5 Book Series by Rick Riordan To Try

1. Percy Jackson

You know you're going to see this name here, since it's only the most famous series by Rick Riordan, and one of the most loved YA books ever. 

The protagonist is a dyslexic boy called Percy who lives a more or less normal life with his mother, when he discovers that his dad is actually a Greek God, which makes him a powerful demigod. He has to go away to training camp where he learns to fight, goes on many quests, makes lots of new friends, and meets all sorts of mythological characters. 

2. The Heroes of Olympus

This and Percy Jackson is one of the very series which I have read multiple times. It's not only the story that keeps the readers hooked but also the funny and entertaining writing style for which the author is so famous.

This book involves both the Greek demigods as well as those from the Roman camp. There is a mix of cultures and Gods as two enemy camps are forced to unite to defeat a common enemy. I love this series very much, for it has a lot of plot twists, as well as the right amount of action, jokes, mythology and fantasy.

3. The Trials of Apollo

This series is about the Greek god Apollo's adventures on Earth after he gets kicked off Mount Olympus by Zeus. He meets a girl called Meg and together they go on quests to save the Oracles and travel to all sorts of weird places like talking forests and burning mazes and creepy caves. 

The story is very interesting and Apollo is a fun character to read about.

4. Magnus Chase

Magnus Chase, the protagonist of the series is a 16-year-old demigod from the Norse universe of Asgard as well as the cousin of Greek demigod Annabeth Chase. After his mother was killed by wolves when he was 14, Magnus ended up living on the streets until he died and entered Valhalla with the help of Samirah. There he travels between worlds and has many exciting adventures.

I did not like this series as much as the others but it's probably due to the high standards the other series set, and this one isn't bad by itself, with a lot of interesting information about the Norse worlds.

5. The Kane Chronicles

The Kane Chronicles follows the story of Carter and Sadie Kane, and their discovery that they are the most powerful Egyptian magicians to be born in hundreds of years. As the Egyptian gods begin to awaken, the siblings must fight the forces of Chaos in order to maintain order and harmony as well as the creative power of the universe. 

The siblings had been separated since the death of their mother but now they must unite to embark on a dangerous journey to save their father. It involves a lot of Gods and magic and myths, and various intriguing characters.

The series are all full of excitement, mythological creatures, quests, suspense, and riddles. Rick Riordan is an amazing author, one whom I love a lot, and all his books are worth a read.

The Caraval Series by Stephanie Garber - Book Review

I finished reading the Caraval series today, and I liked it quite a lot.

The first book seemed a bit dull at first but it picked up pace once the games actually started. It was all pretty predictable, what with the pairing of Scarlett and Julian, Scarlett winning the game and people conveniently coming back to life.

The second book was much like the first, except that it had Tella's point of view. The series had started to feel rather like a magical version of the Hunger Games, what with the same competition in the first two books, with, of course, the main character winning, and being paired off with the hero. 

The third book was definitely a great improvement. I found it much better than the first two, story-wise, character development-wise, and suspense-wise, since there was no game which the protagonist could flounce into and win.

I like magical fantasy books, which is why I loved Finale. It was very exciting as the author always kept the story going, without adding irrelevant parts or dragging on the story too much.

I never felt very close to Scarlett or liked her much in the first book, but I felt the author has made an effort to tell us more about her in the third book. It also helped that a lot of secrets about her parents etc. were uncovered then, and the chapters with her POV had her thoughts or emotions which made her more likable. Tella didn't sound very nice in the first book, but I liked her much more in the second and third ones since her horrible actions felt a little more justified.

The ending was satisfying, and even though I didn't find Scarlett capable or clever enough to rule Valenda, she was Queen Elantine's granddaughter and I guess all monarchies work that way. The Prince of Hearts didn't get a deserving ending, since he was one of the main characters, and wasn't too evil, but was forced to flee with all the bad Fates nonetheless.

Overall, the series was really nice and I think it is very underrated, so even if you haven't about it a lot, you should give it a try.

5 Popular Epic Fantasies

1. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass is my favourite fantasy series, so yes, I think it's really good and yes, I feel you should try it out too. It is about a girl called Celaena Sardothien who is a trained assassin and is very good at her job. She gets selected to be the Crown Prince's champion in the tournament held in the palace and from there on her life changes completely. She gets dragged into a world full of magic, mystery, love, Faeries, witches, dragons, princes, and unknown lands. Before starting the Throne of Glass series, however, you must read The Assassin's Blade, which is a prequel about her life as an assassin before meeting the prince changes everything. 

It is a well-planned, splendid series, and I feel it is a great example of epic fantasies written recently.

2. Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross

This is another book that I love very much. The protagonist, Brienna, wants nothing more than to master one of the five passions and be chosen by a patron. However, when the time arrives, no one is willing to choose her, and she finds herself bound to a disgraced Lord and entangled in his plot to overthrow the King. Brienna uncovers the thrilling knowledge of her parentage, which leads to more secrets yet to be learned as she gets whisked away to various places under false identities, meets the King, and enters a whole new world she had never thought existed.

3. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

This book is a dark, complex fantasy involving an island called Fennbirn where each generation three sisters are born, and one must kill the other two using her gift to become the next Queen. The three princesses are trained by the families they are sent to, to murder their way to the throne. But in this generation, two of the princesses do not have any powers, and the third, strongest sister is unwilling to kill. What happens when the three of them get forced into a game of deception, where they travel to mysterious places, are betrayed by their own, and are forced to go against everything they think is right? Which one of the three will emerge victorious?

It is a series of four thrilling books, that keep us hooked from the first page right to the last, and another great high fantasy you must try.

4. Furyborn by Claire Legrand

This story revolves around two young women, A Sun Queen and a Blood Queen, centuries apart, who hold the power to either save or destroy the world. Queen Rielle is forced to expose herself as one of the prophesied queens and now she must prove herself to be the good Sun Queen - or be killed. Eliana, a girl living thousand years after Queen Rielle, goes on a quest to steal a valuable item in order to be reunited with her family, and gets involved in a magical journey where she meets unexpected allies and uncovers various truths about her past. Both women come across as fiercely independent and strong women who fight till the end to do what is right and to protect those they love.

The narration switches between the two queens in each chapter and keeps us on edge as we read this gripping adventure.

5. Folk of the Air by Holly Black

Jude's parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the Faerie High Court. Ten years later, she desperately wants to belong there, despite being a mortal. But many of the fey despise humans, especially Prince Cardan, who is the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, Jude has to defy him - and face the consequences. She slowly becomes more and more embroiled in the palace workings of the Faerie and discovers her own ability to trick and defeat. Jude now finds herself in a position where she requires to risk her own life to save those of her sisters as well as the entire Faerie Court.

The story involves a lot of betrayals, palace intrigues, a constant atmosphere of terror, as well as dark romance, and is a classic Holly Black high fantasy.

Two other fantasy series that I loved were Twilight by Stephanie Meyer and House of Earth and Blood By Sarah J. Maas. 

Evermore by Alyson Noel - Book Review

I'd say it's an okay-ish book- a little typical YA but something I enjoy for a fun read once in a while. The storyline isn't too interesting since it is quite predictable but it has been written in a pleasant, enjoyable way that makes it likable.

The main character, Ever, is like any other protagonist of any other teen book about high school life. Pretty, keeps to herself, not very popular, has lots of problems, with few friends and of course a lot of enemies. But her powers did make her a special and intriguing character to read about. 

Damen (her love interest), I did not like very much. Or should I say I did not like him at all? Although he had allegedly been in love with Ever for more than a hundred years, as soon as she starts liking him too, he goes and starts flirting with another girl (who happens to be the most popular/beautiful girl in school, Ever's arch enemy blah blah blah, the usual). And why? Well, believe me when I say, it's for the petty reason of making her jealous. I mean, why why why, if he has been waiting for her for oh-so-long, wouldn't he immediately confess his feelings to her as soon she appears to feel the same way about him? But no. I found him very pretentious and insecure.

Another reason I hated him was because he himself made Ever an immortal, and then refused to tell her the truth when she asked. Obviously, this is going to make her hate him, if he has converted her into this weird being who can sense other's thoughts and see their auras and whatnot, but refuses to share the simple knowledge of how to make a shield to live with it.

He was also very protective and secretive about his past, especially the parts about Drina, and allegedly not telling Ever was supposed to be for her own good. Ever would have been much better off knowing all the details about his life rather than having to be in a relationship with a guy who doesn't tell her a thing about himself. He never answered any of her questions, which only made her hate him.

Also, if he knew about all her aura-sensing and mind-reading powers, why couldn't he tell her the remedy as soon as they met? Why make her go through another year of hiding behind hoodies and blocking out all the sound with her earphones? Every single problem in Ever's life was because of Damen not teaching her stuff he already knew.

Anyway, enough ranting about Damen. The story was good, I guess. The whole book felt like this watered-down version of Twilight: Ever, a slightly better version of Bella, but Damen this horrible, horrible man trying his level best to be like Edward.

It was like all the usual fantasy romance novels mixed together into one mush -the usual boring protagonist whose lack of family and friends gives her the perfect excuse to be mean to everyone, the usual perfect handsome hero whom everyone likes but who has eyes only for the main character, usual useless friends and other hovering people (like her aunt), usual not-exactly-a-plot plot - everything you can expect from a fantasy romance book, but slightly worse.

Writing this review has made me realise just how much I hate Damen and the author's lack of originality, so perhaps I didn't like this book quite as much as I'd initially thought, but it's (probably) good enough to read once.

House of Earth and Blood : Crescent City #1 by Sarah J. Maas - Book Review (no spoilers)

This amazing modern fantasy series is one of Maas' most recent books. Every page is packed with the Fae (who star in most of her books) lots of magic, mystery, suspense and action. Maybe this book review is a little biased since I love Sarah J. Maas so much, but I can assure you, I will try to speak the truth and nothing but the truth (hopefully).

For those of you who haven't heard of this book, I'll warn you, it's supposed to be an adult book, rated 18+ by almost everyone (expect me).

I loved loved loved this book so much. Although it was a big fat book of more than 700 pages, once I finished I was still thirsting for more. Despite this being only the first book in her series, it has a proper ending, and someone who is not looking for an entire series they'll have to read, this book can do the trick.

Now it's not like I'm saying this book doesn't contain bad language and swear words on almost every page, or extremely detailed "bedroom scenes" and a protagonist (Bryce Quinlan) who does drinks and drugs and parties in bars everyday, (because believe me, this is all the first few pages contain), but I'm saying that almost-adults and most young teens could handle it too.

I found the swearing extremely unnecessary, something Maas had just added to make her otherwise YA book an adult. The book could have much better without it, and since she used only a limited number of curse words, it made the book sound very repetitive and basically everything Bryce met having the same swear-word adjective.

The story was great, most of the good characters were likable (Bryce more after her best friends died and her drug addiction ended), and of course the story-building and writing style was amazing, since it was a Sarah J. Maas.

Another slightly annoying thing was how there were so many other nice characters in the book that the author could have developed but she chose to concentrate on Bryce and Hunt's thoughts about each other and the "tension" between them or other stuff that wasn't very necessary. Now I don't even remember the names of any of the side characters except that there was a tiny flying fire, a dog, a merman, Bryce's boss, Bryce's brother, his friends and a big fish living in a tank. See? So many characters to write about who could've made the story more interesting, especially during the slow beginning.

If you are reading this book right now, or are planning to read this book in the future, I will urge you to not give up on it after reading the first few (hundred) pages because the story changes drastically (for the better) as it proceeds, you'll get used to the swear words (which will gradually decrease in number too), and both Bryce and Hunt Athalar will start seeming like better people than they did in the beginning.

Any other bad characteristics of the book that I may have found while reading it, I don't remember anymore, because as the story developed, I could only think of how much I loved it and how I wanted to read more, more and more. The author is great at keeping people hooked to her work and wanting to read the next chapter or the next book without even having to end the previous one on a cliff-hanger, which I find really nice (especially because the second book of Crescent City hasn't been released yet and I would've gone half-mad with rage if I'd had to leave such a nice story without a proper ending for another year or so).

Before starting this book, you should definitely consider if you want to read something rated eighteen plus by the author and basically every publication or review company out there, but if you think you can manage, I can guarantee you'll have loads of fun and an enjoyable journey you won't regret.

The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer - Book Review (No spoilers)

I think by now everyone has heard about the infamous Twilight series. I had received so many conflicting reviews about these books that I couldn't wait to get started to see if I liked them or not, and once I finished, I'll admit I was satisfied with what I read.

For the most part, I'm not into romance. And thankfully no scene in this series was very graphic or disturbing, which contributed towards making it a good, light and fun series to read.

It follows Bella Swan, a seventeen-year-old girl, who moves into her dad's house in the rainy town of Forks, Washington. There she meets the mysterious Cullen family and also her father's friend's son, Jacob Black. 

The story itself didn't pick up until much later into the first book, but I supposed they are called Romance Fantasies for a reason. The beginning wasn't too boring though- we got to know about Bella's life, and then the development of her relationship with Edward Cullen. The next books contained more of the story (for which I was glad) and I personally found the last book the best.

A big issue people have with this book is how Edward immediately fell in love with Bella without even getting to know her and why he even noticed her in the first place, when there were so many other evidently prettier girls going to the same school for years. This didn't bother me quite so much, since so many books have the concept of love at first sight, and the author did write about how their casual friendship turned into a dedicated relationship for Bella, which made it more believable.

Bella was depicted as a weak-minded, clumsy, and not-so-independent protagonist. She would often blindly trust and believe people when they told her anything, and took rash decisions without thinking them through. It started to get a little annoying when Edward became the boss of Bella and started telling her what to do and what not to do and she followed every instruction of his- him being a great old vampire.

Overall, I feel that the good parts of the story more than made up for the bad parts. There were never any boring or dull bits in the series which I might have felt like skimming through or skipping. The author has always kept the story going in some form or the other, even making Bella's clumsiness a cause for humour at times.

The Red Queen Series by Victoria Aveyard - Book Review

I honestly hated this book from the bottom of my heart.

The characters, story-building, writing style, and every other thing about this book was just so bad. And I'm talking totally repulsive. As in absolute, ten-out-of-ten, come-out-on-top quality junk.

I'll start with the characters.

Mare- where do I even begin with this woman (girl? I really don't know). She was so whiny. I could not stand her at all; so much that I was tempted to shut the book and run away every time one of the chapters with her point-of-view started. And the worst part is, the chapters having her POV were probably the best ones from the whole series (more on that later). 

She was so indecisive, she couldn't even make up her mind about whether she liked this guy called Cal or not and that was okay and all until they started breaking up and getting back together like two dozen times in each book. And there were four books. Yeah, you can do the math. I had to suffer through about a hundred of their break-ups and just as many patch-ups. Boring much? You bet it was.

And it was so annoying how the "Little Lightning Girl" was liked by each and every person who met her, if not at first sight, then eventually. I personally found not a single quality of hers likable. Perhaps it was her oh-so-selfless attitude, how she wasn't even willing to use up a tiny bit of her great "electricon" powers to take down a few bomber planes that would otherwise kill thousands. Or maybe it was how she was so humble, always wallowing in self-pity and thinking that she deserved the world for her troubles- forcing innocent people to join her lost cause and sending them on death missions from the safety of her cave or wherever she lived when she wasn't home at Sticks or Sills or Stilts or wherever. Then it must have been the pleasant way she treated people, ignoring her childhood best friend, even after he did so much for her, just because he did not have powers, constantly breaking up with Cal (how many ever times I mention this, it won't be enough), being rude to anyone and everyone who tried to help, and in short being the absolute epitome of horridness. Idiotic hypocrite. I hate her so much.

I could go on and on about how much I hate Mare but I think you get my point and she doesn't deserve so much of our attention anyway.

Cal was another horrible hunk of a man, Maven seemed sensible enough except for the fact that he was in love with Mare (like seriously, who wasn't?) and the fact that HE WAS THE VILLAIN SO HE DIED. Evangeline, Cameron, and Iris were added for just more unnecessary points of view. The Iris parts were the most boring things ever, closely followed by those of Cameron  (who initially hated Mare but, like everyone else, eventually crossed over to the dark side) and then Evangeline's, which, yes, makes Whiny Mare the Annoying Little Lightning Girl the most "enjoyable" read.

The writing style was moderate at best, exceedingly repetitive, boring, and with long descriptions, which were okay, except that they were long. And boring. And trash.

The ending was so stupid. It was as if the author couldn't decide how to end the series so she decided to randomly kill the villain, leave Mare and Cal's "relationship" hanging, have neither monarchy nor democracy in whatever their country was called, leaving their land with neither a Red Queen nor a Silver King, and basically rendering the entire series useless.

I think I might've liked this series better if it had been shorter. Maybe a trilogy. Or a single book. Or "Mare is born. She discovers she has powers. Falls in love with Cal *100. Hates Cal *100. End of story."

Or maybe if it hadn't existed at all.