A while ago a thing went around on Twitter asking you which popular book series you’ve read. Out of the list of 23 books, I only read 10… Now I’m not stressing about this, but it did make me think about why I haven’t read these books, because some of them are pretty popular. So this is a post dedicated to the books I haven’t read, but maybe should, and the books I will honestly probably never read.
There are some series on this Twitter list that I hadn’t even heard of, and some that I think are entirely missing and could be included in this list. But anyway, I’m not here to criticize the list. It was fun to see everyone’s answers on Twitter! It really showed how diverse our reading tastes really are.
Avoiding Contemporary
I noticed some contemporary books on this list. I have to come clean about something. I haven’t read a contemporary book in over four years. The last one I read was Paper Towns by John Green. I used to be way more into contemporaries and chick-flics, but then I discovered fantasy and sci-fi and I haven’t looked back.
I think part of the reason why I don’t like contemporaries as much is because they can get very political. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it’s very important that there are works of fiction that incorporate real-life issues such as racism, violence and oppression. However, as a Global Affairs major I am already busy with this stuff in my day to day life, so when I read books in my free time I’d rather read about dragons and magic.
The Teenage Classics
Another series I haven’t read is the Percy Jackson series. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like even non-readers have read this series. I don’t think it was ever a big deal in The Netherlands, or it wasn’t marketed as much, because I honestly didn’t know it existed until I moved to the US. Or maybe I actually do live under a rock, who knows. At this point I’m not sure if I’ll ever actually read the series. It sounds fun and interesting enough, but I think it’s something I would enjoy better if I were a little younger.
I also never read the Twilight Saga. It came out when I was 14 or 15, so I was the perfect age to read it. Unfortunately, I was a dumb edgy kid and automatically hated everything that was popular. Twilight was popular, therefore, I didn’t like it. I tried reading the first book not too long ago, but I wasn’t interested enough. Again, I probably would’ve liked it when it came out, but my own pretentiousness held me back.
The Old Ones
Moving away from the list now; another popular one is the Chronicles of Narnia. It’s one of those classics where a lot of people have read at least one of the books, but nope, not me. I own the mega pretty Barnes & Noble leatherbound edition, but other then look at the pictures, I’ve never read it. This is a series I do want to read eventually though. I feel like it’s more timeless than the other series I’ve mentioned.
Speaking of classics, you can name any classic work of fiction and there will be a 99% chance that I haven’t read it. I’ve read exactly two, and those were Jekyll and Hyde and Frankenstein. I owned a lot of classics at one point to “look cool,” but since I never read them I finally got rid of them. I donated them of course! This household is book-cruelty free, and all unwanted books go to new homes.:)
No Time for Short Stories
I own a lot of novella collections, but for some reason I never read them. So I have never read Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy, the Bane Chronicles, the Assassin’s Blade, Broken Throne, the novella’s accompanying the Shatter Me series… The worst part is that I’ll probably keep buying them, even though I know the chances of me reading them are pretty small.
The Fantastical
Then there is the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I know this one is popular among fantasy lovers, and I’ve seen it popping up on Bookstagram more often as well. Maybe you know that the Mistborn series is one of my all-time favorites, and that I love Sanderson’s work. But this series intimidates me. And it is 100% because of its size. The books are just so huge! But I really want to read them though. I’m just scared it’s going to take me forever.
And then there are those books that are on every fantasy list. The Discworld series, the Shannara series, the Sword of Truth series, the Dark Tower series… I own some of them, but I’ve never read them.
I think I can go on forever describing books that I haven’t read because I’m either too intimidated to read them, or just uninterested, but I won’t do that. So here are some books I was surprised not to find on the list!
- Throne of Glass – They had ACOTAR on there, but not TOG??
- The Hunger Games – I mean, this series pretty much kicked off dystopian YA
- Divergent – Similar reason to above
- Not a single Shadowhunter book – People either love or hate these, but you can’t deny that they’re super popular
- Vampire Academy – Remember that time literally everyone was reading about vampires? Where did that time go?
Well, I’m going to leave it at that. Are there any books that the entire world seems to have read except for you? Let me know in the comments!
