 Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today with the best and worst series of 2018 tech. This tag was created by Mara from Books Like Woe. I'll leave her channel link down below as well as the original tag video in which I am tagged. She's a fantastic booktuber. I highly recommend her channel especially if unlike me you read a lot more Lit Fink. She reads a lot more like murder mysteries. She also reads some like fantasy. Basically she reads more diversely than I do so she's better. So she created this tag which is basically kind of like all these list videos that I was like should I shouldn't I. They're kind of I might do one other list video that like doesn't quite get incorporated into these questions but it's basically like end of year like wrap up type questions of like the best and worst type of deal but all to do with books that are in a series which in my case is like 99.9% of what I read so like it's basically just best and worst of the year because everything that I read is a part of a series pretty much. I'm currently sipping coffee from my Peter Pan mug from Creatively Crafts. Shameless plug even though I mean I rep for her but it's not my shop. Anyway her mugs are awesome and her shop is in the description as well as my discount code. Yep shameless plugging that's me. Also I have not thought this through at all because the books for my answers are over here on this lovely coffee table side table end table table and uh there's no space for my coffee. So let's see how this goes. Lately I've just been winging it with all my answers for like for serious what am I gonna do with this coffee? Oh I could put it on the stand that I have my mic on like that's a terrible idea. It is a terrible idea. Okay there's kind of some space I'm gonna forget that it's there though and I'm gonna knock it over. Okay maybe drink it really fast. It's really hot oh god okay okay what am I gonna do? That's kind of out of reach but oh god it's so hot I'm gonna forget that it's there and it's gonna get cold. Okay what if I should have done this before I started filming well you know what suck it. God I hope I'm not crushing anything. Okay wait my nose itches okay whatever let's do this thing. I prepared answers for this tag I think I was in the middle of explaining that before a coffee gate um so yeah I actually wrote down the questions and my answers so these are not stacked in the order that the questions are. Oh I forgot a book okay I'm gonna go get it okay we got it oh everything's fine it's only the best book spoilers okay let's put that right on top take a sip of coffee because I earned it so hot okay it's four realsies this time the best and worst series of 2018 that's the name of this thing. The first question is what is the best series that you caught up with this year that is still a work in progress? Well one of these shouldn't still be a work in progress the last book was supposed to come out this year but it's fine oh no it's on the bottom okay oh boy why why did I do this put them on the floor good idea I have two for this have red rising and never night oh they're just a sticker on this gross and just hold up some of each the red rising trilogy is over and done and I read it and it's fantastic and you should read it but the red rising saga which is a continuation of the trilogy the first book was iron gold which came out this year the second book which was supposed to come out also this year Dark Age is coming out next year it got pushed to February now it's been pushed to July I better not be saying that it's my most anticipated release of 2020 because I'll be so mad and then similar deal with never night the third book Dark Dawn was supposed to come out this last fall but it got pushed back to next fall I better not be saying that it's my most anticipated release of 2020 because I mean I'll still read it and I'll still love J Chris up but I'll be missed question number two what is the best work in progress that you are still catching up with oh it was on top oh no I rearranged everything oh no this is why I do these spur of the moment and don't have the books to hold up in my other videos just too much anyway Nixia by Scott Ranked again I was um second book Nixia Unleashed did come out this year and I have it and I was going to read it the moment it came out and then I did it because story of my life anyway um this is a sci-fi YA series um it's not exactly like Red Rising but there are things about it that were reminiscent of Red Rising to me um but it's about like some young people yeah I didn't explain the plots of Red Rising again never night do I need to feel like if you're watching my channel you're very familiar or you should be already go read them anyway Nixia is YA sci-fi there's kids that are like from poorer areas of life socioeconomically racially like all these kinds of reasons and so they've been snapped up by this corporation that needs basically young people that no one will give a shit about to go to this alien planet where they're mining this substance called Nixia and so on the way there there's all kinds of like training and then also you get to sort of get familiar with the corruption and some iffy goings on with the corporation that's hired them and they're in outer space so like they can't exactly leave they're stuck so it's kind of high action high suspense um lots of diversity and it's just really good um and I'm really excited to read the second one I just haven't because I don't even know why but I'm really excited to read it and I think the third one comes out next year question number three what was your favorite first book in a series this year that was the book that I forget good job me it's because I was letting it to someone the wolf by Leo Karoo oh my god I have a whole review about this book on my channel that you should watch because it's so good I mean at my review the book the review is like the book is so good um in my review I go more in depth obviously about what it's about um this is uh sort of historical fiction fantasy alternate history fantasy um so it's not like magic or anything but it's a it reimagines our history where not only our home uh our homo sapien ancestors survived the ice age but also neanderthal and other humanoids survived the ice age into the dark ages so this takes place sort of during the dark ages um but there are other humanoids walking around it's a very like viking vibes even though they're not actually vikings I mean they're neanderthals but they're very viking ye and it's a really incredibly well built world and story and culture and book very war-centric hype like lots of politics lots of battle lots of war lots of fantastic culture and world building great story love the characters this is just absolutely blows it out of the water debut novel like oh my god I cannot even so yeah the wolf number four is what is the first book in a series that you read this year that you think should have just been a standalone not a series radiance by grace driven I think I talk about this more on Instagram than on here because I talked about it when I read it um I read this book three times this year once for the first time the second time because I needed palette cleanser for another book that's on this list as one of the questions that's about what you didn't like um anyway I read it because I just like wanted something good after reading something I didn't like and then this month um Beth and he was reading it for the first time and I was like oh buddy read it with you she was like didn't you just read it twice and I was like yep so I did already read it three times um legit like it even reads like a standalone like and it's literally like it ends and it's like and they lived halfway ever after and then the epilogue is like or did they you're just like are you serious right now so I did read the second book and the second book is it's I it didn't need to happen and literally if you don't read the epilogue in this book it's a standalone straight up standalone it ends solid done the epilogue is like meanwhile evil things happening and you're like okay so yeah the second book is it's not bad it's just unnecessary and kind of boring and it just felt like why anyway I obviously love radiance so I recommend reading it as a standalone unless you just like are desperate to read more I mean you can or just reread radiance because why not oh should I explain radiance what it's about this is a fantasy romance which is unusual for me I don't read very much romance which is also discussed in multiple videos including my defense of romance but um if all romances were like this I would read a lot of romance it's an interspecies marriage where it's a political arranged marriage between these between this like human girl this redhead and then this other culture that's like bordering their nation and they're called the okay they're called the chi as you can kind of see here like they have like grayish skin they have fangs and claws like they look different and so these two meet for the first time on their wedding day and they're both like yeah I get it like it's a political marriage you're literally not even my species so they're not expected to procreate they're just like spares like neither of them is an heir to their throne they're just like cousins or younger siblings so it's just to like solidify an alliance and they're like you're super gross to me because you're not my species but they're like you seem nice and reasonable all we got to do is live together that's really all that's required of us so I like you as a person it's very platonic at least at first so they're like and super gross because you're not even my species but you can build a life with you so they kind of get to know each other after they get married and she gets to learn about his culture and like about their food and all this stuff and stuff happens and there's like war on their fringes and whatever there's like no drama between them though they're really reasonable they're really like patient about getting to know each other as people and as different species and I just they're both wonderful I love both of them like in a lot of series I'll read or a lot of romantic um like a lot of couples that I'll read about that are in other stories I'll either like him and not her or her not him or I'll think there's too much drama or that they're whatever I don't know but like these two I think they're great both of them individually they're good together they're both rational and reasonable and totally nice and and they're funny too like they're not boring milk toast like they make jokes with each other and they're they have a really good healthy vibe and dynamic and I just like hanging out with them honestly which is why I read it so much because it's not like this story is like one that's like high suspense where you're like so many omg moments which the second time you read it like it's not fun because you already know what's happening it's just like hanging out with two people that I really super like so that's why I brought it three times and I will probably read it again okay I know the question was about what should be a standalone and it turned into let me re-think about radiance but you know what you're welcome okay question number five what is your most overhyped series of the year the diviners by lila bray um I heard nothing but praise for this like literally I've never heard anyone say anything negative about this book the series which I don't understand I've never heard anyone criticize it ever so I expected to love it because like the premise also sounded like something that would be interesting to me because I don't just read every book that gets praised like it's 1920s New York where there's people who are like clairvoyant and different types of like psychic and like that kind of thing that sounded amazing and it was so it was doing too many things at once and not any of them adequately the characters were obnoxious like I did not sympathize with especially the are you there's several characters that you follow but arguably the main character which is this girl um she is I wanted her to die like every time something bad was happening to her I was like good maybe you'll die and then I have to read about you anymore she was so annoying and like the absolutely like quintessential like dumb YA heroine that like is stubborn for no reason does stuff that you're like this is gonna get you in trouble why are you doing it and on the one hand I'm like okay that's appropriate for the age because young people are dumb but also I was a young person and I did not do dumb stuff and also more annoying than her personality which is quite annoying she's really selfish is the slang like the author clearly like googled every single bit of jargon and slang that was used in the 1920s and used all of it in every sentence as many as she could throw in like keywords for seo I was like no one I'm sure even in the age talked like this nothing was like a normal word coming out of this girl's mouth ever it was always some weird razy jazzy 1920s slang and I was just like oh my god nobody talks like this anyway I just found it really annoying there were parts of it that like when it was getting kind of suspenseful and creepy which is what I was hoping for and which is what I'd heard was that it is kind of creepy and I was like oh now we get in somewhere and then it would just be dragging and pouring and I hated everyone I gave it like three stars because it did some cool things the bones of the plot were pretty good I just wish someone else had written it maybe and or in the characters had been different because like the premise is pretty cool some of the ideas were pretty cool but overall I was just bored and annoyed question there's a lot of questions in this tag FYI it's gonna be a long one like I probably should have said that sooner but you can just look at how long the video is so I don't have to tell you question number six is what is a series that you dnf'd this year oh yeah this is the one that I read and then read radiance right after because I needed a palette cleanse and that's part of the fey by Emma Ham I talked about that in my wrap up where I said I read this and then immediately read radiance because I was just like I talked about this also in the wrap up that this was so bad but I'm it's so bad that I would normally take the time to film a rant review and I would literally like take it apart like line by line honestly but because it's indie published that I don't feel comfortable like creating an entire video just to come out an author that's an indie author like if this was traditionally published I would have filmed a rant review because it's an indie author not gonna like they're not off the hook which is why I'm being honest and telling you that it's not good because I'm not gonna lie and say it is just because it's an indie author and I don't want people thinking that I think it's good because I don't know integrity honesty like if you come to me for book opinions I don't want to like misrepresent my opinion so if you look at my Goodreads and you see that I gave this three stars I'll be like oh I guess she kind of liked it I was being generous with my star rating because it's an indie author I would give this one star if it was traditionally published yeah so I feel that's kind of the compromise I've struck with myself I'm not gonna film an entire rant review but I'm not gonna hold back I'm not gonna tell you I'm not gonna not tell you that it's bad because it is really bad yeah this was the question first book on a series IDNF yeah this is technically part of a duology in she's written and then in addition to being part of that duology she's also written a whole series of books that are sort of in the same universe same world and I think they are interconnected don't plan on reading them because yikes major yikes yeah it's like an irish mythology retelling a beauty in the beast and it's it's so bad like I based on this cover and based on that being the premise um and I had seen generally good things about it I thought I was gonna really like it and I was like so excited because she has like a kind of a lot of books out and I was like oh good I can have a bunch to read question number seven is what was your favorite series finale of the year news of nightmares by leney sailor this is the second book in the strange the dreamer duology is that what the duology is called I don't even know but uh yeah that duology um and you saw my review of change the dreamer you'll see you'll know or if you've read it because it's kind of spoilery my reasons for docking at a star I would have given strange the dreamer five stars if not for a certain thing that happens at the end like a kind of like a reveal or a twister I don't know what to call it but you've read it then you know if you saw my review then you know I don't want to say it because it's spoilery um but that reveal ramifications of that reveal are obviously present in the second one but I was ready for it like I was going into it knowing that that would be the case so I was prepared and so like I don't think it's necessarily better than strange the dreamer I just wasn't mad about the reveal because I already knew about it it might be better than strange no it's not better than strange but I did give it five stars because I was already prepared for that reveal anyway that's super coherent this was a really good finale um it wrapped everything up beautifully it wasn't was it perfect no but overall like I read it in one sitting I was like I wasn't like weeping but I got teary-eyed about a few other things because Laini Taylor's writing is so just filled with emotion and imagery and I really really loved the characters mainly Lazlo but I like the other characters too and it's just it's really beautiful it's so beautiful everything she writes is like the prose is really beautiful but there's just something magical about strange the dreamer like I love the daughter of smoke and bone trilogy which I read this year and I like probably some of the characters and daughter of smoke and bone better but strange the dreamer everything about it the prose the characters the world it's just pure magic honestly it just is just so magical I don't think I've ever anything quite that magical like when I think of fantasy this is as purely fantasy as I think I've ever read anything and this ending was really beautiful so music nightmares hokey-dokey question number what was it eight oh my god we're only on eight there's 15 questions so walk a lot question number eight what was the biggest cliffhanger you had in a series this year oh gods grave by Jay Kristoff oh my god this man is the biggest troll on the planet I'm not even kidding I'm literally not kidding at the end of gods grave other authors have series that have a cliffhanger other authors have books that have a cliffhanger Jay Kristoff has a cliffhanger and then and then you turn to the next page maybe I can read it to you I don't think it's spoilery I think it's just him being a fucking troll okay a couple of things are kind of okay I'll I'll read the parts I can because he's so you finish reading it last page it ends giant fucking cliffhanger and you're like what and you flip the next page because you're like there's still text on it so there's more and it just says no I hear you say the word as if I sat in the room beside you I see you bent over the tome in your hand with a frown on your face and a curse on your lips as if I were puddled in the shadow at your feet the realization that there are no more pages is sinking in now I hear it I see it no you say again what of lists things from the story all these questions unanswered and yet the book is at its end no you say it cannot end like that fear not little mortal the song is not yet sung this is but the calm before the crescendo this tale is only two of three earth and life and death so patience gentle friends patience close your eyes take my hand and walk with me and then he fucking postponed the release of the third book because I read this in I make like February or something and I was like I was like it's fine it's fine I can wait until like october or november when it was supposed to come out dark dawn and then it was postponed it was like you're so evil why anyway it's really good i'm excited to read dark dawn when it comes out fucking if i'm still even alive then anyway fuck you j christoff like you're the best human i'll also fuck you all right it's pretty emotional question number nine what is your favorite spin-off series that you read this year um this isn't cheating but six of crows finally part two go i read six of crows and crooked kingdom uh before i even started a booktube channel and before i read the grisha trilogy um i read the grisha trilogy this year and then also reread six of crows so i mean technically six of crows is the spin-off from the grisha trilogy so to me it feels like i read a spin-off of six of crows and i read the grisha trilogy so i kind of wanted to pick grisha for that i was like six of crows is better than grisha and six of crows is technically a spin-off and i did technically read it this year even though i read it before i read grisha and then again after so six of crows finally part two go question number ten is what is your most anticipated next book in a series that you read this year what okay what is your most anticipated next book in a series that you read this year is this the series that you read this year that will come out next year okay as we as we already covered dark age by pierce frown which was supposed to come out this year dark dawn by j christoff that was supposed to come out this year but then also a new edition which is the spider the sequel to the wolf by leo caru so that's less of it's a newer discovery and less time to wait because i believe i'm supposed to come out in April before dark dawn anyway it's fine dark age was supposed to come out this past fall then it was supposed to come out next February now it's supposed to come out next July just better fucking come out anyway oh yeah dark age dark dawn and the spider i mean i have others too i feel really like guilty about not listing other books like i want to read the sequel to the fury born kings bane um i already read wicked king so that would be anticipated if i excuse you gardeners anyway um yeah wicked king would be anticipated but i already read it because my friend let me her arc um yeah and then king of scars isn't technically a sequel like it's another spin off but yeah those um question number 11 what is your motion anticipated series to catch up with next year based on what you read in the series this year it's two for this um witcher by andres upkowski um i kind of thought that i might actually finish witcher by the end of this year i don't think so now maybe i will i have like two and a half more to go if you don't count the one that just came out which i'm still confused about what that is i haven't looked it up i just know there's a new witcher book and i'm like this continuation and novella spin off what what is this anyway of the ones that were previously like the witcher series i think i have like two and a half to go so i will definitely finish that if not this year next year witcher whenever i finish it i'll probably film a video about the witcher series and then the raven cycle which i thought i was going to finish by the end of the year too because i had started the the first one like four months before the end of the year and there's four books so i was like one a month and then i'm not even done with the second one yet i was reading it actually yesterday because i was like i want to finish that and then i watch brave instead anyway witcher and i don't know why i decided not to hold up the book witcher i've brought it over here anyway witcher and the raven cycle this is the one i'm on right now question number what is your favorite series that you finished this year oh started and finished that's not the question but that is true the first law trilogy oh my foot's asleep okay first law trilogy but joe have her cromby this series is so dark but i love it i read the first book in the first law trilogy the blade itself years ago and i did not like it because i was a more i was a hopeful reader but like i was looking for more fluffy fantasy at the time like i was in my like sort of truth phase where i wanted like heroes and like a moral to the story i'm not that way anymore so this super hit the spot the way it didn't before and the audiobooks knock it out of the park like the guy reading the audiobooks he definitely adds something he doesn't just like do it just as he adds something to the experience of it so i do recommend i'm not not just reading the series but i recommend experiencing them as an audiobook if you're into audiobooks like if you really can't do audiobooks then just read them it's fine but he does a lot to like bring the characters to life um and a lot of attention to detail like my favorite favorite favorite part is that sandan glockta um that character he uh is already my favorite character because oh my god he's likely actual worst but like also hilarious he's the saltiest cremaginist bitterest most sarcastic most ruthless this is a real gem of a person anyway sandan glockta was tortured before this book starts um he starts like when you meet him he's he was previously a prisoner of war and like everything is broken that's why he's so curmudgeony because his whole body is a mess because he barely survived being tortured and part of the torture was that a lot of his teeth were pulled out so it says in the book that he has a slight lisp when he talks like not a full on list but like a slight lisp because he's missing a lot of his teeth and so the author or not the author the uh the audiobook narrator um for the portion that's narration he just reads in like his interpretation of sandan glockta's internal monologue his normal voice or the way he would have sounded before because the way we sound in our heads is different from how we really sound so he sounds like glockta probably used to sound but then as soon as there's dialogue when he's speaking glockta's dialogue he adds a slight lisp to his um pronunciation of the words which it just it's so spot on and it's so perfect and it honestly makes glockta sound even more sarcastic it's fabulous i love it so much anyway uh yeah this series is not for everyone it's super dark see we're bloody it's like the definition of grim dark fantasy like literally if you like if you looked up the def like grim dark fantasy in a dictionary i think it would just be a picture of this trilogy so uh if you're into that i recommend it okay we getting into the home stretch i think there's only like three questions left and i don't have an answer for one of them so you're off that hook um yeah the next question i don't have an answer for what is your favorite episodic series of the year i think episodic series is a more like um like murder mysteries and stuff like puro is a series but they're each kind of standalone within the series i guess i used to read a lot of Nancy Drew i didn't read it this year though so but that's like yeah i don't really read those kind of books i read a big fantasy series so i don't have one for these i should read more diversely i won't but i should question number 14 is what is a series that you finally bailed on after holding on to for a long time oh i'm ready for this a guitar series by sarah jms i have successfully gotten rid of every sarah jms book i have except for i have this and another i have a paperback of this i have this paperback and i have a paperback of a cord of wings and ruin and that's it um i'll probably get rid of those too it's handy though for holding up in tank videos i might just keep the one for that reason get rid of the other one just so i can hold it up as a prop um or not who cares was literal garbage um access this series like it was fun before like i had fun reading it it was never good but like it was super enjoyable and i think i gave originally this book five stars because in retrospect like it's so many issues and i used to spend a ton of time picking it apart but my rating my enjoyment level was at a five on this one the other two books in the series were like threes this one like it had a lot of emotional stuff in it that just like hit the spot and was really bingeable and i was like five out of five for reading enjoyment experience but i have a whole video about how toxic i feel like the fandom is and how i'm just like super over it and honestly like it was fun and then it was kind of problematic and then it just became like toxic and stressful and i don't i can't even enjoy it anymore because i'm just like just there's just too much there so i i know she's gonna write more books in the series but i don't like any of the other characters and i hated the novella that came out that supposed to be bridging the gap i don't know what gap that was supposed to bridge supposed to bridge the gap in her wallet um yeah so no more of this and the last question we made it is what is a series you were most surprised you like this year i could not get over how shook i was but i did not hate shatter me by the head of mafi i filmed the whole video for a vlog of me reading this book for the first time expecting to hate it but i was like super curious because i'd heard that it's it's quite polarizing and it's very different in the way that it's written like the style of the pro and everything so i was like i don't think i'm gonna like this but i'm super curious so i filmed a vlog of me reading it which is you can like watch my progress of being like this is garbage to like okay but it's like kind of interesting it's still garbage but i'm curious and then i was like oh i'm super into it now so like it's not my favorite and like by no means like a five out of five stars or anything but my shock at not hating it probably also boosted its star rating for me because you know having really high expectations being disappointed will affect things and vice versa so if i had never expected anything someone just handed me this book slide on scene never heard of it before and said read it well i probably would have dnf'd it because the beginning is not good but if i had for some reason pushed through because like i had a friend or something that was just like i require you to read this whole thing i don't know why that would happen but in this scenario it's happening i don't know i probably would have given it like three to four i don't know because i was by the end i was quite enjoying it and it is very original so originality alone often wins points with me even if i don't like something if i think it's really original i'll be like good job you did something i haven't seen before and i don't that's impressive by itself even if i didn't enjoy the experience so it is quite original and the style of the pros is is not always for me sometimes i think it's clever most of the time i think it's obnoxious and stuck up its own ass but it's definitely different so again originality wins a lot of points with me that does it for the best and worst of the year in series tag thing i don't remember what it's called something like i feel like mara tagged pretty much everyone that i would normally tank so i might cheat and do the whole i tag you if you feel like doing it if i think of somebody while i'm editing that i really want to see do this tag then i'll tag them down below but yeah i don't know it's the end of the year by the time you see this i'll be too late to film it anyway so do it if you want to um let me know in the comments down below your thoughts about the series if you've read them about your answers to these questions about my if you agree with me or disagree with me about my opinions about the books that are aforementioned did i use that word right forementioned i think that's right something you see yep anyway uh if you like what you saw don't forget to like and subscribe if you're even still launching this video's gotta be like freaking forever long we'll see you in my next video bye