There are some books that when you finish you can’t WAIT to
read the sequel (and if it isn’t written yet you start to understand my pet
peeve a little better). There are some
that you wish intensely for a sequel that will never be (because, even though the
story is complete, you just aren’t ready to leave it behind). And then there are some that have a sequel
and yet when you get to the end (no matter how good the story was) you have a
completed feeling about the story and have no desire to read the next book.
I have come across several that fall into the last category
recently and it has left me wondering: why?
Why do they write a sequel that is not needed? Why, when I really enjoyed the first book, do
I have no desire to return to that “world”?
The first series was The Mortal Instruments Series. If you remember I blogged about the first 2
books {HERE} and was very interested. I
then finished the 3rd book and haven’t mentioned them until
now. See, I never finished the series (the
last 3 books) because they seemed SO unnecessary. I mean the story had completely wrapped up
except for a couple of lines in the last chapter of book 3 meant to lure you into the
next half of the story… they were not that alluring.
In fact, I almost wrote an entire blog post with these words: "And they all lived happily ever after. The End."
But I digress.
When I blogged about the first 2 books I explored the theme
of love. There were so many different
kinds of love to compare, but pretty much all of them came to a satisfying
conclusion by the end of the 3rd book. The parents and children were reconciled -
except of course those who had lost their children 😢 . The siblings actually turned out not to be
related (which was good since they had fallen in love before being told they
were related and that would have just been WEIRD if it hadn’t been cleared up…
not that I doubted for a second). And of
course, all the romances flourished. Love
was beautiful and SO worth it and COMPLETE!
So why did the series need to continue? Here’s my take on it. Cassandra Clare was a FanFic writer before
she took writing her own tales… one thing that nearly all FanFic writers have
in common is an issue with closure.
Honestly, if you can’t leave a story that someone else wrote alone and
completed, how much harder it must be to leave your own story alone!?! And I think that’s the complete truth to why
there are 3 more stories… however, if you happen to read all 6 and can tell me
that there really is 3 more books worth of good plot that I NEED to read I
would be happy to listen.
The other series I will only mention briefly, despite that
it is the one that finally pushed me over the edge to write this post, is the Blue Fire Saga. I have only read Book 1, Breathless, and to be honest, I have read
it twice… about 2 ½ years apart. It’s a
really good book… but I don’t see the need for a second book and this series
has SIX (what is it with 6 book series?).
Anyway, I might honestly have read one more or even 2 if they were cheap
and continued on as good as the first but they range from $3-$6 and the end of
book one was a completed story. They
hunted down the bad vampire, they saved Leesa’s brother and mother, and Rave
had worked out a way to be with Leesa… what more was there?
So even though I have a problem with series that aren’t finished
and especially those whose author wrote one great book and threw in the towel
after a cliffhanger ending, I also have a problem with authors who don’t know
when to quit. It’s like watching the TV
show, Heroes… 1st season was great, 2nd season – ok, and down it goes.
Please comment and tell me what series you thought had an unnecessary sequel or a book you WISH had a sequel.
Please comment and tell me what series you thought had an unnecessary sequel or a book you WISH had a sequel.
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