Book Reviews: 3 Sequels Worth Reading

Here’s the thing about book series: I love them and I hate them. I love them because I can spend even more time with awesome characters in new worlds doing exciting things.

But.

But I’m as impatient as a 5-year-old on Christmas morning and, frankly, I hate waiting a year for the next book a series. I know, I know, it’s because writing takes time and blah blah blah.

(Side note: In reality, I’m really impressed authors can churn out a book a year. That, and usually there are some novellas thrown in there to keep readers like me from gnashing our teeth. So even though I’m impatient—yeah, I get it.)

Still, when I finish a book and see that the next comes out in year my usual reaction is a bit very whiny.

Problem No. 2: I have a hard time remember what happened in a previous book when faced with a sequel a year later. The result: I put off reading sequels because I’m all, “But what happened in the last one.” I know, wah.

Anyhow, recently I’ve been on a kick. It’s a good thing because I’ve read some really good sophomore novels. Like, say, these:

Prodigy by Marie Lu

The fast-paced, action-packed plotting of Legend is back in Prodigy, as is the swoony romance between Day and June. But this time around, the romance is stronger, tensions higher, and losses much more painful. Day and June wrestle with some pretty tough moral dilemmas and uncertainties, an aspect that made this book even better than the first.

Unravel Me by Tahreh Mafi

The slow-building story reads similar to the first in the series—lots of description, metaphors and similes galore, and strikeouts, though the latter peter out as the book caries on. I’ll admit that Juliette’s self-loathing and self-pity got on my last nerve, which is why I was thrilled that Mafi let Kenji lay into her with the same words I’d been thinking. The story picks up from there. (Thank you, Kenji. This is why I adore you.)

Revolution’s coming, but Unravel Me is more focused on the love triangle between Juliette and Adam and Warner—though I won’t spoil everything and give you the details. I will say that I truly ached for Warner in this book (even more so because I read Destroy Me, the novella told from Warner’s POV, which I recommend reading before Unravel Me) and loved every interaction between him and Juliette. But what I love most? The way Juliette grows as a character, from someone who couldn’t get out of her own way into a girl I’m excited to read about in the third novel.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

I was a huge fan of Meyer’s Cinder, which retold the Cinderella story from the point of view of a part-android girl. The cliffhanger ending had me dying for Scarlet (which, cruelly took a year to come out) but I was a bit apprehensive. The second book in Meyer’s series, as fast paced as the first, knits together Cinder’s ongoing story with that of Scarlet, the independent girl who falls for a guy nicknamed Wolf.

The tale Meyer weaves is better than what I had imagined for a Little Red Riding Hood retelling, and the way she intertwines the two girls’ stories is fantastic. Though the romance between Scarlet and Wolf isn’t as strong as the one between Cinder and Kai was, it’s sweet. Plus, I really loved the character of Wolf and his internal struggles. Now excuse me as I twiddle my thumbs while I wait for the third book to come out. La la la...

The next sequels at the top of my TBR pile: Days of Blood and Starlight, Girl of Nightmares, Bitterblue, Froi of the Exiles, and The Crown of Embers.

What sequels have you read recently?

*I really wanted to title this Sequel Saturday, but considering it’s Wednesday, it just didn’t feel right.