I'm a huge lover of series books. While I like stand-alone novels, there's just something about going back and visiting old friends. I don't mind if it's a companion novel (Hello Isla and the Happily Ever After) or the fifth book in the series.
But I do have a growing problem about how to talk about series books in the sense of a review. I'm good with talking about the first one or two and then I'm not sure what to do. For example, I just finished Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead - part of the Bloodlines series. And no surprise, it was amazing. I need the next book - yesterday. How can I talk about it without giving away details to people who might have have read the series yet?
I don't want to spoil anything. I hate spoilers. Most of the time I'm rarely spoiled, but it does happen - sometimes on twitter or tumblr or even pinterest. Sometimes it's books and sometimes it's TV shows. I really try NOT to spoil things, but I can see it happening if you haven't read the series and here I am talking about book number five. Clearly there are details that you don't know yet.
So what do you do? Do you just say the book was amazing if you liked it and leave it at that? Sometimes at the end of a trilogy, I'll write up mini reviews and talk about the book that way - how satisfied I was with the ending, if I'm sad that it ended because I'm greedy and I want more time with the characters, or if there was a part that bothered me. That's harder to do with the series not being over.
So - bloggers, how do you handle it?
I totally understand what you're saying. What I like to do is just point out the things that I liked about the book as if it were just a standalone. It is hard to avoid spoilers but I've somehow managed to avoid posting them but if I ever do I definitely mark the section off as spoiler. This is an interesting topic and I'm intrigued to see how others handle it.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it depends on a few things. I binge-read the Shadowlands trilogy so I put all three book reviews in one post. I cautioned people to not read the following book's review unless they read the first book.
ReplyDeleteI think in general that's the best way to do it. If you finish the second book and want to review it, write that there are spoilers only if the reader hasn't read the first book. Then, point them in the direction of the review for the first book. People expect that there will be spoilers for books in a series, but giving some warning should help. I try not to even read the synopsis for the second book if I haven't read the first in a series. Spoilers in that sense are natural
I do a lot of the same that you do...try to be vague, talk about if it met my expectations, etc, but not really HOW... it's tough!
ReplyDeleteI have this problem to. I really don't want to spoil someone because that usually ruins the book/TV show for me. So what I do is I try to write up a review without any spoilers in it, for that book or the ones before it. Then I write up a warning to put before the actually review on the post that states there will be spoilers for the first books in the series.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I avoid reviewing anything past the 2nd book (and usually the 1st, if I'm honest) in a series. I can't keep the spoilers out, and I feel like later books in a series are less accessible to the casual blog reader (I feel like my audience is there for one book at a time, not for 7 books). But that is definitely a personal preference thing... because I feel weary when I see others review series, and I know that's not the case with everyone.
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