I’ve been watching a lot of booktube lately and have loved watching people like Meg With Books hold themselves accountable about reading and finishing series. I thought it would be fun (and tedious…) to see how I personally do with reading and completing series. Do I start too many and never finish them? How far along do I get before I lose interest? How many series have I read in my life? Read on to find out these answers and more!
Overall Series Stats
I’ve engaged with 192 different book series in my lifetime. Yes, this is not super accurate since I only put some of my pre-2014 history in Goodreads when I started using it. I didn’t include random books like Watership Down that I read in high school and is technically in a series, but I did include many/most of the series I read for pleasure back in high school (The Clique, Gossip Girl, etc.). I was going to include books that are kind of a series, like the author wrote one full-length book and then followed it up with a novella epilogue or prequel, but those didn’t make the cut here for obvious reasons.
I’ve read a total of 560 books that are a part of a series in my life as well. On average, the book series that I’ve started/read contain 4.18 books in the series. This is probably balanced out a bit because some series are duologies or trilogies while others have a lot more books. I’ve read an average of 2.92 books per series. Honestly that’s not to bad when you think about those averages! I’m reading 2-3 books per series and on average the series I read have 4 books in them.
Series Reading Status
Now into the juicier stuff. I’ve completed HALF of the series I’ve started. This is actually a better number than I expected. It’s wild to see the pretty even breakdown between the other categories. 15% of series I started I don’t plan to finish and lost interest in after reading a book or more. 15% of series I’ve just started, meaning I’ve only read the first book in the series. And finally, I’m in the middle of 19% of series (meaning I’ve read two or more books in the series).
Series Publishing Status
I also wanted to look at the series I’ve read or started to see where they are in the publishing cycle. 82% of these series are completed or finished publishing (meaning no new books are coming out in the series). 8% are unknown – these are series that are somewhat newer or recently published, so we don’t know how many books they’ll be. Some of them are also series that I’m just not sure about (ex: I read A Dangerous Year, which was supposed to be a series-starter, but the author said book two wouldn’t come out until the TV show came out… and there has been zero news on that since like 2017…). And finally, 9% are ongoing series and still have books coming out now and in the future.
Series to Read/Complete
Diving a little deeper into specific categories, I thought it would be helpful to slice the data based on the items above. This will help me determine how many series and books I actually have to read in order to finish some of them off.
Completed/Published Series
If I look at the book series that are completely published and done with (no more books coming out), here’s the breakdown of the different reading statuses.
- 96 completed/finished
- 27 series lost interest
- 21 series ongoing/in the middle of
- 14 series started
I have 35 different series to read and finish off that are done being published:
| SERIES NAME | # LEFT |
| Ash and Bramble | 1 |
| The Aurora Cycle | 1 |
| Dark Breaks the Dawn Duo | 1 |
| Tyme | 1 |
| Honeymoon Harbor | 1 |
| How to Hang a Witch | 1 |
| Letters to the Lost | 1 |
| Loop | 1 |
| Pretty Little Liars | 1 |
| Precious Stone Trilogy | 1 |
| Hamilton High | 1 |
| The Falconer | 1 |
| The Hunger Games | 1 |
| The Kiss Quotient | 1 |
| The Looking Glass Wars | 1 |
| Angel Falls | 1 |
| Erin Blake | 1 |
| Charlotte Holmes | 2 |
| Dreamer Trilogy | 2 |
| Heist Society | 2 |
| Creekwood | 2 |
| The Hate U Give | 2 |
| The Impostor Queen | 2 |
| Starbound | 2 |
| Dumplin | 3 |
| Private | 3 |
| Secrets of My Hollywood Life | 3 |
| Throne of Glass | 3 |
| Worldwalker | 3 |
| Once Upon a Con | 4 |
| Briar U | 4 |
| Sex Criminals | 5 |
| Shopaholic | 7 |
| Ms. Marvel | 8 |
| Fables | 18 |
Unknown or Ongoing Series
The rest of the series to look at are in the “unknown” or ongoing categories. These are the books that most likely have more books coming out in upcoming years. Plenty of them I’m not sure about – they could be completed companion series, they could have more coming.
- 2 ongoing or unknown series lost interest
- 10 ongoing/still publishing series that I’m in the middle of (read 2+ books)
- 5 series that may have more books coming out that I’m in the middle of (read 2+ books)
- 6 series I’ve started (read the first book) that are ongoing and still being published with future books
- 10 series I’ve started (read the first book) where I’m not sure how many more books are being published, if any
I have 31 different series to read and finish off that are currently still being published or MAY have more books coming out. There are some series below where I know there’s an upcoming book but it isn’t released yet, so I put those in italics. That means I’m currently caught up on the series and don’t have to read anything until the next book is published. There are 16 series where I could read the next book because it’s out now.
| SERIES NAME | # LEFT |
| Riley Collins | 1 |
| Emily Wilde | 1 |
| Finlay Donovan | 1 |
| Beck Sisters | 1 |
| St. Rosetta’s Academy | 1 |
| One of Us is Lying | 1 |
| Holly Grove Island | 1 |
| The Shaw Confessions | 1 |
| The Housemaid | 1 |
| Rachel Krall | 1 |
| The Stolen Heir Duology | 1 |
| Somerset Lake | 1 |
| Truly Devious | 1 |
| ACOTAR | 2 |
| Rusk University | 2 |
| Sapphire Springs | 2 |
| Alex Stern | 2 |
| Winner Bakes All | 2 |
| The Twilight Saga | 2 |
| Well Met | 2 |
| American Royals | 3 |
| Lovelight | 3 |
| Shady Hollow | 3 |
| Boots and Bouquets | 3 |
| Pine Hollow | 3 |
| You | 3 |
| Saga | 4 |
| Bromance Book Club | 4 |
| Sunshine Valley | 4 |
| Wayward Children | 5 |
| The Witchlands | 5 |
Series to Start
I didn’t even want to go down the rabbit hole of series I want to start but haven’t yet. I made a spreadsheet where I can track the series I’ve started reading so my plan is to just add new series to the tracker whenever I start a new one. I can’t really filter Goodreads properly to see how many books I have on my “series starter” shelf that I haven’t read yet so I’m not even going down that path. I don’t have a specific goal to start any more series – it’s more of a natural thing that happens when books sound interesting to me!
Future Plans
Do I have any specific goals to finish off some of these series? Perhaps I should after all of this analysis. I’m not really interested in adding yet another challenge to my list this year but this is a nice start from a tracking perspective. This exercise helped me also be honest with myself and decide which series I’ve lost interest in. No pressure to complete them and I’m allowed to stop thinking about them 😉
I just wrote a very similar post for next week!! That’s pretty amazing that you’ve completed half of the series you’ve started reading!! 1) ahhhhh I didn’t realize you hadn’t finished Hunger Games or Throne of Glass!!!! I think I’m going to re-read Hunger Games on audio this year since it’s been so long for me. 2) I can’t believe you only have one PLL book left- it feels like that series goes on forever! I think stopped around book 7.
I know! It’s terrible haha. I technically just haven’t read the prequel to Hunger Games so at least I’m not too far behind haha. I don’t know why I haven’t finished TOG – probably the scary book size hahaha