, sorry, not in to that. That was just in no way a healthy relationship!

5. The Clique

I first came across this series when I was a full-fledged, hormone-ridden puber and loved all those high school-drama books. However, my local library didn’t end up stocking the sequels until I was at least a couple of years older. So, although I did actually look forward to reading these books, I came back thoroughly disappointed. I mean, at one point all the stories honestly just sort of started blurring together in my head – sometimes even mixed and matched with other, similar, series like Gossip Girl. And through all that, I found out that I thoroughly did not like those types of stories anymore. Big disappointment, in other words.

So there you have it, that’s 5 series that I found to get worse with every new book published. What about you? Do you have any series that could definitely be added to this list? Be sure to let me know below!

-Saar