Middle Grade Madness! discussion

Rules on spoilers:
*All spoilers for book 6 DO need to be hidden in spoiler tags.*
All spoilers for book 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 DO NOT need to be hidden.
It's a given that if you're on this discussion page then you've read book 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5, so all spoilers for book 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 don't need to be hidden. If you haven't read book 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 and you're here, read comments at your own discretion!

Ok so by book 5 we all seemed to have given up on this series... but I wasn't sure if anyone still was reading it.
If no one participates in this month's reading I guess we'll just drop this readathon. It's already been a major success in my book (no pun intended) considering it made me read the first 4 books in a series I probably would never have read otherwise.

Let me know below if you're planning on reading book 6 in June! I'm not sure if I'll be reading book 6 but I may read book 5...

Haven't read book 5 but Shannon Messenger just announced KOTLC book 9 to be released Fall 2022! Will I read the rest of the series before then? Absolutely no idea lol

@Spencer Fall like October/November? Is it a coincidence that it’s coming out at the same time as the next Nevermoor book? Considering their stiff competition... I’m suspicious! But I don’t know enough about publishing schedules to actually say it’s more than coincidence🤔

I would bet money that it’s not even going to be the last KotLC book. I bet she’ll keep going till she finally publishes a 1000 page book😂 (you know because the page number gets bigger with each book in the series)

Oh dear. I do hope it's the last one. Also yeah it's really weird she announced for around the same time as Nevermoor only a few days after that announcement too hmmm. I'm a little baffled as to why KotLC seems to have a bigger fanbase but I guess it's partly because Shannon Messenger isn't a new author and this series has been going for a while.

Bruh, I honestly think it will have ATLEAST ten books. I say this because, given what has happened up until now (book 8 + 8.5) there is no way she can finish it in book 9. She has too many balls in the air. Messenger drops one only to add another. Maybe she's going for a record? I wonder how many total pages are in the series.

But in the meantime, I've just ordered book 3 of Nevermoor.

Speaking of the KoTLC fanbase, yeah its blown me away. I follow the subreddit and people honestly can point out every detail and are coming up with intricate theories. I can't even remember the details of the MAIN plot. LOL

@Spencer the fact that the announcements were days apart makes me even more suspicious. Tbh it’s probably a ploy from her marketing team to steal nevermoor’s thunder because they’re both catering to the same audience.

I get why KotLC has a larger fanbase and it can be summed up in one word: ships. Romance sells! Even in mg it sells. That’s why the shipping is so forced onto the reader in the books, Shannon Messenger knows that in terms of plot her books are steaming piles of convoluted messes so she relies on the romances to hook the reader AND another tactic of hers is to suggest everything. I mean think about it: every time Sophie doesn’t know what’s going on (which is mostly all the time) what does she do? She starts to theorise what’s happening. And fans love theories. Shannon Messenger I swear does not know answers to 3/4 of the questions she asks in the books but that doesn’t matter, it’s the questions that are important. And clearly the fanbase is ok with only questions and no answers... for now and probably forever more🤦🏻‍♀️

@Autumn exactly! The subreddit is filled with 2 things: theories and ships. And that’s all there is to this series.

It makes me sad because Nevermoor is clearly the superior series yet it doesn’t have even half the hype it should and I think that’s because it’s classy. Jessica Townsend has planned every detail and only drops clues when she intends to so there isn’t much to theorise over and there isn’t any romance in the books which is honestly preferable because that would take away from the true plot.

Also yeah Spencer and I calculated that from reading just the first 4 books in the series we’d read like 2500 pages which is insane!

I’m super glad you’re reading Nevermoor book 3! If you want to discuss it whilst you’re reading it we have this thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... I so loved that book!

These last few books have not been enjoyable. I switched to the audio version because I feel too invested with all the pages read to quit now. I wish the parents would step up a bit and parent.

@kadi I agree nevermoore is much better written. The author has a clear purpose in everything KotLC is all over the place

@Danielle that's probably why I've given up on the series! I'm going to end the readathon this month seeing as it seems mostly everyone else has given up on the series too. And YES the way the parents let the kids run wild really gets to me. Like terrible parenting from absolutely everyone🤦🏻‍♀️ Ok mostly just from Sophie's foster parents.