I avoid a lot of these YA trilogies now because I got tired of cliffhangers. There is a way to wrap up a book in a series without resorting to a cliffhanger, and that will still entice you to look forward to the next book.
Ani, that's one reason why I pointed to Heilig's books as being better. Each book has separate conflicts that are resolved by the end of the book, and other less immediate conflicts that span both books and tie them together.
Cliffhangers aren't an absolute deal breaker for me, but I like to know in advance so I can have the next book on hand. But I didn't know, and I'm not sure I can easily and economically lay hands on the sequel, so I'm just stuck with this irritating non-resolution indefinitely because Bracken pretty much wrote a 1000 page book and split it down the middle. A couple of mysteries were revealed, but NONE of the major plot threads were resolved. [grumpy face]
Cliffhangers aren't completely a deal-breaker for me either, but they DO get annoying. I seem to recall that Alexandra Bracken did the same thing with her 'Darkest Minds' trilogy, which, at the time, I was both frustrated, and yet I also enjoyed the series enough not to throw in the towel just because of the cliffhanger endings. But after one too many cliffhangers, I decided to start reading series if there are enough books published that I don't feel like I'd be waiting forever if there was a cliffhanger.
Fortunately, many of my more favorite YA authors (i.e. Leigh Bardugo, Maggie Stiefvater), don't seem to have the cliffhanger problem... at least not much that I've seen. I don't read a lot of YA anymore for my own reasons, but if I still read YA on a more regular basis, I'd probably just wait for the entire series to be published before starting the first book.
Cliffhangers aren't an absolute deal breaker for me, but I like to know in advance so I can have the next book on hand. But I didn't know, and I'm not sure I can easily and economically lay hands on the sequel, so I'm just stuck with this irritating non-resolution indefinitely because Bracken pretty much wrote a 1000 page book and split it down the middle. A couple of mysteries were revealed, but NONE of the major plot threads were resolved. [grumpy face]
Fortunately, many of my more favorite YA authors (i.e. Leigh Bardugo, Maggie Stiefvater), don't seem to have the cliffhanger problem... at least not much that I've seen. I don't read a lot of YA anymore for my own reasons, but if I still read YA on a more regular basis, I'd probably just wait for the entire series to be published before starting the first book.