Series vs. Stand-Alone

Are you a series reader?  Or do you prefer stand-alone novels? 

Quite frankly, it all depends on how my mood strikes me!!!  I go back and forth.  More often than not, though I read more stand-alone novels.  I might read several by the same author, but they are rarely a series.  However, I do pick a series now and then and go at it voraciously!  I zip right through them or grab the next one up as soon as it is released, and then wait very impatiently for the next one to arrive.  

What draws me in when I do find a series that I love?  I have to find a character or characters that I connect with.  Isn't that what happened to all of us when we hopped on board with the Twilight Saga?  or Harry Potter?  We had characters that we fell in love with in some way shape or form.  As a kid, I read the Little House books - the whole series.  I so wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I can still remember that series lovingly, and prefer them to the television series - which I loved as well. 

Why do I sometimes perfer the stand-alone book?  There are just times when you want to read a book and not be left with - what happens next.  You want the satisfaction of having it all read in one shot.  You might love the characters and have thoroughly enjoyed the story, but you know it must come to an end.  

I like the surprise that an author might throw us occasionally, when they decide later that they will make a stand-alone book into a series.  It doesn't happen much- at least that I am aware of, but when it does it feels so good to bring back memories of the original book.  

I think though, that we all probably read a mix of both series and stand-alone.  It is just the nature of the beast.