Books Should Come with a Warning Label

Somehow, while looking for something else, I ran across Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Even though I'm not reading much fiction these days, I picked it up and figured I'd give it a shot.

(It happens to be by Ransom Riggs who sounded familiar but I couldn't place until I found the note in his bio that he writes for Mental Floss!)

The good news is, the book was amazing. 


The bad news is that - for the second time this year - I have accidentally picked up and loved a book that was the first in a series... a series that is currently a work in progress.

*sigh*

I try very hard to avoid getting into unfinished series because they require patience and attention - one must wait for new books to come out and remember to be paying attention, often a year or more later, when they do.

Yes, I know I can stick a note in my planner and try to forget until then. But it is only fair to point out that my father (also an avid reader - both my parents are) actually had an author die in the middle of writing a wonderful series and was left never knowing what would have happened! How incredibly annoying would that be?! Who wants to take a chance on that?

So, I have a business proposal for book publishers: all books that are part of a as-yet unfinished series should be clearly marked with a big, bright note tell people so.

Not on the book itself, obviously, but on the amazon.com page and/or the book's website. It can be removed once the series is complete, but in the meantime those of us who agonize over the wait to find out what happens next can choose to bump the book down ten or twelve places on our long reading list and come back to it when we can read the whole thing. If we fail to check the page before picking up the book, the onus is on us, but please give us a chance!

What do you think? Is waiting for the next book in a series a form of unnecessary torment or a delicious anticipation that's a savored part of the reading experience?