The Best Of: Binge-Worthy YA Series

I am a massive binger of series. Once I get sucked into a world I find myself chaining the books like there’s no tomorrow. Today I’m going to talk through a few of my favourite binge-worthy YA series.

The Folk of the Air by Holly Black

The Folk of the Air has to be my most binge-worthy YA series of all time. This is the series I constantly say I want to be erased from my memory so I can read it again for the first time. When I first brought The Cruel Prince it was only so I could see if it was worth the hype. I quickly learnt that yes, it definitely was and now this series sits very firmly at the top of my favourite YA series of all time.

I don’t want to spoil anything for those who have not read The Folk of the Air yet, but I can’t talk about this book without mentioning the romance. You will get dragged so deep into this relationship that you still think about it years after reading. They are one of my favourite fictional couples of all time.

Book one synopsis: Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

This Poison Heart is seriously a binge-worthy YA series. Well, duology but I’m classing it as a series because this is my post. If you have never read a Kalynn Bayron book before you absolutely need to start with This Poison Heart. I have been so lucky over the past couple of years to get advanced copies of both of these books and oh my are they excellent.

If like me you love books about magic, specifically magical plants, you will love this duology. To top it all off it is also steeped in Greek mythology with some of the strongest female characters you will ever read.

Book one synopsis: Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.

When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined–it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri’s unique family lineage.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it . . . until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

This is the type of series where you question why you didn’t pick it up sooner. Heartstopper is possibly one of the most binge-worthy YA series of all time as you can literally read them all in one day.

My obsession with Heartstopper is not going away any time sooner, or ever for that matter. I’ve already read this entire series multiple times and I really can’t get enough. Seriously if you haven’t read these by now, where the hell have you been? Do yourself a favour and grab the entire series next time you go book shopping, you won’t regret it I promise.

Volume one synopsis: Charlie, a highly-strung, openly gay over-thinker, and Nick, a cheerful, soft-hearted rugby player, meet at a British all-boys grammar school. Friendship blooms quickly, but could there be something more…?

Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn’t been too great, but at least he’s not being bullied anymore. Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He’s heard a little about Charlie – the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months – but he’s never had the opportunity to talk to him.

They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn’t think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner…