When I blogged about my "10 Signs I'm Addicted to a Book", it got me thinking about why I find some books more addicting than others.
I find that the most addicting books fall into one of two categories. Either they're part of a series, and I'm eager to see where things are going, or they're told in a non-linear format. So here are four of each variety, which I hope you will find as addicting as I did!
Exciting Series
- Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle is irresistible to me. I loved rereading The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves, and then I blew through Blue Lily, Lily Blue and The Raven King each in less than a day when they were first published.
- Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles are similarly addicting. I devoured all 5 (six! if you count short stories) of these in rapid fashion.
- I basically speed-read the new entries in C.S. Harris's Sebastian St. Cyr series too (there are twelve in the series so far, so you have a lot of great books to look forward to if you haven't read any!). It's not so much about the mysteries as it is about the relationships between the main characters.
- Which is also true of Deborah Crombie's Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James series. It's only been a couple months since the last one came out, and I'm already itching for a new one. (Just FYI: the first four are good, but slightly cozy-ish. Starting in book five the series gets AMAZING.)
Nonlinear Plot Lines
- I found Kate Atkinson's Life After Life mesmerizing, largely because of the cyclical plot. I kept thinking I'd just read one more life, and then Ursula's current life would end badly, and I would keep reading to see what happened in the next life.
- Kate Morton's books are always unputdownable, because I get all absorbed in the modern part, and then it flashes back to the past, and I'm like, oh I'll just read a little, and then I finish the past section, and then it's the modern part again, and I'm like, well, maybe I'll just read a chapter or two to see what the modern day characters are up to, and then... this is why I read all four of her books lickety-split, and I'm excited about the new one this fall.
- I do the same thing with Susanna Kearsley's books too. The flash-back-and-forward thing gets me every time!
- And the nonlinear format is why Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies was so fantastic. It starts out by telling you someone is dead, but not who is dead, or who killed them, or why. And then it goes back SIX MONTHS, and slowly goes through all the events that led up to the night of the death. You're literally 90% done with the book before you even find out who died. I thought *I* was going to die of suspense before I was done reading it. And Truly, Madly, Guilty was similarly suspenseful too!
What books do you find addicting?
(Originally published in 2015, but updated a bit in 2017. I have to say - if I was writing this post now, Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series and Jodi Thompson's Chronicles of St. Mary's would totally make the addicting list too! I need to find a new nonlinear author though... any recommendations?)
