So I grabbed a thriller off the library shelf because, mainly, it didn't say "A John Doe Story" or whoever, because if I liked the book, I'd be wanting to have read the series in order. However, now that I've read a bit, I don't like the book. It reads like a Tom Clancy parody, but it's not. After three chapters I've given up, but I looked up the best selling author and he's a Heritage Foundation guy, Fox News commenter, etc. Yeesh. Plus, it IS a book in a series. I"m going to return the book and see if I can get it expunged from my borrower's record. #bookstodon
@killick I have made a single exception to the movie/book rule, and that was with GoT. After watching season 1, I had to be assured that Geoffrey would die the agonizing death he deserved, so I read the series. Then, of course, by the end of the show it had veered wildly from the books, even though the first 3 seasons followed pretty closely.
@AlliFlowers I agree. Reading a series in order is my preferred method, but I broke that rule once and it turned out OK. I saw the first Bosch TV season (based on books my Michael Connelly) before I read the books. I started reading them in the order they were available at my library. There were some plot giveaways here and there, but I still did enjoy them. What I also found enjoyable were the frequent variations between the books and the TV series. Not all the characters in the books and TV show have the same path, even if they shared a name. The TV writers did a really good job with that, I felt.
Also, I don't mind a long book. But a hefty book can be annoying. My one-volume print edition of the Lord of the Rings was a literal handful. I don't mind as much now that I use an e-reader.