 Welcome back to my channel. Today I'm really excited for this video. We're gonna be doing a mid-year check-in on how I'm doing with my big big goal this year of finishing series. Keep saying it, just keep saying it, keep saying it out loud and maybe you will convince hope. So you may have seen a video series I've been doing called series wipeout. If you saw my reading goals at the start of the year, if you've just been on my channel, you probably know that finishing book series is one of my biggest goals because it gets out of control. I just read the first book in the series and then I don't continue. So that's been our big goal this year and we're gonna chat about how I've been doing with finishing those series and we'll check about how many I've finished, how many more I've got to finish. But before we get into the video I want to say such a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video which is Upside Down Book. Upside Down Books, Book of the Man. Book of the Man is a super popular and fast-growing online service for readers. I love Book of the Month. I think they're one of the coolest bookish services out there. They always try to promote new and emerging authors while still I think they have a good mix of authors that they've had a few times on. So maybe if you've got like Lucy Foley, you've got the guest list in a Book of the Month edition, they had the Paris apartment as well. So I think they do a good mix of promoting new authors while still having authors back that they've had before. They go through every month and find the most exciting new releases, so you don't have to do that basically. It's not up to you to just scour through all the new releases list. They present your selection of five to seven books a month and you can pick the one that you want. It's risk-free because you can skip any month if any of the books just don't interest you that month and they have the best price for new release hardcover fiction. You can get your first book for only $9.99 using the code MegwithBerks. I mean come on now. I mean it's kind of irresistible. Something that is so cool is Book of the Month has launched a podcast called Virtual Book Tour. It's available to listen to on Apple or Spotify. I love bookish podcasts. I'm always trying to find more. I've really loved listening to this one. They like interview authors that they've had as authors in the Book of the Month selection. I often listen to bookish podcasts in the shower. That's like my prime listening real estate. I don't know. I just love listening to podcasts in the shower. It's getting weird. So I'd really recommend you go check it out on Apple Spotify. It's really really good. It's run by two of their editorial team. They're the ones interviewing the authors. It's recorded in front of a live audience which is really really fun and it gives you a look into the minds of the authors who are then being featured in the Books of the Month. I as someone who you know I always say I want to write one day. I mean it's not happening girl. Is it? I mean come on. But I've always loved listening to podcasts with authors talking about their creative process and it really gives you this insight into the wisdom and how they create these worlds and storylines they write. It's so so interesting. So yeah go ahead and listen to Virtual Book Tour on Apple or Spotify. I'll quickly just show you what my picks this month were. We have Upgrade by Blake Crouch. I've never read a Blake Crouch so I'm super excited to get to this one. This is about a guy who's like jeans are being hacked and then we have You're Invited which is I mean come on. This is me all over. It's a wedding, isolated, murders start to happen. I mean come on. I am so excited. This seems right on my streets. Yeah go check out Book of the Month. Go check out Virtual Book Tour and make sure you use my code Make With Books to get your first book for only $9.99. Okay let's get into the video. So I have a few stats for you. Let's start off with the stats and then we're gonna go through all the series that I have finished so far this year. I started the year with 41 series that I was currently reading. Oh my god that's that's that's a lot. Bear in mind our goal by the end of year is 26. So far I have finished 12 series. I have completed 12 series. I am currently reading 33 so it's not quite you know minus 12 because I've started a few series. So yeah I'm currently reading 33 series which I'm pretty happy with at the midpoint. That gives us seven series to finish before the end of the year but obviously I'm gonna start a few more. I'm really trying to restrain myself but I will probably start. I mean I really want to start Finley Donovan. There's a few more Murder Before Even song that I really really want to start. Run a Caspidwa. I would love to start. So my guess is I'm probably gonna start at least five more series this year. Minimum. I mean like minimum. So we do have a few that we still need to read. So far this year I have started seven series. I started a few that I DNF straight away like Pet and the Gilded Ones. They're not included in this. So I've started seven series this year that I intend to finish and I've finished two of them already. So I think I'm doing a good job so far this year of not only starting less series but when I do start series prioritising getting them read. I've DNF'd five series. I've DNF'd five series so far this year. Two of which like I said the Gilded Ones and Pet are series I started this year and three series I've DNF'd. I came to the conclusion to DNF this year and I was just trying to cut more series out. So I've decided to not continue with the Legend Bond series. It just wasn't really for me. I decided not to continue with the Nouncy Dream Mystery stories because I initially listened to them on audio and I loved them by that but it's almost impossible to get the audio for those original like I'm talking the original series. It's really hard and I'm not really bothered about reading them physically. And the Year of the Witching technically I haven't DNF'd. It just doesn't seem like we're gonna get a sequel for that anymore. We worded you to get one called The Dawn of the Coven and the author spoke about how she was struggling to write it and so I don't think we're getting a series for that anymore. So it's under DNF technically. So this is a bar chart that shows you just visually how many I had at the start of the year, how many I'm reading now and what the goal is. I think we're in a pretty good position. I feel like it's going alright. I'm like quite happy with how it's going. Something that I thought was interesting. Interesting. That out of the 12 series I finished so far this year, eight of them I only had one more book to read to finish the series. Four of them I read more than one book to finish the series. So it shows you that yeah I haven't been reading a ton of like lots and lots of long series. A lot of the ones I finished I only had one more book to finish. And of the books, this is interesting, of the books still on my TBR, of the series still on my TBR. Fourteen of them have only one book left for me to finish but bear in mind a lot of them are series, a lot of those ones are series I can't finish because they're series that aren't finished yet. A lot of that 14 series I actually can't finish this year. And 19 have more than one book for me to read to finish a series. So that's where the issue comes in. Yes I done a good job of finishing a series so far this year but a lot of the ones I got out the way but ones I only had one book left to read and we don't have many of them left anymore. So that is the issue basically. So let's just get into talking about the 12 series I finished this year. I'm gonna try not to spend too long talking about these. It's more how I probably found the end of the series or the process of reading the series. So the first three that I finished I read in this vlog where you guys voted what series you wanted to see me read. All these are series where I only had one more book to read to finish a series. So the first series I finished this year was the Good Girls Guide to Murder series with As Good as Dead being the final one. This in my opinion is the best book in the series but a lot of people don't like it. It's very very marmite. I've been saying recently like some people say you shouldn't even read this book. Some people say it's the best book in the series like me. In the series Pip is investigating mysteries and in this book she is the mystery. It's all the drama Mick! I just love it! And I don't want to spoil too much but it's just so interesting how the subject of kind of stalker and then what the book descends into is tackled. But it's just crazy. Like the book is, you could never have expected it but the character development has been done so well throughout the series that it does make entire sense by the end of it. I just can't wait to read more Holly Jackson. Some of my patrons let me know that she might. I don't know whether to trust this. On Goodreads it says she's got a new book coming out in December. I don't know whether to trust it. I don't know whether to get my hopes up because Goodreads can lie. So yeah, I think this was the best end to the series I've read this year maybe or Jade Legacy. We'll get into that in a moment. But I just love how different it was to the rest of the series. Also can we just talk about how many series I'd finished before this year? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. I'd finished 12 series in my entire reading discography before this year. So I finished the same amount in six months as I'd finished in the previous like three years. Then I finished the Divinus series by reading the King of Crows. Sadly this series goes down here. Oh no, this has now gone down here. So in terms of my ratings, oh I've got the books the wrong way round. I gave the Divinus like a four star, Lair of Dreams five stars, my favorite in the series. Before the director I think of 2.5, King of Crows, I think I gave it like a 1.5. This ending to the series was just not, it wasn't it for me. I'm sorry it was not it for me. It was long, drawn out, boring. The characters didn't kind of have the resolutions that you would expect them to. It just went completely off the rails. I think what you love so much about the first few books just completely went, you know. What I found so great about Lair of Dreams in particular was Henry and Ling and they were really like brought up to be these like main characters and then they were ignored in the second and third one which I didn't feel like made much sense. Yes I think it's important that each character maybe has a book that they star in but that didn't really work. That Lair of Dreams is obviously Henry and Ling's book and then people might say oh book three is Theta's book or whatever but I didn't feel like it was as strong so then it didn't make much sense for them to be kind of ignored. That really pissed me off. Yeah I just felt like for the villain the King of Crows has been built up since book one. He was boring. This man was boring. Then I finished the Brown Sisters trilogy by reading actor H.E. Brown. I really enjoyed this last one. These are just fun books to read, right? They're like enjoyable. They're all kind of like full stars for me. I think my favorite is still Get a Life Chloe Brown, the first one but I just think, I mean I don't have much to say about this series, I just enjoyed reading it and I'm glad that I've read them all now because it feels like you know it's a bit of a booktube staple so I'm glad I've read them all now. Talia Hibbet in my opinion should be getting the TikTok hype rather than Colleen Hoover or whatever like come on girls read this. Read something diverse for once in your life TikTok. Yes sis, pop off, go in. You didn't have to snap so hard. I would say this was my second favorite in the series. I really really did enjoy it. It's set in this bed and breakfast which I think is such a cute setting and their chemistry throughout the book was really great so yeah, I was very happy to finish that series as well. Then we have the first series that I finished where I actually had to read two books and I tackled one of the most, you know, scary books on my TBR. I read Jade Ward and Jade Legacy to finish the Green Blind Saga. My dad still has Jade City like in his room somewhere so I don't know why that is but I had to read these two to finish this series and wow, this blew me away. Jade City, I only gave a 3.5. I gave this a 4.5 and this a 5 and this was incredible. This series really grows as you go on and get invested in the story. There is so much depth. Probably one of the most detailed series I personally have ever read and I got so attached to the family and the characters and I had to read these pretty fast and it actually wasn't that hard. I really flew through them with the audiobook. Just the amount of layers that you have to the story and to the context by this last book is absolutely incredible. This is definitely up there with my favourite end to a series that I finished this year as well. If you're looking to read one of the best fantasy series ever, I would recommend picking this up. I think it's just absolutely amazing. The end of Jade Ward, I mean both these endings made me cry. Both of the endings of these books made me cry. Both of them are terrible. Both of them are absolutely terrible. And last thing I have to say, and an unwen. And an unwen. I don't care if anyone chats shit about when I'm coming for you. I'm literally coming for you. Then I finished the Binti series. I read The Night Mask Raid which is the last one. For me this series went downhill as it went throughout. Part of me wishes I had just DNF'd it. I just didn't really love it. The last, I mean these are short novellas and the first book worked really well as a novella because it was kind of set in one day on this ship with this really high stake situation. But then books two and three are out in the world and they felt to me like they needed to be like 200, 300 pages longer for what the author wanted to do with the world building. That just really didn't work for me at all. I didn't really like this series. I kind of wish I had just read Binti the first one and left it at that. I don't think I needed to continue but I am a completionist so I get, you know, I find it hard to DNF series. DNFing those five that I spoke about earlier that was really cutthroat for me. That was tough. Then I finished the Raven Boys series where I had to read these three books to finish it. I only ever read the first one. This just wasn't 100% for me and I don't like talking about it because I know a lot of people love it and I don't want to touch that and I feel like I should have loved this. I mean what happened? Like I don't know. I just feel like for some reason I didn't connect to it. I didn't connect to the characters. I found the writing confusing and I should have loved this. There should have been like 100% my thing but I just kind of felt met about it all and I've kind of forgotten everything that happens in the series. I'm not going to lie to you. I can remember snippets but I can barely remember anything and I remember being really mad at how the series ended up. Like the ending of this book, I didn't mind the rest of the Raven King. I remember I quite liked it but the way this ended pissed me off. It just wasn't for me. But I am so glad I finished it because otherwise this would be a series that would stress me out because I'd had the first one. That's probably one of the oldest books. I'm sorry the second one, the first one I had to read. Probably one of the oldest books on my TBR at this point so I am very happy to have finished it. Then I finished a series that I started this year which was the Forward Collection. So this is a series of six novellas on Kindle Limited and Audible where it's all like sci-fi, futuristic-y kind of series. I enjoyed reading these. They were good to like get my reading go up, get the amount of books I read this year up because they're all very, very, very short. Like I think barely any pages. I can't remember. Like really, really short. Like 30 pages, some of them. My favourite one is still the first one, Ark by Veronica Roth which I could never have anticipated. Like I thought I would love N.K. Jemisin's more, Andy Weir or Blake Crouch but no, Veronica Roth's the first one in my opinion, Ark is the best one in the series. I enjoyed reading them but I don't think that a lot of these books are gonna stick in my mind. I don't read a ton of sci-fi so it was fun reading like a short series of sci-fi but I'm just really proud of myself for like starting this and then finishing it with a couple months. Like I really, I really did that. I really did that. I am so proud of her I could cry. Okay then we have another novella series which I finished which was the Steminist novellas by Ali Hazelwood. These are Under One Roof, Suck With You and Below Zero. Under One Roof was definitely my favourite. This is one with the couple, you know, the boy and the girl. They end up each owning half of this house so they have to live together but there's like enemies to lovers. Ali Hazelwood often does Grump Sunshine and I think I love Grump Sunshine. I think, yeah, I think that's it for me. I think I like Grump Sunshine so Ali Hazelwood is definitely my favourite romance author. Stuck With You I didn't love. That was the one where these two characters are stuck in elevators together and they hate each other. That one I didn't love because it was like a non-linear storyline that I just didn't vibe with. Like the present day they hated each other because of something he'd done in the past and we were kept going back into the past to kind of see them falling for each other and then he did something to ruin it. That just didn't really work for me. I preferred the kind of more like normal linear timelines in the other two. Below Zero I really enjoyed as well and Ali Hazelwood just gets what I want. She does get it. Ten out of ten. Ten out of ten. Yep. Yep. Then I did a video where I finished three geologies so this is like a really good way of me to like knock out some series. Where is the Monarchs? I finished the Ravens series with the Ravens and the Monarchs. This is such a strong YA series. We're following this sorority of witches at this college. We follow two girls in particular. Viv who is like the new girl and oh my god I've forgotten her name. Scarlet. Scarlet who is one of the older girls in sorority who's hoping to kind of lead it as they have to protect their sorority, protect their sisters and do witchy stuff. And I just really enjoyed this. This was just solid YA. Both of them were like four stars for me but like good four stars. Not disappointing four stars. Like that was a really enjoyable read. I had a lot of fun reading it. I've intrigued if I should read anything else by Kas Morgan and Daniel Page because I enjoyed these so much. Kas Morgan wrote The Hundred and Daniel Page wrote Dorothy Must Die and I've never been intrigued by them. So maybe I'll wait and see what they each these authors come out with next and then maybe I'll pick that up rather than going back to their backlist. I don't know. But I think if you're looking for a witchy YA series that has sorority college vibes, this is just so fun. Like I really think it's very well written, plotted so perfectly. Like very little room for plot holes or anything like that. It was really really good and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Then I finished the silver. Is this this green hollow? Yeah, green hollow duology. Silver in the wood is the first one and drawing country is the one I finished. This didn't work for me. It's kind of set in these woods with like men who exist in the woods and it's very fairy tale like. We have like fantastical forest creatures. But this second one follows the other man. This follows Tobias and then this follows Henry in terms of like who the narrator is. Here's the thing. Tobias's narration is very like whimsical and detached and uh comp-com-completative. Is that the right word? Where he's like thinking. He's very thoughtful. I don't know. Get the dictionary out girlie. I'm a massive fan of the dictionary. Whereas drown country, Henry is very like bold and brash and like quick to act you know. It wasn't what I wanted from the series and also it starts off very confusing because it refers to things have happened previously that I thought did that happen in this book? It didn't. It didn't. It's not until the second half of the book that you learn what happened in the past. So it was just a very confusing reading experience for me. But again I'm glad I finished it. It was very an easy series to tick off um because it's so short so at least says that. Oh you guys gonna drag me for this huh? Then I finished The Stranger Dreamer Geology. I didn't really like music nightmares. It was like a three star. It wasn't like the worst thing I've ever read. But um the first one here is following Laszlo Strange as he discovers he can go to his long loved mythical lost city of weep. This book is very different. Laszlo is no longer the main protagonist. He's like the second protagonist I guess but we're not kind of viewing everything through his eyes like we did in the first book. It just really didn't work. Like the villains in this didn't work for me. Nothing happened. This book is what 500 pages? Yeah over 500 pages it could have been 300. Like literally 200 pages could have been nixed from this very very easily. The romance that has been set up in the first book in this didn't work for me. I didn't feel the chemistry. Lady Taylor I have this issue with her. I love her writing. Her plots I always seem to have an issue with. I always seem to have be something about the plot. Even in Stranger Dreamer it would have been a five star but the middle section of this really dragged for me with the plot and so I gave it a four star. I feel like she needs to edit her books a bit more. I don't know I feel bad because I feel like Lady Taylor is like a whisker away if we just fix this one thing from being my favorite author. But the plot is such a big part of the book especially for me. I'd say writing is most important. Then plot then characters. I'm not usually a character girly. So yeah I don't know this was just really disappointing for me. But at least I finished it. And then the last series that I actually just quickly finished was the Mystery of Black Hollow Lane. I read The Secret of White Stone Gate which is the second one. I don't think there's going to be any more in this series. I don't know it's like here's the thing. This is like a middle grade mystery series that Aaron recommended to me when we did her booktube twin test. And I didn't love the first one but I was like I'm gonna finish the series. I'm gonna finish it. And the second one was even worse. This is an example of following this girl from the US who comes to school in the UK like a boarding school. And she very quickly realizes that her life is in danger because of stuff to do with her dad that she hasn't seen since she was a baby. Again the plot's a bit meandering but particularly how it wraps up at the end strikes me as the author was hoping she would get more books in the series but didn't know if she would. And so had to resolve the biggest issue within the story very hurriedly in a way that really felt like not worth it. Not a good ending to this kind of big mystery that we've been having throughout the whole series. And I feel bad. Like she had to, she probably was hoping for like a three, four book series and then it was like this might be the only book I have so I need to wrap this thing up somehow but also leave it open for there to be more books if I do get that which is a really tricky situation to be in. I read it in one day via the audiobook while I was like getting work done. It was super duper quick. So yes at least we finished it. So that is all the series that I have finished so far this year. I am happy with that. I'm happy with 12 finished in the first half of the year. Hopefully we can match that or maybe we can do a bit better. In the second half of the year I don't know if we will. I want to finish at least 10 because that gives me you know scope to start three which I feel like is the bare minimum I want to start this year, the rest of the year. So I will put actually quickly a screen recording in here of the series that I still have on my TBR and you guys let me know which of these you would most like to see me read. I'm gonna have again a couple more series wipeout vlogs coming this year. So yeah let me know which of these series you would most like to see me read. If you've gotten to the end of the video comment a butterfly emoji and thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you for supporting me in my series escapades. I hope you have a good rest of your day. I love you and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!