Top Ten Series I Haven't Finished

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for the Top Ten Series I Haven't Finished (because either you didn't like them, you just have procrastinated, etc.) The top 5 are ones I don’t plan on finishing because for one reason or another the series didn’t hook me enough to want to continue. The last 5 are series that I definitely plan on finishing, I just haven’t gotten to all of the books yet.

Series I Won’t Finish:
1) The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

2) Gregory Maguire’s Wicked Years series

3) Outlander

4) The Maze Runner

5) The Left Behind series

Series I Plan on Finishing:
6) Howl’s Moving Castle series

7) Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle

8) Mary Stewart’s Merlin Series

9) The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Series

10) Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Mystery Series
 
I’ve made a big effort to finish quite a few series in the past year for this challenge, including the Lemony Snicket series, Anne of Green Gables series, C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, The Dark is Rising series and the Wolves of Mercy Falls series.

Image from here.

Outlander

Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon
★★

A nurse, Claire Randall, is vacationing in Scotland with her husband Frank in 1945. While hiking around some ancient stones, she touches one and is transported to 1743. Trapped 200 years in the past, Claire must learn how to survive in the midst of the feuding English and Scottish. After meeting a Scottish warrior, Jamie Fraser, her life becomes even more complicated.

I really struggled with this one and it’s suppose to be a “fun” book. It’s a bit of time-travel and a bit of historical fiction, two things I really enjoy. It also has a big dose of romance thrown in and that’s not really my thing, but so many people love this series that I thought I’d give it a shot. I read the first 200 pages and just couldn’t get into it. Finally I made it to the middle and took Sandy’s suggestion to listen to the audio instead. Honestly, that’s the reason I finished the book. The audio version helped and I enjoyed it a bit more.

**Spoilers ahead, don’t read if you plan on checking this book out**

Here’s the thing, I just felt myself rolling my eyes over and over again. Claire is wrestling a wolf, really? Everyone is trying to rape Jamie and no one seems to think that’s a problem? Every few minutes someone seems to get kidnapped or thrown in prison or attacked in some way or another. Wait, what’s that? Oh, it’s the Loch Ness Monster… seriously, I’m not kidding.

The only part of the book I really connected with was the section where we meet Jamie’s sister. Everything calms down a bit and we get some time to stop worrying about who is about to be beaten next.

**SPOILERS OVER**

So, all-in-all, I’m glad I finished it, because now I know what all the fuss is about.I won’t be reading the rest of the series anytime soon though, it’s just not for me. Maybe if I’d started it a few years ago, maybe if I hadn’t become so spoiled by excellent writing recently, who knows. It’s certainly not the worse thing I’ve ever read and I do understand the appeal. If you love romance, have a stomach for some brutal descriptions of violence, this one might be for you, but it was a miss for me.