Mental Health Bookclub discussion

NB - if you have a series of books that includes "half step" books (e.g. #0.5), they all count. E.g. the Divergent series is technically a trilogy, but there's also the half step books about Four's back story, so that would really make more than four books in the series.

Some notable series (listing the first books)
Divergent - Divergent
The Hunger Games - Hunger Games
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Harry Potter
Twilight - Twilight
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency
The Magician's Nephew - The Chronicles of Narnia
My Brilliant Friend - The Neapolitan Novels
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Millennium

Discussion prompts
- What will you / did you read for this task? What did you think?
- What series is it from and where in the series does it fall?
- Do you like series of books or do you prefer standalone works?
- What advantages do series have over standalone works?

For this task, I read Cinder, a YA fantasy retelling of Cinderella, and first in the Lunar Chronicles series. I thought it was pretty innovative actually, it's set in the future and Cinderella is a cyborg...I feel like that description makes it sound TERRIBLE, but never mind! Looking forward to reading the next in the series, I think it's a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, but it's all weaved into the same universe as Cinder (I think).

I used to really like series, and still do, but because I'm such a book fiend I'm always off onto the next thing, and don't always want to commit to a full series...buuut if I leave it too long, I'll forget what happened in the last book!

Having a series can be great to tell a much longer story, create a whole rich universe, that sort of thing, whereas a standalone has to fit everything into one book. That said, I hate it when an author stretches something out into a series for no reason (other than clearly money!). I've had a few of those where it inexplicably has to be a trilogy, and the third one is rubbish because they've run out of things to say! That's just my little bug bear.