If you are smart enough to know what a book series is, then that is a good enough reason for me, to not list the usual book series in this post. Everybody and anybody who has picked up a book knows that Harry Potter is like the bible of a Good Book series. So, I am not going to touch that nor am I going to touch the Twilight Saga. While many have jumped into book reading because of Harry Potter, believe when I say that It was Twilight for me that started the whole reading addiction. It was the first-ever book that opened my mind wide open to the joy of reading. So yeah Stephanie Meyer, you indeed made me a reader. Another cliché series is the Hunger games…. Tell me who hasn’t loved the book or the movie series. So nope not going there.
So, my list is series that you can try if you have already read and gone through Twilight, Harry Potter and Hunger Games. Also, while there are a whole bunch of series to explore which are a thousand times good than maybe some on this list, I am only covering the series that I have read and finished, which is why even though it breaks my heart, I am not listing six of crows because I am yet to finish the series.
So let us jump in
1. Angelfall Series by Susan EE
As I mentioned above, my reading life started all because of Twilight but it was Angelfall that fired it. This book was introduced to me by Crimson (my copartner on this blog). The timing was just perfect. It was right when I had finished Twilight and I was in a bad book hangover. This was everything that was needed to fill in the gap left by the wrapping of Twilight. No no, it is not about vampires or werewolves. This is angels …I am not kidding. This series is about fallen angels in a dystopian world. If I die and I could take one series with me then that would be Angelfall. You must try the book for just one thing …RAFFEE.
You are lucky that the series is complete because when I was reading it was just out and the wait for sequels was as long as the ice age.
I wrote the first draft of Angelfall during a breakup of a seven-year relationship, and when the book was ready, I needed to find my readers. I had lost a relationship that was very special to me and I needed to reach out for new connections that could hopefully soothe that loss. I couldn’t wait the one or two years it would take to get the book through the traditional publishing route and finally to the public. That’s why I self-published it without showing the story to agents or publishers.
Susan EE on Angel fall
2. Divergent Series by Veronica Roth
Maybe I shouldn’t have added divergent because just like Hunger Games and Twilight, Divergent is nothing less of a cult and almost everybody has at least heard about it. But here we go…
Go for the books and not the movie… I repeat not the movie. I don’t know what happened with the movies, all left was an alien attack and it could have been very well a spoof of our beloved series. Can’t believe even veronica Roth played a part in the movie. If at all, you can go for Divergent in the movie series but I would warn you to stay away from Allegiant.
Anyways if you like Hunger games, then look no further this is its perfect alternative. I don’t think anything else can very well explain how good the series is.
I came up with the Dauntless faction first, because I was studying psychology and the treatment of phobias. I thought, “What group of people treats phobias constantly?” And that would be a brave group of people, or people who value that. The other factions just sort of came about as a result of that.
Veronica Roth on Divergent Series
3. Shadow and bones Series by Leigh Bardugo
The series practically is a fire and the Netflix series just took it to a cult level. The reason you should go for the series is that the entire plotline has a natural progression. The thing with the series is that usually, the sequels fail to follow the magic of the first book. By the time it reaches the finale, it just becomes a debacle and far from where it started. That is why Shadow and bones, I feel is a perfect series that you can finish in one go.
There was also this fundamental question that actually arose out of Harry Potter, which was: What happens when you bring a gun to a magic fight? Voldemort is scary, but why didn’t anybody just shoot him? There are in-world rules for why that wouldn’t work, but to me that was a compelling question. The Grishaverse was a way of exploring what happens when magic stops being the ultimate weapon.
Leigh Bardugo on Shadow and Bones series
4. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
I think Cinder was the first book to make me believe in the magic of retellings. Before this book came along, I didn’t think of retellings to be such magical and worthy. The reason you should pick up the series is that while each book is a story of a different woman and of course each book in the series is a different retelling from Cinderella, Red Riding, Rapunzel to Snowhite, each of the books is well connected with not only its prequel but sequel too. To see how the books in a series should be well connected, yet different, then the cinder series is the best example.
When I first decided to write this science fiction series, I went to the library and checked out a stack of Scientific American magazine. I spent hours poring through those, reading any story that caught my eye, just to get a feel for where science and technology is today and where’s it’s headed. I learned so much, and the futuristic world of The Lunar Chronicles started to grow out of those articles about real-world science.
Marissa Meyer on Lunar Chronicles series
5. Legend Series by Marie Lu
After Divergent and Hunger Games, if there was a novel that created a near-perfect dystopian world for me then it was the Legend series. This book had the perfect combination of a completely fictitious yet relatable world of its own with characters that are truly well defined and a romance that had actual chemistry without being mushy
I got the inspiration first when I was watching Les Misérables on TV, and I thought it would be really interesting to do a teen-aged version of the criminal verses detective story line. So that was the first spark for it, and that’s what started off the whole thing.
Marie Lu on Legend series
Honorary mentions
Age of X by Richelle Mead
I so badly wanted to list this as my top choice but unfortunately, the series never continued and remains unfinished. I still am curious and baffled as to why there is not an actual petition out there to revive this series. But if you can cope up with the heartache try the two books available in this series and you will know why I had to mention it
The idea behind the Age of X world came when I was getting my master’s degree in comparative religion many years ago. With so much focus on religion and how it impacts society, I started wondering, “What if there was no religion … and then it came back?” My thesis focus was on religion in the late Roman Empire, so I looked into that culture a lot, too, which is why you see so many parallels between their society and the RUNA — like the praetorians and consuls.
Richelle Mead on Age of X
Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
It’s a series that has probably more fans than all the series I have mentioned above, combined. For me though, Hush Hush is a repetition of all the elements that you may find in your favourite series. It is a twilight series with Angels as you can’t stop comparing the events and characters between both the series. But then again perhaps that’s why it also makes a good alternate for the Twilight series.
I was inspired by an event that happened to me in my high school biology class. My teacher asked me, in front of the whole class, to name characteristics I’d want in a mate. The cute boy who sat next to me kept poking me with his pen, egging me on to answer. I was so humiliated! Those who’ve read Hush, Hush know the main character, Nora, endures a very similar experience. The more I wrote, the more the sexual tension playing out on every page between Patch and Nora filled me with innumerable questions and ideas. Is desire purely physical? What causes two people to have instant chemistry? What in our genetic makeup draws us to one person, and warns us to stay away from another? And what if it’s the same person?
Becca Fitzpatrick on Hush Hush
So these were 5 of the series in our list…. we will be back with another five in part 2 .
Till then let us know what were your favourite series and how many have you read from above?
