Series that you need to read 2x to fully appreciate.
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I've encountered some series that become better when I read them 2x or more.
That can happen if you read a sequel with certain expectations in mind. Such expectations can make a sequel disappointing when you first read it. However, one a 2nd or even 3rd read, your expectations are gone, and then you can fully enjoy such a sequel on its own merit.
It can also happen when a story is so full of details and events that it becomes difficult to fully grasp it on your 1st read. However, on your 2nd or 3rd read, certain weird events may suddenly make more sense, or you suddenly appreciate humour that you've not recognized before.
Here are 2 examples:Log Horizon. At first, I thought the books became less interesting as the writer lost track of his own plot. However! That was because of the bias of my expectations. After re-reading all of the stories one more time, and then a few more times, I found they were each very well written and interesting on their own and I loved all of them.
A similar thing happened to me with the books of Defeating the demon lord's a cinch. The writing resembles very dry, or maybe sarcastic, humour, which you only understand after a while. You've to read each story 2x, because in your 1st read, your eyes pop out from the craziness of the story line, so you've to get acclimatized to it before you can really enjoy it on your 2nd read.
I think it also partially applies to the series of Overlord, although not as dramatically as these other two because I like all those stories right from reading them the 1st time. Even so, I think it's worth mentioning the series here.
The Overlord is a very cruel conqueror with an army of undead. I don't mind some cruel conquering, because I very much enjoy RTS games and that's basically the same: build a huge army and bomb they enemy territory into oblivion. I think it's interesting to see how such a thing translates into a fantasy story.
However, when I read the Overlord books a 2nd time, 3rd time or even 4th time, then I'm also noticing other things that I didn't notice before in the story, and I appreciate the stories in different ways. The 1st time because of the battles. Then other times because of the rest. -
@RobD Ascendance of a Bookworm, on the full of details end of the scale. In the members-only section, we actually have a thread dedicated to spotting the details you only spot on re-reads - like foreshadowing in the world building that's only obvious retroactively, or early-bird cameos from characters that become important to the plot later.
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/6701/omnibus-builder
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/5745/ascendance-of-a-bookworm-omnibus-editionsThe Primal Desires: Food, Sleep, Sex, StroZero, Hypnotism, and Awayuki Kokorone.
Item Diaria Apothecaria legi debent.
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So I'm A Spider, So What? is top of my list. It has multiple timelines and what is really going on doesn't start to get explained until later volumes.
Edit: it's also one where knowing more of the real story can completely change your interpretation of events.
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@HarmlessDave said in Series that you need to read 2x to fully appreciate.:
So I'm A Spider, So What? is top of my list. It has multiple timelines and what is really going on doesn't start to get explained until later volumes.
Hm... yes... there's that series, too. It's pretty much a requirement to re-read the series in order to make sense of it.
Book 1 is perfectly readable stand-alone, though. Book 1 makes a pretty big impact, the first time you read it, because of the unfairness and cruelty of her fate. Then, the 2nd time you read it, the impact is less and you can still enjoy the book in a more leisurely way. I've read book 1 maybe 4 times by now. -
@kuali said in Series that you need to read 2x to fully appreciate.:
@RobD Ascendance of a Bookworm, on the full of details end of the scale. In the members-only section, we actually have a thread dedicated to spotting the details you only spot on re-reads - like foreshadowing in the world building that's only obvious retroactively, or early-bird cameos from characters that become important to the plot later.
Yeah, Kazuki-sensei is an evangelist of the Gospel of Conservation of Detail. Bookworm is as close as any mortal will ever get to beholding the Platonic Ideal of Chekhov's Gun.
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Tearmoon Empire
Things that seem straightforward like the revolution in the original timeline are unfurled in later volumes to be a more complex network of forces and character motivations
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I will say that So I'm a Spider is one of those series that gets worse the more you read it. I read it the first-time thinking Spider-chan was going to be the hero of the series with Shun and crew supporting her against the evil Demon Lord, but then I got confused about what was really going on, so I re-read it in order (or as close as I could) only to find the villains are the "heroes" and shun and his friends are just fools? I've been so mad about what's going on I stopped reading the series, and I almost hate it now for playing me.
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@Folker46 said in Series that you need to read 2x to fully appreciate.:
only to find the villains are the "heroes" and shun and his friends are just fools? I've been so mad about what's going on I stopped reading the series, and I almost hate it now for playing me.
Funny, I have the opposite problem. I can hardly stand reading good-guy/bad-guy fantasy. I can no longer make it through Tolkien, for example. The black-and-white morality of the series is yawn-inducing. The bad guy is just wholly bad, you never need to ask about his motivations or the socio-political forces driving his actions. The orcs just want to do bad things and you never have to feel guilty for killing them - none of them are individuals with a family and friends who might miss them, or with an interesting story to tell over a mug of ale, or anything like that.
I liked Spider specifically because of the clever way that the author subverted our expectations - we spent the first half of the series rooting for a character who would have been a bad guy in a more straight-forward series.
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@Lily-Garden I agree with Tearmoon. It isn't really a puzzle that becomes more clear as you reread, but I think you can really appreciate the story more on a reread. We don't really know what went down in the first timeline, we just have assumptions and Mia's own remembrances. As you read the story you get a clearer understanding of the past, and Mia's present triumphs become all the sweeter.
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Someone already mentioned So I'm a Spider, but I was reminded of another series that I actually ended up reading backwards nearly 30 years ago. It was a Battletech series, 3-4 volumes, though I don't recall the name...Wolf's Dragoons or something similar? It was a group of Clan members infiltrating the Inner Sphere as mercenaries for reconnaissance.
Anyway, I accidentally picked up the last book in the series, not realizing there were multiple volumes. Really enjoyed the book, found and read the previous volume and then the one before it. But it was so well written I even felt sympathy for the villains that died. And while reading the original volume, I was concerned for the life of the protagonist, even though I already knew he would survive because of the subsequent volumes I had already read.
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@Folker46 I stopped reading it because I wanted to start with the protagonist the story started with. I came back to it later because I enjoyed the beginning so much but I skipped a few books as there were low original protagonist interest in it. Then I started picking up what was going on with Shun et al and went back and picked them up after all. I like the new version of Kumoko and after the various plot lines with Shun and friends settle out and the stories are all caught up to the same timeline it's interesting again, but it did get confusing in the middle. Personally though my favorite arc of the book was the first one.
