Ten Finished Series That I Haven't Finished

There are always series that we haven't finished.

You know how it is. Life gets in the way, a shiny new book distracts your attention away from the later book in a long series, you just didn't click with the story enough to continue it . . . there are many reasons to discontinue reading a series, most of them valid (though not all - and if you haven't finished a series you're convinced you'll love, then for shame!). This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is to list ten series that have officially finished (i.e. all of the books are out), that you haven't finished. I went through my Goodreads bookshelves looking for series I've read and haven't finished. I even discovered a few series I hadn't known about! That's the problem with not marking books as being part of a series . . .

1. The Unicorn Chronicles by Bruce Coville
I'm actually in the middle of reading this series, and I've been doing it as quickly as I can. When I'm typing this post (August 21 - yes, I'm actually writing my TTT posts ahead for once!), I've read the first three but not the fourth, The Last Hunt. I had to go to an entirely different library system to check it out, because it's out of print, so it took a while to get down there. Now I'm on vacation (in Indianapolis - yay!), and I don't have it with me because I didn't want to lug all seven hundred pages of the series conclusion through BWI airport. When I get home, though, it's the first book on my TBR list. By the time this post actually goes live, I'll have long since read it and probably written and scheduled my review, too. You can click the links to read my reviews of the first, second, and third books in the series.

2. The Inkworld series by Cornelia Funke
This is a series that a lot of people love. I realize this. I read the first book and loved it too (or at least liked it well enough that I could convince myself I loved it). I checked out the next two books in the trilogy to finish it off, but then . . . I fizzled. Halfway through the second book, I just got bored. I started skimming, and then I skipped to the last chapter of the third book to see how everything ended, and then I just quit because I didn't like the ending. So yeah, I haven't actually read all three books in the series (which is why I put it onto this list), but I'm definitely not going to try again someday. The funny thing is that I also tried Funke's Dragon Rider and got so bored I DNF'd. I hardly ever quit reading a book, so the fact that I quit twice with Funke's books means that I'm pretty much off her for life. It's too bad, but I just can't make the connection that so many people do with her books.

3. Ingo by Helen Dunmore
I read the first Ingo book a long time ago, and thought it was okay (if maybe a little cliche). I had no idea that there were later books, and I set Ingo aside as a so-so book that really needed some sequels. Turns out, there are actually four! I'm not sure if I'll check them out, but just knowing they exist makes me feel much fonder towards poor little Ingo.

4. The Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale
I read an enjoyed The Goose Girl, which was a great book if a little strange (most of which I just attribute the utter weirdness of the original story). I checked out the next book in the four-book series, but my mother said she didn't want me to read it. Sometimes about too much romance, I think? Or maybe she didn't like the magic. My parents are totally kosher with, say, Harry Potter, but sometimes they don't like the fantasies that get too - I don't know how to describe it. Spiritualist? Theologic? Whatever it is, the Books of Bayern are on my "read someday" list but they're not very high on said list. I'm sure I'll get around to them eventually.

5. The Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien and Jane Leslie Conly
Who knew one of my favorite childhood books had two sequels? Not me! I just found out, and now that I really think about it I slightly remember hearing something about a sequel once upon a time. I'm putting the other two books on my TBR list, but it'll probably be a while before I get around to them - I'm kind of past the target age group now. And they're not actually written by the author of the first book.

6. Redwall by Brian Jacques
Yeah, this series is, like, ginormous. I've probably read a dozen or so of the books, nowhere near the 20+ books that are in the series. They get kind of old after a while, and start feeling like they're all the same. I think my quitting the series was a combination of outgrowing it, and reading so many that I caught on to Jacques's tricks (like, seriously - how did I not notice that all of the plots are almost identical until I'd read so many of them?).

Have you read any of these series? Are there any I should add back to the top of my TBR pile?