My Top 5 Favorite Series!

I've been wanting to do this list of my favorite series for a while now. I was considering doing a Top 10 instead of Top 5, but I realized that it was really difficult for me to categorize all the series in a specific order, so I just opted for 5.

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Honorable Mention

I need to give a lot of credit to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Before I read Twilight, I had been in a reading-slump that had been going on for years. When I was a young child, reading was my favorite thing to do, but as I got older, I found the process of reading difficult and frustrating for me, and I all but gave up. Twilight came into my life at the absolute perfect time; I was an angsty 12-year-old, pretty much the target audience. Hype for the movie started coming, and everyone in my school was reading Twilight, so I figured I would too. This was the first time in forever that I had fallen in love with a book so hard and so quickly, and this opened me up to a whole different genre that I didn't even know existed. Books for teens? Who would have thought! Twilight cemented my love for reading, and even though I recognize that it has many flaws, I still have to mention it because it saves reading lives. Thank you, Twilight.

Number 5 - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer Trilogy by Michelle Hodkin

If you love a good romance story while also craving creepy, psychological mysteries dealing with mental illness, then this trilogy is definitely for you! This is about a girl named Mara Dyer who wakes up in a hospital with absolutely no recollection of how she got there. She discovers that she was the only survivor of a terrible accident that killed her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend. Throughout the course of this series, Mara starts to uncover the truth about what really happened that night while also dealing with the possible unraveling of her own sanity. The book is told in first-person, which is great since Mara is such an unreliable narrator. It's sometimes difficult to tell whether or not something was even happening in real life or if it was just happening inside her head, and this element added a lot of great suspense and mystery. These books actually scared me while I was reading them, which is rare for me. There's also a great love line running through it, and I would highly recommend this trilogy.

Number 4 - Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

I would recommend Throne of Glass to anyone who's just starting to get into fantasy since the story starts out pretty simple and slowly starts to expand and get more complex with each book. This series is about a young woman named Celaena who's the world's greatest assassin. After being caught and enslaved in the salt mines to work for her crimes she committed, she's eventually saved by Prince Dorian and she's given an opportunity to become the king's champion in a competition for the chance to be the king's personal assassin. If she wins the competition, she must work for the king for four years and he will grant her freedom. This book eventually goes into so many different directions throughout the course of this series. We get introduced to so many characters and different fantasy elements. There's fae, magic, fighting, gore, bad-ass women, and romance. I pretty much devoured these books; they're so much fun to read and the writing and story keeps getting better with each book.

Number 3 - The Lux Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

I can pretty much sum up these books with one word: crack. These books are so addicting and fun to read, especially since it's a genre that I'm usually not that big of a fan of. This series is about a girl named Kat who's a book blogger (yaaaaas). She and her mom move to West Virginia and eventually discovers that her sexy new neighbor is an alien. Yes, you heard that right. Daemon is snarky, infuriating, sassy, and incredibly good-looking, and despite herself, Katy begins to fall in love with him while also finding him annoying as hell. Thus begins a snarky and sassy romance with badass alien action. These books are amazingly funny, interesting, and exciting. I was so hesitant to pick these up because they sounded like a knock-off Twilight, but I was so pleasantly surprised by these. The main character Katy is incredibly likable and smart. She doesn't let Daemon push her around and she constantly stands up for herself. She's a very strong female character and was a breath of fresh air, especially in a paranormal-bad-boy-romance. Even Daemon (swoon)

is amazing and definitely cracks my top 10 book boyfriends list. As the series progresses, you can definitely feel the love that our two main characters have for each other. They have a great romance and relationship dynamic that you can just feel on such an intense level. Highly recommend for romance junkies.

Number 2 - A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas

Speaking of amazing book boyfriends, let's talk about this series. The main character is named Feyre and she lives in a world where Fae and humans used to coexist together. Now, there's a wall that separates humans from Fae. Feyre lives right next to the wall with her two sisters, and she must hunt in order to provide food for her family. One day, she's out hunting and kills what she thinks is a wolf, but it actually turns out to be a High Fae. A wolf-like creature eventually shows up and demands her life for the life she took. This creature is actually a Fae Lord named Tamlin, and he takes her away to live in the Spring Court with him. I don't want to give too much away from this series, since a big part of my love and enthusiasm for it has more to do with the second book. These books have many fantasy elements but are mostly romance. The writing is beautiful and the romance (especially in the sequel) is my absolute favorite of all time and I ship it so hard it physically hurts me. There are sex scenes in these books, so I wouldn't recommend it if you're really young, but other than that, I would recommend everyone go out and give this series a go! And if you don't really like the first book for whatever reason, I would still encourage you to read the second one. A Court of Mist and Fury is one of my favorite books of all time and it's definitely worth the read even if you don't like the first book.

Also, Rhysand is my number 1 book boyfriend of all time, so yeah.

Number 1 - The Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling

Of course Harry Potter is my favorite series. These books introduced me to fantasy, the wonders of love and friendship, the importance of being yourself, and many, many other things. I can't even adequately describe how much Harry Potter means to me. This is the series that I believe everyone should read, even if you don't like fantasy or children's literature. Anyone of any age can love Harry Potter. They're so easy to get into, and the writing is so rich and the dialogue is so engaging. These characters feel so much like real people that it's hard to imagine that they only exist in the collective minds of readers. There isn't much more that I can say. Please read Harry Potter if you haven't already. For those of you who have read it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And now, I leave you with my favorite quote, by none other than Albus Dumbledore.

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”

Until next time

-Cass

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