First Page Friday: Series to Read During Quarantine

Many of us have found ourselves with more time than usual on our hands due to physical distancing and shelter at home measures, so I figured instead of reviewing one book, why not share my top ten favorite series to keep you occupied while you're home. Is your top ten different from mine? (For the record, I hope it is) Share your list in the comments!

1. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Celaena Sardothian, the legendary and formidable killer for hire known as Adarlan's Assassin, is rescued from the slave mines of Endovier by the crown prince to compete to become the king's royal assassin - the same king who sent her to Endovier in the first place. On her way to claiming the position, Celaena discovers that the magic she thought had been crushed during the king's vicious campaign for control of the empire is not quite as dead as it seemed...and that this magic might have fallen into dangerous hands, leaving it up to her to save the world she loves. With seven books, plus a prequel compilation of short stories from Celaena's past, this series will keep you busy for quite a while, unless you're like me and can't put them down. If you're into her style of writing, you can also check out A Court of Thorns and Roses.

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Look, I'm reading this right now, so of course it HAS to go on the list! Every year in Panem, two children are chosen from each of its twelve districts to compete in a battle to the death known as the Hunger Games. When Katniss Everdeen's twelve-year-old sister is chosen for the games, she volunteers to fight in her place, finding herself entering the arena with Peeta Melark, a boy who saved her and her family from starvation after her father died when she was eleven and who (he claims) is in love with her. Honestly, I've read this book so many times, and I still cried reading the first chapter. I just...I love it. And three books, four movies? Should meet your content needs at least for a little while.

Plus, a Hemsworth brother? Come on.

3. The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Oh, did I enjoy this series? I know, I hardly ever talk about it, so it must come as quite a surprise. You can read my reviews for Illuminae, Gemina, and Obsidio if you're super curious about them, but if you're looking for an epic space adventure featuring some badass leading ladies, this might be the trilogy for you. I'm still waiting for them to make it into a movie, get a move on already! (CW, given the current state of the world: a pretty heavy feature in the first book's storyline is a highly contagious illness)

4. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

Clary Fray is just a normal teenager until the day she runs into a trio of Shadowhunters at a club with her best friend and has her first brush with the secret world her mom has spent the last seventeen years shielding her from. When her mother is taken hostage and her home left ransacked, Clary is plunged headlong into that world and has to learn to navigate her new life as a Shadowhunter, part-human and part-angel warriors who protect the world from demons. This series is fantastic, y'all, and I just want Jace to be happy! Is that too much to ask? Bonus: It's part of Clare's Shadowhunter Chronicles, so if the six books in this series catch your fancy, you can also enjoy trilogies The Infernal Devices and The Dark Artifices, short story anthologies The Bane Chronicles, Tales from Shadow Hunter Academy, and Ghosts of the Shadow Market, and the first books in her two newest series, The Red Scrolls of Magic and Chain of Gold. PLUS there's a movie version of City of Bones, the first book in the Mortal Instruments series (excellent if you can forgive the ending) and a TV series (now canceled, it could have been better but was ok), so entertainment for weeks!

Look at him. He deserves to be happy.

5. One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

So this is a duology, I'm not sure if that really counts as a series, but you can throw Two Can Keep a Secret in there if you'd like a third book to read. All three follow high school students who find themselves embroiled in mysterious deaths. In One of Us is Lying, a student dies from an allergic reaction after drinking from a cup coated in peanut oil while serving a detention . The four students in detention with him find themselves suspects in a murder case and must band together to prove their innocence, but, as the title suggests, is one of them lying? Could one of the classmates they've grown up with be capable of murder?

6. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Simon Snow, the Mage's Heir and the most powerful magical being ever to exist, is at war. Not only with the Insidious Humdrum, an evil entity who sucks the magic out of places, leaving "dry" areas behind where no magic can exist, but also with Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, his roommate at Watford School of Magicks for the past seven years and his arch nemesis. Baz has spent their entire time at school trying to kill him, and Simon spends the bulk of his time thwarting Baz's evil plots and trying to prove that his roommate is a vampire. When they find themselves thrown together for a common cause, they find they aren't quite at each other's throats as they expected...but after seven years enmity, how long can that last? Technically at the moment there are only two books in this series (with a third on the way!), but you can also enjoy Fangirl, which is about Cath, the original author of Carry On, Simon. I know Rainbow Rowell says that Carry On shouldn't be read as Cath's fanfic, but I'm sorry...it's headcanon for me. And Fangirl is, in my humble opinion, the perfect book. PS I wrote all this out before I remembered that I had reviewed both Carry On and Wayward Son, so feel free to check out either of those reviews if you remain unconvinced that these are worth your time. (Spoiler alert: They are.)

7. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

Kendra and her brother are off to spend part of the summer with their mysterious grandparents while their parents go on a seventeen-day cruise (madness, have you ever been on a cruise? They're fucking horrible, I would murder everyone else on board if you trapped me on a boat for that long), and they are not thrilled about it. Then they discover that their grandparents' land is actually a hidden sanctuary for magical creatures and things that a lot more exciting. As it turns out, though, there are some pretty important rules to follow when you're living among magical creatures...and Kendra and Seth are about to find themselves in some pretty hot water. This is a middlegrade series with five books, so it may be a bit of a faster read than some of these others, but it should still do a pretty good job of filling a weekend! And if the last book doesn't make you cry...don't tell me about it, because it makes me sob.

8. Half Bad by Sally Green

Ok, for real this series will make you cry. You've been warned. In a world where Black Witches and White Witches are at war, Nathan is an abomination, born to a White Witch but fathered by the most terrifying and powerful Black Witch in existence. For much of his teenage years, Nathan is caged and tortured by the White Witches in power, believed to have some connection with his father that can lead their hunters to him. After he escapes, he falls in with a resistance trying to remove the corrupt White Witches from power, and his life, while still a never-ending struggle, changes in ways he could never have expected. Seriously, y'all, seriously? Have a box of tissues handy for the last book. Seriously.

9. To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

When Lara Jean Covey has a crush, she writes them a letter. The idea is that this will help her get those feelings out of her system, but when her five love letters end up mailed to her former crushes, it turns out that may not have been the case. I'll be honest with you, this trilogy is pretty low-stakes in that not much of serious consequence happens in them, but that's the beauty of them, especially right now. Journey back with Lara Jean to a time where the biggest worry you had was what your crush thought of you and what other people at school were saying about you. Enjoy the purity and sweetness of Lara Jean and her love life. Then watch the movie versions of the first two on Netflix! The aquarium scene in the second movie is, in my opinion, the most perfect thing to ever be committed to film.

They're heartwarming.

10. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee

I reviewed The Gentleman's Guide way back in 2018, and I included the second book, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy shortly after in a series of brief reviews. Now there is also a novella, The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky, and a third book, The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks, slated to come out later this year. These books are the perfect blend of humor and heartache, and I love them so much. What better way to while away some afternoons than by reading about the Montague siblings and their adventures?

Bonus: The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer 

YEAH I SAID IT.

It's a fuckin home run!

Tweet Cute - Emma Lord

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Meet Pepper: swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming - mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger's massive Twitter account.

Enter Jack: class clown and constant thorn in Pepper's side. When he isn't trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin's shadow, he's busy working in his family's deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future may be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma's iconic grilled cheese recipe, he'll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.

All's fair in love and cheese - that is, until Pepper and Jack's spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they're publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they're also falling for each other in real life - on an anonymous chat app Jack built.

As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate - people on the internet are shipping them?! - their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can't ignore that they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected."

Real talk, the description could be more accurate. It makes it sound like Pepper and Jack are in a heated battle and at each other's throats IRL. What actually happens is even better. Jack and Pepper start working together on swim/dive team stuff with no idea that they have been Twitter-warring with each other, but they realize pretty quickly that this is what's happening, and when Jack points out how good their Twitter battle has been for business at Girl Cheesing, they team up to keep it going in order to help Girl Cheesing stay in business.

The two clearly have a thing for each other, but both are torn about their feelings, since they also have a bit of a thing for the classmate they have been chatting with on Weazel, the anonymous chat app Jack built. Pepper doesn't know that Wolf, the guy she's been talking with all year, is Jack, and Jack tinkered with the app so that it wouldn't reveal to him Bluebird's identity. Jack and Pepper may have caught feelings for each other, but that's a little confusing when they each feel equally connected to someone online they think is a completely different person. Ah, to be a teenager again. I wouldn't go back, but I do love reading about being one and remembering what it was like.

Ultimately, the very very end of this was a little underwhelming for me (I'm talking like last-chapter stuff here), but every bit of the rest of it was perfection. I love Pepper, her snark and her drive, and I want to squeeze Jack and tell him to stop comparing himself to his twin, because he is wonderful. I also want to hang out with Grandma Belly basically any chance I can get. Real talk, I have a humongous stack of books waiting to be read during my social distancing, but it's incredibly tempting to ignore those in favor of rereading this immediately. It's a lovely, heart-warming read.

This Adventure Ends - Emma Mills

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Sloane isn't expecting to fall in with a group of friends when she moves from New York to Florida - especially not a group of friends so intense, so layered with private tragedies and secret codes, and so all-consuming. Yet that's exactly what happens.

Sloane becomes closest to Vera, a social-media star who lights up any room, and Gabe, Vera's twin brother and the most serious person Sloane has ever met. When a beloved painting by the twins' late mother goes missing, Sloane takes on the responsibility of tracking it down, a journey that crosses state lines -  and pulls her ever deeper into the twins' lives.

Filled with powerful and important friendships, a wonderful warts-and-all family, shiveringly good romance, and sharp, witty dialogue, this story is about finding the people you never knew you needed."

Sloane has never really had close friends...people she hung out with when convenient, sure. But people you spent all day texting, slept over at each other's houses, and developed inside jokes with? Never. Then she moves to Florida, meets Gabe and Vera at a party, and finds herself immediately incorporated into their world. Their friends become her friends, their jokes become her jokes, and before she knows it...there are people she cares about. People who care about her.

She isn't sure what to make of it, but they're important to her. So when she sleeps over at Vera's one night and discovers that Gabe's step-mom accidentally gave the painting his mother specifically painted for him and Vera right before she died to a gallery to be sold, she makes it her life's mission to get it back. This quest stirs up some rumors, drama, and speculation, and eventually even some heartache, and at times this leaves Sloane wondering if she's making a mistake. Maybe going through life solo, keeping things at a distance, is the way to go.

Obviously that's not the way to go, and no spoilies, but I'm sure Sloane will eventually come to recognize that. 😉 On the way, she'll have some great adventures with her new friends, often featuring the laugh-out-loud dialogue I have come to appreciate from Emma Mills (sweaty babies. They got me over and over). This book, and most of her others (I have to qualify that with "most" because I haven't read all of them yet) are the perfect light read when you want to dive into some fiction for a break from the doom and gloom of real life (hellooooo, pandemic!). It might make you a little emotional, but it will also crack you up, and by the end of the book, if you're anything like me, you'll have a strong case of the warm fuzzies. Need to press pause on all the Covid panic? Grab this book!

The Grace Year - Kim Liggett

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That's why they're banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage.

But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life -  a society that doesn't pit friend against friend or woman against woman - but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it's not just the brutal elements they must fear. It's not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp gritty prose, The Grace Year is a story of survival and freedom, about fighting for what's right, no matter the cost, and finding home in the darkest of circumstances."

This book would be a great book to take camping, because it is intense.

Bahahahaha in tents. Get it?

Getting started, I got major Hunger Games/Handmaid's Tale vibes. Like if books could reproduce, this would be their baby. I loved both those books, so in my opinion that's a good thing. But if you hated either/both of them...consider yourself warned.

It takes a bit to establish the world, but before I could really even wrap my head around everything, it was off to the races. There were so many gut-punch moments, and just as many times where I got my hopes up only to have them smashed again. As the mystery of what happens during the grace year unfolded, I found myself reading on the edge of my seat, struggling to close the book anytime I needed to step away from reading and deal with real life. 

"In the county, everything they take away from us is a tiny death. But not here...the grace year is ours. This is the one place we can be free."

It is a mark of how terrible life in the county is that in spite of threat to life and limb, the grace year is still viewed as an opportunity for freedom. I mean sure, you literally might die, but at least there are no men to boss you around, treat you like shit, and abuse you. I think that realization was all the more powerful for me because of how often I saw my world in the pages of this book. It's dystopia...but it's real. The best (worst?) dystopias are, right?

This book was a roller coaster, equal parts inspirational and heartbreaking. You'll be thinking about it long after you read the last page.