This was probably a case of 'it's me not you', since so many people love these books. However, the concept just doesn't work for me. Almost with every photograph I got the idea that a piece of story or a character was added to match a photograph, while in my opinion, it should be the other way around. Alas, I just couldn't shake that feeling. It reminded me of when I was 13-ish and thought it was cool to look up pictures and imagine stories around them. It was fun at that time, but I don't want to get the idea now that I'm reading a book written by child (not that the language or style felt like it was written by a child, I'm not insinuating that, just the use of the photographs gives me that idea). 
 Also, the characters and the setting just didn't work for me. I could not get into the story. The beginning started off good, I really liked that part. Only when the journey started, and it's probably intended to get more interesting, I lost interest. 
 I'm sure a lot of people will love this series, but it's just not for me. I won't be reading the other books in this series.