Do You Read Series Books?

 My first experience with series books was when I read my way through Trixie Belden as a pre-teen.  I don't know why, but I made up my mind at some point (without ever opening a book) that Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were not for me, but a friend talked me into trying Trixie.  I loved following her and her friend Honey on their adventures.  

A few years later, I discovered Cherry Ames, a WWII era nurse and followed her from nursing school to Army service in the Pacific to post-war adventures as a visiting nurse, cruise nurse, private duty nurse and more.  Cherry made me want to be a nurse until high school chemistry convinced me I did not. 

As a young adult I devoured Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear books and even bought the last one so I didn't have to wait my turn at the library. 

Later I discovered Debbie Macomber and her multi-thread soap-operaish Cedar Cove and Blossom Street books.  

And then I began a Kindle Unlimited subscriber and found series after series after series.  Some I've read are:

While a lot of series books are complete junk, Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia are in that number too.

So what is it that makes series books so appealing?  In my experience many do not generally have sophisticated plots and in fact some of them are downright absurd.  Why do I keep reading from one book to the next on Kindle Unlimited, or smile when I find a library shelf full of numbered books?  

One advantage to series books from an author's perspective is the ability to build a sophisticated world with many characters.  

For me  as a reader, it comes down to the characters.  Most series tell one complete story in a book but carry characters over from one book to the next, so as a reader I see them progressing through life, whereas in most conventional books I make a friend who either walks out of my life or is killed off at the end of a book.

On the other hand one thing that really annoys me with series fiction is when there is too much carryover from one book to the next--when I feel like I have to read the next one, whether I want to or not, to finish the story. 

The Hart's Ridge books above all tell the story of Taylor Gray, a female police officer.  In the first book she solves the mystery of what happened to the mother of a small girl found at a gas station.  In the second book she solves a family mystery.  Each of the books had a complete plot arc focused on the mystery but the plot arc dealing with her personal life is carrying over from book to book and I don't like waiting to find out who she ends up with.  

What about you?  Do you like series fiction?  

The Women

About the Book:

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

My Comments:

One thing about getting older is realizing that you've lived through what is now considered history.  The Viet Nam War was part of my early childhood.  I was an Air Force brat who attended schools that were overwhelmingly military kids from first through fifth grade---you were the new kid of the week, and replaced the kid who left last week.  The dads of kids I knew got sent to Viet Nam.  I don't know if any did not come home. 

I say all of that because my memories of the war are probably colored by where I lived and with whom.  We were out of the country from late 1967 to late 1969, and when we returned, we lived on one of the biggest Air Force bases in the country.  Being in the military was normal.  Hippies were those weird people we saw in California before we left for Turkey, and my dad said they were people who didn't work and didn't take baths, and that's all I knew about them. 

The Women tells the story of a young society girl who joins the Army Nurse Corp to follow her brother to Viet Nam, and to be a hero in her own right.  It follows Frankie to Viet Nam and home again, home to a country and family that do not welcome her as a hero.  Like many veterans, she struggles and while she is lucky to have friends and family who help her, no one official seems to think nurses, who didn't go into combat, needed help.  All of the Veterans' organizations are for men only.  No one seems to get what she went through or how she is feeling, except her war buddies.  

Kristen Hannah brings in a lot of historical details like the POW bracelets, the anti-war marches, "mother's little helper" pills, birth control and the ever-present cigarettes (so glad those aren't "normal" anymore).    I listened to this as an audiobook and my husband walked in on me when the term "donut dollies" was used.  He, my chauvinist conservative over 65 husband said the term sounded insulting.   I reminded him that until very recently, it was very common to use cute and infantilized terms for women in a lot of jobs.  You can read about Donut Dollies here.  

I don't usually listen to audiobooks; I can read much faster, but browsing my library I found this one and decided to try it in this format.  I'm sure I picked up on details I wouldn't have had I read it at breakneck speed.  

I haven't written a blog post in two years, so I guess the fact that I chose to write about this means it touched me in a way other books haven't lately.  I highly recommend it.  

Spare: Blogging Through the Book

Spare

Before Reading 

For the record, I am not into celebrity gossip.  I don't care who those strangers I see on television sleep with.  I don't care what they wear. I don't care who their kids are.  I don't read People or US.  I care about people I know and deal with, not strangers who just happen to be on TV.  So, why am I reading the gossip book of the year, Spare, by Prince Harry?  I don't know--but I did get it from my Cloud Library account through my public library, I did not put out money for it beyond taxes.

Before I picked it up, I figured it would be a book about a guy who doesn't want to work in the family business but who still wants to get payments from it.  I don't have any problem with Harry saying that the family business of getting your picture taken and being the public face of Great Britain was not for him.  You couldn't pay me enough to take that job.  There has been plenty in the press about the way Prince Charles was raised and about the marriage of Charles and Diana and the death of Diana that I never figured Harry and William had the ideal childhood.  I figured it would be a lot of "poor me".  

34% Through

I can't say I've read anything that surprised me.  If Harry isn't in therapy, I recommend he get some.  Obviously the story is told from his P.O.V. and it would be interesting to see how others recall the same events.  As the title implies Harry sees everything through the eyes of the "spare"--his brother was the heir and he was there just in case.  While at times he and William were close, they were also rivals for their father's attention.  While they had opportunities that most of us only dream about, what Harry never felt  had after his mother died was supportive unconditional love.  

Ok, maybe one thing surprised me a little--and maybe that's because I don't know that much about child psychology.  Harry was twelve when his mother was killed but according to the book he maintained this belief that she had just disappeared to get away from the press and everyone who was making her miserable and that one day she would re-appear and call for the boys.  This was something he thought for quite some time.

A Little Further On

As a paralegal, I have worked on a case that was made into a book--the author called in non-fiction but really it was a novel.  After plowing through the huge tome my boss' conclusion was that the story needed a villain and didn't have one.  Spare has a villain---the press, or as Harry calls them, the "paps".  They hound him and his friends, disclose his presence in Afghanistan, and yes, for all practical purposes, killed his mother.  

About 2/3 Done    

Well, Harry has learned to fly a helicopter and has done another tour in Afghanistan.  William and Kate just had their first baby. Me, I'm starting to lose interest.   Harry is back from war and trying to find purpose and meaning in life.  The paps have cost him a girlfriend and we are told about how his external genitals got frostbite when he went to the North Pole.  I'm not suggesting a year by year memoir of my life would be all that exciting either--but I'm not writing one of those.  Guess I'll move to skimming.  

The Rest of the Book

How Harry meets Megan and its is love at first sight.  How the paps make life miserable.  The deaths of Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth.  Oh, yeah, the wedding of Harry and Meg and the births of Archie and Lillibet.  A trip to a medium to communicate with Dinah and conflict within the family.  Yawn.

As I said at the beginning, I am not a celebrity person.  This book is not my usual and while I read the whole thing to see if there was anything in there that really surprised me or changed my mind about it all, I can't say that it was all that great.  I've said before when reading memoirs, that it is hard to write one without coming across as self-absorbed and Spare is no exception.  

I understand that Harry's life and that of his family would probably be in danger if he moved into the house next to mine in a middle class suburb, got in his car and drove to his middle-class job while Meg dropped the kids at a middle-class daycare/school before heading off to her middle-class job.  Yet it is hard to feel sorry for someone who buys a multi-million dollar mansion.  Harry complains about his father cutting him off from the royal payroll but then also says he never had the opportunity to do much besides being royal.  He was trained for the family business but didn't like what came with it (other than the paycheck) so he quit but was hurt when the paycheck stopped.  His main issue with being Royal was the omni-present press yet he is now making his living as a celebrity.  Oh, well, he can cry (or laugh) all the way to the bank.  

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

 

Hi!  Some of you may recognize this blog, I haven't changed its look since the last time I participated in this link-up, quite some time ago.  I'm one of those long-time book bloggers and I go through phases where I'm just not interested in writing and/or reading.  

One thing I've gotten bored with is writing book reviews.  I'd read books, and then, when I finished, I'd write a review.  Sometimes I'd try to relate the review to something in my life or an issue in the world today, or otherwise try to go beyond just saying how good or bad the book was, but the focus of my posts was on saying how good or bad the book was.  

I've decided to try a new format that I call "Blogging Through the Book" where I sit down and write several times while reading.  What is the set-up for the story and did it hook me?  What was my initial impression of the main character?  Were there any quotes that grabbed me?  Further into the book, is it holding my interest or am I skimming, hoping to reach the good part?  I'm kind of going for what I'd tell you about the book if you found me reading it on several different days and asked about it---what would I tell you.  I have three reviews in this format.  

Blogging Through the Book:  Twice in a Lifetime

Doctors and Friends:  Blogging Through the Book

Blogging Through the Book:  The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

I am also trying to use books as a take-off for general discussion posts.  Maybe I'll pick up on something about the writing, or even about an issue raised in the story and I'm going to focus my post on that, rather than on a more traditional book review.  I did that with 

How Important Are the Details?

If you've been blogging for years, has your reviewing style changed?  Do you think that other people have changed the way the write reviews (not to mention platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or Tik Toc?) Has what you like to see in a review changed?  

Hope everyone has a great week and I'll be around to see what you are reading and reviewing.