Do you read books of a series in chronological order?

[erasmus]

It's almost like an obsession for me. If I skip a book or mess up the order of the series I'm reading, I feel as though my reading experience is extinguished.

Do you absolutely have to read your books in chronological order?

[S dot Lennon]

I'm with you! I absolutely have to. I hate when I stumble on a book that I didnt know was a series then I have to backtrack to the first book and so on. I prefer to read in the order the books were published.

[gali]

Of course! Like you and Stacy I have to read them in order. I also must have all the books in the series before starting it.

[JenniferBoyce]

I prefer to read books of a series in chronological order, but sometimes I end up reading a book in the middle of the series first. When that happens, I usually go back to the beginning and read the first book, reading in order and skipping the book that I had already read.

I also feel flustered when I read books out of order, feeling as if it has messed up the story in some way.

[Lhall22]

yes, i definitely do.

[dina77]

I am the same as Jennifer - sometimes I read one mid series but then end up going back to the beginning again but I don't skip the book I had read already.

[Lovely_Ink]

I usually get caught up in serial books by accident and out of order. If I find an interesting book that is part of a series I will read it and then go back to the beginning of the series to get caught up to where I am.

[Emmybuddy]

Yes! But I always have to read the last page of a book before I read it so I know the ending anyway

[Happily Candied]

I read books out of order when I was younger, but I found that I didn't get as much out of the series after a while. I later changed my habit, and I always read books within a series in order nowadays.

[lera_elizabeth]

Yes! If the book I'm reading has a series, I make sure I read the series in order! It feels more complete that way, then having the books mixed up. I feel like instead of reading different books part of a series, I'm really just reading a continuous story.

[KirstyJ1994]

Definitely! You have to read a series in order!

[erasmus]

Glad to see a number of people agree with me. When I see an interesting book, I'll google it and if it's part of a series and the first book's not in my hand, I'll put it back onto a the shelf, then search for the first book before I begin reading.

[runnergirl13-1]

Why wouldn't you? Otherwise the book has no mystery and not exciting what so ever.

[CourtneyRac1]

Yes because I wouldn't understand otherwise.

[erasmus]

I have to disagree, runnergirl and CourtneyRac.

I used to read books out of order when I was younger because I didn't know to ensure that the book was part of a series (e.g. The Boxcar Children or Nancy Drew etc.). However, the book was still exciting as ever. However, now that I know better, I feel uneasy when I skip a book. It does not mean that the book isn't as good; I'm just not experiencing what I feel the author wants the readers to when he or she wrote the series in that particular order.

Nowadays, I find that even when you mess up the order of books, most of them make little recaps when they refer to an event that happened in an earlier book so readers wouldn't be completely clueless.