Favorite Long Books

Hello, friends! For this week, I decided to borrow a topic from Top Ten Tuesdays and talk about my favorite long books. (I almost did a "Thoughts on Miraculous Ladybug" post, but I've only finished Season One, so I'm going to wait on that until I hit the end of the released episodes.) So, long books it is! As a qualification, I'm only featuring one book or series per author — so, if I want to mention all the books in a particular series as one unit, I'll do that, but I won't mention multiple single books by one author.

That said, I realized something while picking out books for this post: I my perception of what books are long or short is sometimes kinda weird. There were several books that I looked up thinking that they were super long . . . only to realize that they were a mere 300-odd pages. (For example: The Night Circus.) And then other books, I don't remember as being long at all, but they're definitely hefty enough that other people have called them intimidating. (For example: Before She Ascends.) It's weird. I'm weird. But we all knew that, right?

Favorite Long Books

1. All the Stormlight Archive books by Brandon Sanderson (1007, 1087, and 1248 pages). We all know I love these books. I actually get excited about how long they are because I think they're so awesome. Is anyone surprised by this? No. Honestly, Brandon Sanderson could release a book three times as long as one of these and I'd still devour it. His books are just that awesome — which is why they're so long, because anything shorter would explode.

2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1216 pages). I feel mildly guilty because I haven't managed to reread this yet, even though I meant to at the beginning of the year . . . The problem is, this is a long book with long chapters, and it's not at all suited to reading in bits and snippets between classes and before bed, which is when I do most of my school-year reading. So, yeah. I still love LOTR, even with how long it is, but just because I love long books doesn't mean they aren't still sometimes daunting even to me.

3. A Branch of Silver, A Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (606 pages). Here's a book and author I haven't raved about in far too long! (Mostly because I also haven't read them in far too long.) Picking between this and Golden Daughter was tough — I love A Branch of Silver, A Branch of Gold; it's a wonderful take on one of my favorite fairy tales, and it features some delightful creepiness in certain parts. However, Golden Daughter is one of my favorite of Stengl's books. That said, Golden Daughter doesn't feel long. A Branch of Silver does, though not in a bad way. So, A Branch of Silver takes the top spot on this list!

4. All the Illuminae Files books by Amie Kaufman (602, 659, and 615 pages). These fall in the category of "Long books that don't feel long," mostly because of their unusual format. They're written as a compilation of bite-sized transcripts, chat logs, emails, files, and occasional word-art-y AIDAN internal logs. Multiple times, I was surprised by how much of these books I'd read at once (especially late at night . . . oops). I mean, you know they're long when you're reading them because so much happens . . . but it's a very different experience from reading lengthy chapters one after another.

5. The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson (519 pages). Here's another book that I don't talk about enough and need to reread (especially because of some info that I found out a few weeks ago and still periodically get excited over). I think Warden feels a little longer than it actually is simply because of the depth of the emotion in it. That's not to say that it doesn't have exciting parts, but it isn't an Illuminae book that you can devour fifty or a hundred pages of in a relatively short time. Warden requires more time and processing, much like Lord of the Rings does — though it's certainly worth that extra effort.

6. Plenilune by Jennifer Freitag (668 pages). Ah, Plenilune. This is a magnificent book, full of intrigue, excitement, drama, action, heroics, emotion, mystery, and marvels. It's also a pretty long book full of names and places, only a quarter of which I actually remembered or could connect to the people they belonged to. Honestly, I think the volume of names I needed to remember was 90% of what makes this book seem as long as it is. The other 10% is that it is actually a long book that involves a great many things happening in a very richly described world. So, yeah. Excellent read, but when I reread it, I may have to take notes on who's who and where's what.

7. Winter by Marissa Meyer (827 pages). We'll end with a book that, like the Illuminae Files, doesn't actually feel as long as it is. This is probably because it features near-constant action of some kind and doesn't involve a great deal of emotional downtime (that I remember) or three thousand names to keep track of. (That's not to say that emotional downtime or large character counts are bad things, just that they make books feel their length.) I know a lot of people weren't crazy about Winter but I honestly enjoyed it — and not just because I love the titular character and her stoicly snarky guard-love-interest. The book as a whole is fun and exciting and, I think, a good conclusion to the series.

So, there you have it: my favorite long reads. What about you? Do you enjoy long books? If so, what are your favorites? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)