The Blog Squad - Part 22

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS - AmyNikita

BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS - Uma K

BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett

Do you binge read series? Or read them as they're released?

I will do both, it really just depends when I get to a book/series!

If there are books being released by a favourite author I will read them as they are released because I won’t be able to hold myself back. Then there are the series that I just haven’t managed to get to that I’ll end up binge reading either all of the series or to whatever book has been released.

There are numerous reasons that I might not have gotten to a series - either the hype was too strong and I avoided it for too long, or I just don’t have the time in my reading schedule (because let’s face it I will NEVER have enough time to read all the books I want to read!) or maybe an amazing series somehow just slipped under my radar.

I’m not sure which type of reading I prefer - obviously I love binge reading a series because I happen to be able to get all the books without waiting forever to resolve a cliffhanger… But there’s something to be said about that delicious anticipation of the next instalment to a favourite series.

For me, it’s more a case of “whatever books I can get my hands on, I’ll read.” I won’t read a series out of order, obviously, but if I see the first book for sale I’ll buy it and read it. And then get the others when they pop up.

I don’t make a conscious choice to hold-off reading a series because I want to get all the books in one-go. I’ll read it when the books are available to me - even if it means buying or requesting the second or third book just because it’s an option in that moment. But of course, I won’t start those till I can get the first book.    

In what order do you read series with novellas?

My favourite is to read all of the novels and then go back to fill in with the novellas, but if I am awaiting for new releases in a series then I might read the novellas as they are published. I don’t like reading out of publication order though, so if 1.5 was published after book 2 then I’ll wait to read 1, 2 and then 1.5 both to avoid spoilers but also more importantly to read the books in the order that the author intended them to be read.

Similar to my previous answer: just when I can get hold of them. I prefer to read the full series before novellas, but like I did for The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas, it was in my library and even though I hadn’t read Empire of Storms yet, I took it because it didn’t really have a set place in the series and I could read it and not have any spoilers ruined.

Every novella is different, though. Some fit in a certain place in the series, and should only be read in that order if you wish to avoid spoilers. In that case, I’ll make sure to read the series first. But if spoilers, etc, aren’t an issue, then I’ll just read what’s available to me.

Do you do 'book by book' reviews or whole series reviews?

I generally do book by book reviews. Both can be quite tricky though! I don’t like to include spoilers in my reviews and this can be tough on a long running series in which events and the plot in sequels hinge on circumstances set in the previous books!

Whole series reviews I find tough as well because if I’ve read all of the books there are certain points that I want to make about a particular book and I find that difficult to fit into an entire series review.

Up till now I’ve done book by book reviews, but I might change that a bit in the future. It depends on the books and how much I’ve enjoyed them, and how much I have to say about them.

If I’m doing a review of, say, the second book in a series then I’ll generally include spoilers because it’s only natural to refer to the first book. But I’ll always try to include a spoiler warning.

Go over to their collab posts to know my answers!:

❤ Book Reviews by Di
❤ A Magical World of Words

We hope you’ve enjoyed the latest in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.