It’s 2016 and chances are if you have a Goodreads account, you’ve set up your Goodreads Reading Challenge 2016.
In response to this, I thought it’d be good to share with all of you some series I have read/am reading that I think you should all add to your shelves – Goodreads and real life.
Chaos Walking – Patrick Ness

The Chaos Walking series is a trilogy by Patrick Ness – I recently finished and wrote a review on the second book The Ask and The Answer, and I’ve also reviewed the first, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and only three days ago did I finally complete the concluding novel, Monsters of Men.
This series is unspeakably awesome. The premise centres around a boy named Todd who’s growing up in a town where everyone can hear each others thoughts – it’s called The Noise, and it is a disease that was passed to the humans from the planet which made everyone able to hear each others thoughts – and wiped out all of the woman.
Then everything changes when Todd finds a spot where there is no Noise, and a girl standing in the midst of it.
This series is so absolutely stunning. It’s raw, it’s incredibly written and everything from the characters to the world building are incredible. The ending is so fucking gut wrenching and I damn near threw my book across a packed tube (justifiable.) and I’m just so. Torn up. You know when your life just feels better having read a series? This is one of those for me.
Read it, love it, sob a lot and get back to me.

The Young Elites – Marie Lu

The Young Elites is a recent series, with it’s second book The Rose Society only coming out recently. This story follows a young woman from an abusive home who has been marked by a blood disease that left her with a scar where her eye should be – and with incredible supernatural abilities.
This is one of the darkest books I’ve ever read – riddled with abuse, graphic violence and intense fight scenes, it is constantly gripping and never boring. It’s also got an incredible cast of characters, diverse and most with their own Elite powers.
On top of that, the main character is dark – she isn’t a poor fragile songbird who finds these beautiful powers – she’s a tragic, angry person with a fury in her and dark, destructive powers.
The first book left me desperate for more – it broke my heart in so many ways, with such a gut-wrenching and unexpected ending. I was in bits.
I’ve also heard very good things about Marie Lu’s other trilogy, the Legend trilogy – so that’s next on my series to read list.

Shades of Magic – Victoria Schwab

There isn’t much I can say about the Shades of Magic series other than the fact that the first book, A Darker Shade of Magic is probably one of my favourite books of all time ever. This isn’t an exaggeration or hyperbolic -I fell hard for this magical world.
My full review of A Darker Shade of Magic can be found earlier in my blog so you get the full scale, but in short;
Kell is the last of his kind, a blood magician, who can travel through universes, between the four versions of London in existence.
However, when an artifact from the abandoned Black London makes its way into Kell’s life, it’s up to him to take it back – which can be difficult when a thief has decided to join you for the ride.
I can’t emphasise enough how much I loved A Darker Shade of Magic – it left me yearning for so much more, then low and be-damn-hold, A Gathering of Shadows will be coming out February 23rd this year. I’m so excited I can barely contain it – getting to go back to this incredible world, with such inventive, diverse characters? That’s a genuine gift.
(Oh also it is GETTING A TV SERIES!!! And Victoria is writing the pilot – follow her on Twitter for more updates! And also because she’s super nice.)

So, there we go – three series I could not recommend more highly to you in 2016. I’ll also sneakily drop in here that you should for sure be reading Saga because God knows what kind of hell you’re living in without this graphic novel in your life.
Let me know if you’ve read any of these – or, let me know what you’re reading! I’m always looking for new books to splurge on.
Fare thee well,
Fran
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