**A Series of Disappointments: A Reader's Journey**

As I embark on this literary journey, I must confess that my enthusiasm was tempered by the realization that not all books live up to their promise. In this article, I will share my experiences with three series that left me feeling underwhelmed and disappointed.

My first experience was with a book from the celestial Empire series, which had the potential to be incredibly captivating. The premise of the story is intriguing, with our protagonist embarking on an adventure through the empire in search of training to save her mother and defeat the evil King once again. However, I found the pacing issues to be severe, making it difficult for me to connect with the characters or feel any sense of stakes or emotional investment. The world-building was also impressive, with its Chinese mythology-inspired backdrop, but ultimately, the book failed to deliver on its promise.

I must admit that my next two experiences were not much better. I decided to give the Crescent City series by Sarah J. Maas a try, despite having enjoyed her previous works. Unfortunately, the second book, "House of Sky and Breath," was a complete letdown for me. The pacing was off, with long stretches of irrelevant plot and too many male POV characters that made me feel like I was reading pointlessness. I also struggled with the main character and romantic pairing, which only added to my frustration. While I had high hopes for this series, it failed to deliver on its promise.

In contrast, my experience with "Book of Night" by Holly Black was more nuanced. As a huge fan of her previous works, I was excited to dive into her first adult fantasy release. Unfortunately, the book did not live up to my expectations. The world-building and magical system were interesting, but the plot was underwhelming, and the reveal was far too predictable. I found myself feeling disappointed and frustrated with the lack of tension or surprises throughout the story. While I am willing to give her another chance with the second book, I must admit that "Book of Night" left me feeling shortchanged.

**A Reader's Disappointment**

I have come to realize that not every book is going to meet my expectations, and sometimes it's okay to acknowledge when a series has failed to deliver. While I may continue to try out other books in these series, I must admit that I will approach them with a healthy dose of skepticism. I am eager to hear from you, dear readers, about your own experiences with DNFs (Did Not Finish). Have you ever come across a series or book that left you feeling underwhelmed or disappointed? What was it about the story that failed to resonate with you? Share your thoughts and let's discuss our shared love of reading in the comments below.

**A Call for Community**

As I close this article, I want to emphasize the importance of community and sharing experiences with fellow readers. While my disappointment may have been specific to these books, I know that many of us have felt similarly about other stories. By connecting with one another, we can share our thoughts, recommendations, and reviews, helping each other navigate the vast world of literature. If you've had a similar experience with a series or book, please let me know in the comments below. Together, we can create a supportive community that celebrates reading and discusses its intricacies.

**A Final Farewell**

As I bid farewell to these disappointing series, I am reminded that not every book will be a perfect fit for my reading tastes. While it's okay to acknowledge disappointment, I remain committed to exploring new stories and authors. Who knows what future reads will bring? Perhaps the next series or book will surprise me with its depth and complexity. Until then, I bid you adieu, dear readers, and look forward to our next literary adventure together.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys it's Reagan and welcome back to another video today's video is a bit of an update to the controversial Style video I like to do semi regularly that's right today I'm going to be chatting about book series I do not plan to finish obviously I do a lot of reading around here and despite the fact that I don't actually like to dnf books that much I do try to be relatively on top of like recognizing series I just don't see myself moving forward with and today I actually have nine series that I feel like I'm gonna stop continuing with again this is nothing against these series if you love them that's amazing I wish I did too but for whatever reason either because I really did not like it or just didn't really move me or compel me to continue on I've decided to put these series to the side but let's just go ahead and Dive Right In the first series I'm gonna talk about might not be too much of a surprise and that is the blood and Ash series by Jennifer L armentrout it's no secret I love a fantasy romance story series I'm always on the hunt for them I think it's such a fun combination of all of my favorite things princesses War supernatural creatures and a romance like what's there not to love so needless to say I was really excited to check out this series by Jennifer L armentrout as it is kind of like a more medieval setting for Vampires versus Werewolves which is a really classic Showdown I read the first two books in the series and I didn't necessarily love the first one but I did feel like it was compelling enough to continue on but I found the second book to be completely without a plot and honestly very boring and very repetitive and I also feel like the ante was being pushed in a direction like it was trying to raise the ante but it was also like very illogical to me that I just found the plot to be very unconvincing if you know what I mean but if you're not familiar this series is a very like new adult fantasy romance it definitely leans more in the romance direction we follow our main character who's like pure she's a religious figure very pure no one's allowed to touch her talk to her except the ruler at the beginning of this book she's assigned a new guard you all see where this is going they form a connection yada yada she begins to question everything around her including the very government itself he falls in love with her guard she falls into the Rebellion lots of things kind of take off from there again generally intriguing plot but it really falls apart especially in the second book and I just did not find it very compelling and these books are so long if these were like 200 300 Pages like maybe I'd keep going to see if it got better but they're like 700 pages long so anyway this is a long winded way to say I am not continuing the blood and Ash series even though I feel like I spent a lot of time in this series I've just gotta let it go next up I have to sleep in a sea of stars by Christopher Paolini this is the only book I've read by Christopher Paolini and needless to say I was very disappointed when I ended up thinking it was super boring according to the internet this is the first of four books in this like Space Opera series by this author and unfortunately it was a huge letdown for me and this is a story that follows our main character Kira and she sort of dreams of Adventure or kind of just exploring the outer reaches of the Galaxy but during kind of a routine surveillance for her job she stumbles upon a piece of ancient alien technology which kind of like attaches itself to her in the form of this suit which also grants her very strong abilities unfortunately for her this suit is not only not removable but also kind of a beacon for everyone in the area to kind of go after her to try to claim this piece of technology for themselves also kind of flags down possibly the aliens themselves so it kind of all escalates very quickly I think conceptually it's a really interesting book I love a Sci-Fi story we're kind of jumping from planet to planet I love when we're also primarily on a ship and there's a crew of fall in love with I just found all the characters in this book to be rather flat and this is another very long story and I felt like a lot of the action scenes felt very very repetitive and ultimately by the end I was ready for it to end uh and I just don't really see myself uh checking out more books in this world even though conceptually speaking I do think it's interesting but like for a series that's supposed to be like Breakneck and so plot forward I was bored to be honest and because of that I just don't really see myself you know reaching for books two three or four obviously if someone comes to me and it's like Reagan the first one's bad but like the rest of the series is amazing who knows but I have no plans absolutely no plans I don't even own the book anymore it's gone I don't think I own any of these books anymore next is the crown of feathers series by Nikki palpretto this was a why a series I actually re-read in the rereading process I feel like I completely changed my rating for it initially when I read it I thought I loved this series it was such such an interesting why fantasy story that I felt like was really compelling it basically is set in a world where there is this Empire that sort of overthrew the previous regime which was once ruled by very powerful warrior queens who could ride phoenixes now though any woman associated with magic is like hunted down and a lot of people had to flee this Empire the new rulers took power we follow two sisters that are connected to this regime and they have been hiding their magic their entire life and they also dream of finding a Phoenix egg to become a phoenix writer they have a very complicated relationship and I think this is definitely the most compelling aspect of the book this sort of sisterly Bond that's also like rivals in some aspects follow her main character as she hatches a Phoenix egg and actually disguises herself as a boy to become a phoenix writer and things kind of begin to spiral from there I think this book had so much potential I liked the writing and the concept but in re-reading it I really began to realize like how flat the plot was and how flat the character development was and some aspects of the relationship felt very insta-lovey to me and just not everything really added up in a way that I found it as enjoyable the second time around um it makes me sad because I really wanted to love this but upon rereading it I just don't know if I'm going to carry on with the rest of the books in this Trilogy I do think I check out other books by this author though because there's aspects of their writing and their plotting that I did like in a world where there's so many books I want to read I just don't see myself kind of prioritizing books two and three in this Trilogy anytime soon with that same vein and I also have for the wolf by Hannah F witton this is a book that I neither loved nor hated it kind of sits routinely in the middle and I think like as more time passes and because it didn't really leave like a huge impression on me I just don't really see myself like reading the next installment because I kind of just found the whole experience to be okay another one I feel like that could have been an absolute home run but it just ultimately didn't come together in that way this is like a fairy tale folklore style romance forward fantasy story again so many things I love so I was just as surprised as you were when I ended up reading this and giving it like a 2.75 stars and this follows our main character red and she is the only second daughter of like the ruling family to be born in centuries and she has been raised to be a sacrifice to The Wolf of the woods essentially there's this evil wood whose sort of dark magic seems to be more nefarious year over year and it's kind of devouring the land and kind of threatening the people of this Kingdom the Kingdom's hope is to basically feed red to the forest to quell its hunger but once red is actually given up she realizes that there is no wolf of the wood but actually a magical man who's been trying to fight this Forest took his entire life and she kind of joins forces with him to sort of protect everyone she knows there's obviously a complicated emotional element to this book as read was sacrificed by the one she loves most and you actually follow chapters of her sister back at the Kingdom and you really see their sisterly connection and you also begin to see a romance Blossom again I think on the surface this book sounds amazing but unfortunately just didn't deliver that punch for me that really made me want to like keep reading and also check out book two this one hurts a little bit but I just don't really see myself checking out the next installment the next book on my list is a master of gin this is another one that hurts because the concept of this sounds amazing it is a steam punk detective Noir style story set in the turn of the century in Cairo all of these things are super cool we follow a young woman who is the youngest detective for the ministry of alchemy and basically she investigates like enchantments and spells and all of these things and at the beginning of this book she's basically assigned to investigate a crime that is very off the rails and that a powerful like magical Brotherhood was completely murdered and no one really knows exactly what happened the prime suspect seems to be a powerful magician that hasn't been seen in over 50 years there's a lot of complicated stuff going on I love the world of this book I think the steampunk elements really shined in this but the reason why this is a series I feel like I'm going to dnf is because I guess the ending and I guess the ending early and I feel like for a detective thriller story like so much hinges on the reveal and the whole time I was like oh it's definitely a red herring I don't know what's happening I don't know what's happening and then I did get to the end and it was exactly what I thought I was so let down because so much of it was fantastic but like for me me because I guessed it I feel like I'm always going to be like a little hesitant to check out other books I just feel like if you know what's gonna happen in a thriller like it almost defeats the purpose of the Thriller you know at least for me personally next up I have daughter of the Moon Goddess by sulin tan this is a read I picked up earlier this year and unfortunately it was just really underwhelming conceptually this is another one I really thought I would love because it's a folklore leaning fantasy story we follow the daughter of the moon goddess and she has spent her whole life kind of hiding and keeping her magic hidden with her mother until one day the evil Celestial Emperor actually senses her magic after a flare-up resulting in our main character having to flee from home from there we follow her as she goes on an adventure through the celestial Empire gain training all in hopes of saving her mother and defeating this evil King again sounds cool but unfortunately this book had severe pacing issues for me I felt like everything was happening so fast to the detriment of feeling and any type of like stakes and emotional connectedness to the characters and even the people who were like there and then dead and we're moving on like everything was so fast I just felt like I could never really get my bearings I feel like the world was super cool I obviously love that this book was inspired by Chinese mythology again such great potential but unfortunately just did not land for me at all the next two books I'm gonna chat about are still kind of maybes one of them I'm just trying to give the benefit of the doubt and the other one got me in the last five pages of the book but I feel like the next one is even remotely bad it's over for me um the first one I'm talking about is the Crescent City series by Sarah J Maas I enjoyed the first one actually quite a bit but I read the second one house of sky and breath and despised it it just felt so pointless there were so many men point of views I felt like the plot was really irrelevant like the first chapter was so interesting and the last chapter were so interesting and then there was like just 600 100 pages of like pointlessness it also doesn't help that I really dislike the main character and the main romantic pairing normally though I can get through this when I have other romantic pairings kind of scattered throughout a romance-centered fantasy story but that was not the case in the series I really just despise everyone or the pacing was off which was surprising because generally speaking I find Sarah J Maas books to be very entertaining and this one just absolutely flopped for me which I find to be very disappointing but this is an urban fantasy story set in a city called Crescent City which is a cool concept it's basically a city comprised of lots of different magical and supernatural creatures and they have different neighborhoods kind of controlled by these specific creatures in the first one basically our main character Bryce after a tragedy begins to investigate a crime and she basically hooks up with this like hot angel like investigator and they work together it's a will they won't they we go into book two things begin to escalate the political significance of everything is really On The Rise yada yada yada but there really was no increase of stakes until again the last five pages and now I'm curious and I'm so annoyed that the last five pages were so good because I feel like it's gonna work and I'm gonna read it because I'm curious darn it last book I'm going to talk about is book of night by Holly black the only reason I'm gonna check out book two of this series is because it's written by Holly black who historically I've really enjoyed her novels with beautiful writing great romantic tension and pacing really interesting magical worlds all of these things that I love so much but book of night was so underwhelming from the plot to the pacing to the magic to the reveal like everything about it was just okay um and I was so sad about it because I was so excited about her first adult fan fantasy release this book follows our main character Charlie and she is a really good thief but she's trying to kind of live life not on the edge anymore and she works a regular job as a bartender in this world that she lives in Shadows basically can have magic and the power that Shadows can manifest have like different versions she herself does not have magical Shadow but she used to work in the night market and basically sell magical items for money but again no longer until the beginning of this book some complicated things begin to happen and she kind of has like one last job things really begin to get complicated I do like that the author had chapters both set in the present and the past I do feel like we got to know our main character Charlie pretty well and her motivations unfortunately though like the build up that she was building up just really did not have very interesting payoff and the reveal was just so obvious from the beginning and as I've already stated I hate I hate when I think something is so obvious it'll be red herring and then I'm just completely not tricked at all and it ends up just being so on underwhelming in the end and that's how I feel about book of night I'm gonna give book two a try because I have like so many Holly Black Books in the past but again short leash for sure if I feel like it's boring in the first 100 Pages it's done alrighty guys those are a few book series I do not plan to finish please let me know below some book series you have dnf'd as I would love to know and I will see you soon with another video soon goodbyehi guys it's Reagan and welcome back to another video today's video is a bit of an update to the controversial Style video I like to do semi regularly that's right today I'm going to be chatting about book series I do not plan to finish obviously I do a lot of reading around here and despite the fact that I don't actually like to dnf books that much I do try to be relatively on top of like recognizing series I just don't see myself moving forward with and today I actually have nine series that I feel like I'm gonna stop continuing with again this is nothing against these series if you love them that's amazing I wish I did too but for whatever reason either because I really did not like it or just didn't really move me or compel me to continue on I've decided to put these series to the side but let's just go ahead and Dive Right In the first series I'm gonna talk about might not be too much of a surprise and that is the blood and Ash series by Jennifer L armentrout it's no secret I love a fantasy romance story series I'm always on the hunt for them I think it's such a fun combination of all of my favorite things princesses War supernatural creatures and a romance like what's there not to love so needless to say I was really excited to check out this series by Jennifer L armentrout as it is kind of like a more medieval setting for Vampires versus Werewolves which is a really classic Showdown I read the first two books in the series and I didn't necessarily love the first one but I did feel like it was compelling enough to continue on but I found the second book to be completely without a plot and honestly very boring and very repetitive and I also feel like the ante was being pushed in a direction like it was trying to raise the ante but it was also like very illogical to me that I just found the plot to be very unconvincing if you know what I mean but if you're not familiar this series is a very like new adult fantasy romance it definitely leans more in the romance direction we follow our main character who's like pure she's a religious figure very pure no one's allowed to touch her talk to her except the ruler at the beginning of this book she's assigned a new guard you all see where this is going they form a connection yada yada she begins to question everything around her including the very government itself he falls in love with her guard she falls into the Rebellion lots of things kind of take off from there again generally intriguing plot but it really falls apart especially in the second book and I just did not find it very compelling and these books are so long if these were like 200 300 Pages like maybe I'd keep going to see if it got better but they're like 700 pages long so anyway this is a long winded way to say I am not continuing the blood and Ash series even though I feel like I spent a lot of time in this series I've just gotta let it go next up I have to sleep in a sea of stars by Christopher Paolini this is the only book I've read by Christopher Paolini and needless to say I was very disappointed when I ended up thinking it was super boring according to the internet this is the first of four books in this like Space Opera series by this author and unfortunately it was a huge letdown for me and this is a story that follows our main character Kira and she sort of dreams of Adventure or kind of just exploring the outer reaches of the Galaxy but during kind of a routine surveillance for her job she stumbles upon a piece of ancient alien technology which kind of like attaches itself to her in the form of this suit which also grants her very strong abilities unfortunately for her this suit is not only not removable but also kind of a beacon for everyone in the area to kind of go after her to try to claim this piece of technology for themselves also kind of flags down possibly the aliens themselves so it kind of all escalates very quickly I think conceptually it's a really interesting book I love a Sci-Fi story we're kind of jumping from planet to planet I love when we're also primarily on a ship and there's a crew of fall in love with I just found all the characters in this book to be rather flat and this is another very long story and I felt like a lot of the action scenes felt very very repetitive and ultimately by the end I was ready for it to end uh and I just don't really see myself uh checking out more books in this world even though conceptually speaking I do think it's interesting but like for a series that's supposed to be like Breakneck and so plot forward I was bored to be honest and because of that I just don't really see myself you know reaching for books two three or four obviously if someone comes to me and it's like Reagan the first one's bad but like the rest of the series is amazing who knows but I have no plans absolutely no plans I don't even own the book anymore it's gone I don't think I own any of these books anymore next is the crown of feathers series by Nikki palpretto this was a why a series I actually re-read in the rereading process I feel like I completely changed my rating for it initially when I read it I thought I loved this series it was such such an interesting why fantasy story that I felt like was really compelling it basically is set in a world where there is this Empire that sort of overthrew the previous regime which was once ruled by very powerful warrior queens who could ride phoenixes now though any woman associated with magic is like hunted down and a lot of people had to flee this Empire the new rulers took power we follow two sisters that are connected to this regime and they have been hiding their magic their entire life and they also dream of finding a Phoenix egg to become a phoenix writer they have a very complicated relationship and I think this is definitely the most compelling aspect of the book this sort of sisterly Bond that's also like rivals in some aspects follow her main character as she hatches a Phoenix egg and actually disguises herself as a boy to become a phoenix writer and things kind of begin to spiral from there I think this book had so much potential I liked the writing and the concept but in re-reading it I really began to realize like how flat the plot was and how flat the character development was and some aspects of the relationship felt very insta-lovey to me and just not everything really added up in a way that I found it as enjoyable the second time around um it makes me sad because I really wanted to love this but upon rereading it I just don't know if I'm going to carry on with the rest of the books in this Trilogy I do think I check out other books by this author though because there's aspects of their writing and their plotting that I did like in a world where there's so many books I want to read I just don't see myself kind of prioritizing books two and three in this Trilogy anytime soon with that same vein and I also have for the wolf by Hannah F witton this is a book that I neither loved nor hated it kind of sits routinely in the middle and I think like as more time passes and because it didn't really leave like a huge impression on me I just don't really see myself like reading the next installment because I kind of just found the whole experience to be okay another one I feel like that could have been an absolute home run but it just ultimately didn't come together in that way this is like a fairy tale folklore style romance forward fantasy story again so many things I love so I was just as surprised as you were when I ended up reading this and giving it like a 2.75 stars and this follows our main character red and she is the only second daughter of like the ruling family to be born in centuries and she has been raised to be a sacrifice to The Wolf of the woods essentially there's this evil wood whose sort of dark magic seems to be more nefarious year over year and it's kind of devouring the land and kind of threatening the people of this Kingdom the Kingdom's hope is to basically feed red to the forest to quell its hunger but once red is actually given up she realizes that there is no wolf of the wood but actually a magical man who's been trying to fight this Forest took his entire life and she kind of joins forces with him to sort of protect everyone she knows there's obviously a complicated emotional element to this book as read was sacrificed by the one she loves most and you actually follow chapters of her sister back at the Kingdom and you really see their sisterly connection and you also begin to see a romance Blossom again I think on the surface this book sounds amazing but unfortunately just didn't deliver that punch for me that really made me want to like keep reading and also check out book two this one hurts a little bit but I just don't really see myself checking out the next installment the next book on my list is a master of gin this is another one that hurts because the concept of this sounds amazing it is a steam punk detective Noir style story set in the turn of the century in Cairo all of these things are super cool we follow a young woman who is the youngest detective for the ministry of alchemy and basically she investigates like enchantments and spells and all of these things and at the beginning of this book she's basically assigned to investigate a crime that is very off the rails and that a powerful like magical Brotherhood was completely murdered and no one really knows exactly what happened the prime suspect seems to be a powerful magician that hasn't been seen in over 50 years there's a lot of complicated stuff going on I love the world of this book I think the steampunk elements really shined in this but the reason why this is a series I feel like I'm going to dnf is because I guess the ending and I guess the ending early and I feel like for a detective thriller story like so much hinges on the reveal and the whole time I was like oh it's definitely a red herring I don't know what's happening I don't know what's happening and then I did get to the end and it was exactly what I thought I was so let down because so much of it was fantastic but like for me me because I guessed it I feel like I'm always going to be like a little hesitant to check out other books I just feel like if you know what's gonna happen in a thriller like it almost defeats the purpose of the Thriller you know at least for me personally next up I have daughter of the Moon Goddess by sulin tan this is a read I picked up earlier this year and unfortunately it was just really underwhelming conceptually this is another one I really thought I would love because it's a folklore leaning fantasy story we follow the daughter of the moon goddess and she has spent her whole life kind of hiding and keeping her magic hidden with her mother until one day the evil Celestial Emperor actually senses her magic after a flare-up resulting in our main character having to flee from home from there we follow her as she goes on an adventure through the celestial Empire gain training all in hopes of saving her mother and defeating this evil King again sounds cool but unfortunately this book had severe pacing issues for me I felt like everything was happening so fast to the detriment of feeling and any type of like stakes and emotional connectedness to the characters and even the people who were like there and then dead and we're moving on like everything was so fast I just felt like I could never really get my bearings I feel like the world was super cool I obviously love that this book was inspired by Chinese mythology again such great potential but unfortunately just did not land for me at all the next two books I'm gonna chat about are still kind of maybes one of them I'm just trying to give the benefit of the doubt and the other one got me in the last five pages of the book but I feel like the next one is even remotely bad it's over for me um the first one I'm talking about is the Crescent City series by Sarah J Maas I enjoyed the first one actually quite a bit but I read the second one house of sky and breath and despised it it just felt so pointless there were so many men point of views I felt like the plot was really irrelevant like the first chapter was so interesting and the last chapter were so interesting and then there was like just 600 100 pages of like pointlessness it also doesn't help that I really dislike the main character and the main romantic pairing normally though I can get through this when I have other romantic pairings kind of scattered throughout a romance-centered fantasy story but that was not the case in the series I really just despise everyone or the pacing was off which was surprising because generally speaking I find Sarah J Maas books to be very entertaining and this one just absolutely flopped for me which I find to be very disappointing but this is an urban fantasy story set in a city called Crescent City which is a cool concept it's basically a city comprised of lots of different magical and supernatural creatures and they have different neighborhoods kind of controlled by these specific creatures in the first one basically our main character Bryce after a tragedy begins to investigate a crime and she basically hooks up with this like hot angel like investigator and they work together it's a will they won't they we go into book two things begin to escalate the political significance of everything is really On The Rise yada yada yada but there really was no increase of stakes until again the last five pages and now I'm curious and I'm so annoyed that the last five pages were so good because I feel like it's gonna work and I'm gonna read it because I'm curious darn it last book I'm going to talk about is book of night by Holly black the only reason I'm gonna check out book two of this series is because it's written by Holly black who historically I've really enjoyed her novels with beautiful writing great romantic tension and pacing really interesting magical worlds all of these things that I love so much but book of night was so underwhelming from the plot to the pacing to the magic to the reveal like everything about it was just okay um and I was so sad about it because I was so excited about her first adult fan fantasy release this book follows our main character Charlie and she is a really good thief but she's trying to kind of live life not on the edge anymore and she works a regular job as a bartender in this world that she lives in Shadows basically can have magic and the power that Shadows can manifest have like different versions she herself does not have magical Shadow but she used to work in the night market and basically sell magical items for money but again no longer until the beginning of this book some complicated things begin to happen and she kind of has like one last job things really begin to get complicated I do like that the author had chapters both set in the present and the past I do feel like we got to know our main character Charlie pretty well and her motivations unfortunately though like the build up that she was building up just really did not have very interesting payoff and the reveal was just so obvious from the beginning and as I've already stated I hate I hate when I think something is so obvious it'll be red herring and then I'm just completely not tricked at all and it ends up just being so on underwhelming in the end and that's how I feel about book of night I'm gonna give book two a try because I have like so many Holly Black Books in the past but again short leash for sure if I feel like it's boring in the first 100 Pages it's done alrighty guys those are a few book series I do not plan to finish please let me know below some book series you have dnf'd as I would love to know and I will see you soon with another video soon goodbye\n"