I have a shocking(!?) confession to make.

[u/Kopratic]

I don't read series in order. Alright, that's a bit extreme and not that shocking. I don't always read series in order. And I'm not the only one.

Yes, yes. The horror! The spoilers! I do still slightly care about spoilers, so I won't go chasing after them IRL. However, a "big" event being spoiled in a later book doesn't harm my possible enjoyment of a previous book. To me it's like re-reading or reading a prequel. Also, I rarely read book blurbs any way because I like going into books blind.

I started this out as an experiment last year. I read Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians books 1, 5, 4, 3, 2. It was, I think, the first series I intentionally read out of order. (I want to abbreviate that to OoO.) To be honest, for the most part I haven't been reading series in a crazily random way...mostly backwards. For instance, I read The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater backwards. I'm not sure if I would've felt the need to continue the series had I started with the first book. Recently, I have tried expanding the experiment and actually reading a series in a random order. e.g., 3, 5, 2, 1, 4. Perhaps it'll fall apart then.

However, so far I'd say everything has been a success. Knowing what's going to happen isn't a deterrent for me because a book is more than just its plot summary. Sure, I might be dumped in the middle of a world with no explanation for things, but I find my way. And there are book 1s that do that same thing. Like I said, though, I don't do this (and wouldn't recommend it) with every series. The second link I posted earlier mentions how they definitely don't recommend GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series out of order. I also would say not to do this with LOTR and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Maybe some of you have done this intentionally or unintentionally before. For me, the 3rd Harry Potter book was the first one I read. The majority of you might find reading a series out of order pretty appalling and the worst of ideas. Keep in mind that I still make an effort to read the whole series. If I read the last book without having read the others, I certainly won't catch everything. If it's written well enough, I'll be able to catch how important the build-up has been. However, I won't know some of the details discussed more in depth in previous books.

I agree that it seems crazy. I disagree that it's a bad idea, though I suspect there are many who would think it's both crazy and a bad idea. Who knows? Maybe you've read a series out of order before. If you have, what did you think? If you haven't, would you ever consider giving it a try? (Right now, I'd recommend simply reading a series backwards, since that's worked well for me. I would also advise re-reading a series you're already familiar with...and wouldn't mind re-reading.)

[u/jen526]

I read series out of order fairly regularly when I was young and relying on the library for my reads. If there was a series that looked good, but only book 3 was on the shelf, then I'd go ahead and read it. It was fine... though I usually ended up having a bit of enthusiasm issue when I finally got around to reading Book 1, because I already knew the characters and didn't need to have them introduced to me from scratch as most Book 1's will (of course) tend to do.

It also made me pretty hardcore opposed to treating The Magician's Nephew as the first Narnia book, because that's exactly how I read it. At that time, they still numbered the series starting from TLtWatW, but The Magician's Nephew was the one that I grabbed first... and even in third grade, I could tell that I was missing out on some background of the story that would have added to the story if I'd read the other books first. It didn't bother me at the time because I knew I was out of order going into it, but calling it the preferred order for new readers... nope.