 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to Top 5 Friday. Today we are talking about my favorite series. This is, this, I'm kind of cheating here because I only really have five favorite series. I'm not a big fan of series. I know this sounds weird, but I prefer standalone works to long series. And if I am going to read a series, I prefer just to be like a simple trilogy. Duology is even better, but standalone is best. The main reason I'm making this is because I'd like to hear from you guys what your favorite series is. So maybe I can branch out and find some stuff that I normally wouldn't come across. That's one of the things that I like about doing these lists is hearing from you guys and finding new content. So jumping into it, we have the Harry Hulay series from Yonezba. I'm a big fan of this series. The individual books aren't great. They are pretty good. The stories and the plot, they're fine. That's not the reason why I read these books. I read these books for the characters. It's a running theme on this channel. It's a running theme for me. I am a big fan of unique characters that I can either love, hate, or both. I'm also like morally gray area characters. And this series is full of that. So not so much the stories or the plot or anything like that. They're fine, but usually I tend to give these books anywhere from three to four stars. I don't think I've given any of them five yet. And I've read, let's see here, 34, I've read four or five of them. I can't remember how many. And the plots kind of, they kind of blend together as well. But the characters don't. Every time I pick up one of these books, I know exactly who I'm reading about. And I don't have to think too hard about, wait a second, who is this person? Next up, and this is the book that, this is the series that inspired this video, which is, if you watched my unboxing, a surprise from Thunderstorm is the Timmy Quinn series from Keelan Patrick Burke. I love this entire series, even the really short stuff like Peregrine's Tale. The Hides is probably my favorite as far as the universal world building is concerned. I loved the uniqueness of that story alone. I liked the way the series wrapped up. I liked every single story in there. And Turtle Boy holds, the Turtle Boy holds a special place in my heart because it is the first Keelan Patrick Burke story that I read. And I believe it won the Stoker Award, the Bram Stoker Award. But yeah, at number four, that's Stage Whispers. Next up, actually, well, one of them isn't going to be a surprise. This one might be a surprise to people who are fans of the channel because you guys know that I don't like fantasy, but The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. I'm going to throw The Hobbit in there also by J. R. R. Tolkien. I grew up reading these. I've read these several times. This version alone is in terrible shape. But I'm going to put that down because it's heavy. The entire series is amazing. It is very simply written. There's not too many frills or, you know, there is superfluous information. But there's a calmingness to the story. There's adventure. There's fun. There's comedy. There's all that stuff in there. But there's also a feeling, maybe it's just nostalgia for me. I'm not sure. But there's this feeling like when I'm reading that story, it feels like I'm home, like I'm around my own people, that kind of thing. And that every single time I revisit, I've reread The Hobbit almost a dozen times. But I've only read the original trilogy twice together. One time I actually split the books up and read other books in between. And another time I read them back to back to back. And every single time I read these books, I find something new. But there's always, it's like getting together with old friends and talking about the new things that have happened. Which is kind of funny because nothing new has happened. It's just I am seeing new things as I get older. And I'll probably end up rereading these here in the next year or so just because I'm such a big fan. I love the original, not the original. I love Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. I didn't care for The Hobbit at all. Not because it deviated so much or that they stretched it out. It's just really, really bad filmmaking. And it wasn't up to Jackson's normal quality. Next up, we have what some of you might be thinking might be at number one. But The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is at number two. What's number one? Holy shit. But yeah, this one, my favorite character in here in the series is Eddie Dean. It's a terrific storyline. And some of the parts aren't as good as the whole. I have the famously unpopular opinion that Wizarding Glass is utter trash. I hate that book. I also can't stand the Song of Susanna. Both those books are terrible in my eyes. I hate Wizarding Glass more, I think, because if Song of Susanna had been combined with book five, Wolves of the Kala, I don't think I would have been as upset or had it been at the beginning of this one. I don't think I would have been as upset. But having to wait another six months for this book to come out, that book just seemed pointless. But I even love book 4.5, The Wind Through the Keyhole. I find that book fascinating. It's one of my favorite in this series. Right after, I would put it right after, I would say my top three would be the Wastelands at number one. Number two would be Drawing of the Three. And then at number three, it would be The Wind Through the Keyhole. But yeah, the Dark Tower series is at number two. So what's at number one? Can anybody guess? Right now, down there, pause the video, go down there, and go ahead and set your predictions for what number one is, and we're going to reveal it in three, in two, and one, the Joel Goldberg series by Caroline Kepnis. I got to thinking about my favorite series, and I got to thinking about books that stayed with me. Like I said, I only have about five favorites. And I was thinking about, I love Lord of the Rings, I love the Dark Tower series, I love the Timmy Quinn series, I love the Harry Hulay story. I love all those. I don't love any of them as much as I love the Joel Goldberg series. The Caroline Kepnis, she gave me faith in thrillers again. There was a unique voice and perspective and feeling to the narrative that I hadn't come across before. I mean, even Stephen King has said that the story is wholly original. Well, maybe not the story, it's the concepts that she uses. She found a new way, I think, she found a new way to bother people. You have this entirely likable psychopath almost on par with Dexter, but I think that Kepnis is a better author than Jeff Lindsey. That's my opinion. I think that those themes were so well done, much better done than Lindsey did with Dexter, or any number of stories like this where you root for the bad guy. And you cannot say that Joel Goldberg is a redeemable character. He does some terrible shit throughout the two books, and we're getting the third. From what I understand, we're getting the third called me. So you have you, hidden bodies, and me. I'm looking forward to that one, especially knowing how hidden bodies ends. I'm wondering where the hell she's going to go with this. But anyway, I want to hear from you guys. Like I said at the beginning of the video, I want to hear from you guys down there in the doobly-doo. What are some of your favorite series? I don't care too much about fantasy, like I said before, but I'd love to hear your favorite thrillers. Even if you want to tell me your favorite fantasies, that's fine, because you guys can talk back and forth about your favorite fantasy down there, and I don't have to be part of that conversation, is what I'm getting at. So let me know your favorite series down there in the doobly-doo. Give me all of the recommendations, but until next time, I have been E, you've been U. This has been another Top Five Friday. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye! The entire time, the entire time that video was going, I had a mosquito eating on my leg meat. I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but it was driving me batshit crazy. God, I hate the south in the summer.