Novellas that are companions to novels or stories can be a useful thing in storytelling: you can see a scene from another perspective, you can get a bit more information about a character, maybe an additional story set in the same world but wasn’t important enough to include in the main text.

But I really dislike them.

To the point I barely read them unless I am thoroughly invested in the story or if they are on audible and I can listen to them in one sitting, so usually under that two (2) hour mark.

For me, novellas cheapen the original story. Don’t get me wrong, I understand some things need to be cut because books can’t be 20000 pages long. But for me, if it is important enough to have it’s OWN separate story, it should be included in the original novel somewhere along the line. Especially because many people don't know they have been released, so now they are missing a piece of the story that they are reading.

As well, novellas makes it difficult for non-obsessed fans to understand stories sometimes. What if people don’t follow books obsessively, miss a novella, and then read the next book but are missing some context that was in the novella? How is that fair? I didn’t know about some novellas for series I LOVED until I started using Goodreads extensively. Before then I was still reading 100-200 books a year and I wasn’t “in the know” about novellas. And that is even for books that I was obsessed for the story! I would read book three and feel like I was missing something from book two but really the context was in a novella that I never read.

Finally, they are usually only digitally released (unless they are in a bind up) and some people don’t like to read ebooks. It just doesn't make sense to me to have them, unless you are looking for a way to make a pretty easy profit or tell something additional. I see them a lot for romance novels as "epilogues" but just add that into the book itself!

I also don’t like origin stories and it seems as though most novellas like to tell the reader about the past before the main events. I don’t like this. Drop me hints, give me enough to come to some conclusions, but don’t give me everything! This makes it harder for me to connect to the story not easier. 

The only good thing about novellas to me is that they are really short and I can finish them quickly to add to my challenge counter.

I have no use for novellas that are companions to novels or series, but I know some people love them, so what are your thoughts? Do you like novellas? Should I read more of them?

PANIC

Author: Lauren Oliver

Series: N/A

Source: Chapters

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: March 4, 2014

Summary:

Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a dead-end town of 12,000 people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

Heather never thought she would compete in Panic, a legendary game played by graduating seniors, where the stakes are high and the payoff is even higher. She’d never thought of herself as fearless, the kind of person who would fight to stand out. But when she finds something, and someone, to fight for, she will discover that she is braver than she ever thought.

Dodge has never been afraid of Panic. His secret will fuel him, and get him all the way through the game, he’s sure of it. But what he doesn't know is that he’s not the only one with a secret. Everyone has something to play for.

For Heather and Dodge, the game will bring new alliances, unexpected revelations, and the possibility of first love for each of them—and the knowledge that sometimes the very things we fear are those we need the most.

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AIR AWAKENS

Author: Elise Kova

Series: Air Awakens #1

Source: eARC via Publisher

Publisher: Silver Wing Press

Publication Date: August 27, 2015

My Review!

Summary:

A library apprentice, a sorcerer prince, and an unbreakable magic bond...

The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.

Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.

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INTERIM GODDESS OF LOVE

Author: Mina V. Esguerra

Series: Interim Goddess of Love #1

Source: Amazon Kindle

Publisher: Published by the Author

Publication Date: April 21, 2012

Summary:

College sophomore Hannah Maquiling doesn't know why everyone tells her their love problems. She's never even had a boyfriend, but that doesn't stop people from spilling their guts to her, and asking for advice. So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise when the cutest guy in school tells her that she's going to have to take on this responsibility -- but for all humanity.


The Goddess of Love has gone AWOL. It's a problem, because her job is to keep in check this world's obsession with love (and lack of it). The God of the Sun, for now an impossibly handsome senior at an exclusive college just outside of Metro Manila, thinks Hannah has what it takes to (temporarily) do the job.


While she's learning to do this goddess thing, she practices on the love troubles of shy Kathy, who's got a secret admirer on campus. Hannah's mission, should she choose to accept it, is to make sure that he's not a creepy stalker and they find their happily ever after -- or at least something that'll last until next semester. (As if she could refuse! The Sun God asked so nicely. And he's so, well, hot.)

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FURYBORN

Author: Claire Legrand
Series: The Empirium #1
Source: eARC via Publisher
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: May 22, 2018
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

My Review!

Summary:
The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.

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RED SISTER

Author: Mark Lawrence
Series: Book of the Ancestor #1
Source: Finished copy via Publisher
Publisher: Ace
Publication Date: April 4, 2017

My Review!

Summary:
I was born for killing – the gods made me to ruin.

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder: guilty of worse.

Stolen from the shadow of the noose, Nona is sought by powerful enemies, and for good reason. Despite the security and isolation of the convent her secret and violent past will find her out. Beneath a dying sun that shines upon a crumbling empire, Nona Grey must come to terms with her demons and learn to become a deadly assassin if she is to survive…

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WE HUNT THE FLAME

Author: Hafsah Faizal

Series: Sands of Arawiya #1

Source: Indigo Book Box

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication Date: May 14, 2019

Summary:

People lived because she killed.
People died because he lived.

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the king. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. 

Both are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya—but neither wants to be.

War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the king on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds—and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.

Set in a richly detailed world inspired by ancient Arabia, We Hunt the Flame is a gripping debut of discovery, conquering fear, and taking identity into your own hands.

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