Basically Reviewing Every Book/Series I've Ever Read

There are a lot of things that go into making a good story, but to keep it simple I'll be defining the two most basic elements, character development, and tension. Character development is how the characters, everyone from the villain to the hero, grow personally throughout the story. Character development is necessary to make the characters relatable to the reader, so they understand the struggles that they face. Tension is the "edge-of-your-seat" feeling, the excitement, the wanting to know what happens next. Of course, there are dozens of things that go into making a good story, but as I intend for this to be short (No synopsizes, just a few words on what I thought of the story) I am going to define each book on these two. You'll also see the term "plot armor", which is when a character is essential to the story, so you know nothing will happen to him/her. So, without further ado:

The Hardy Boys (Series)

Franklin W. Dixon (Here's some trivia: he is actually more than one person!) does a great job of building tension but a total of zero character development makes these books very unrelatable.

Ink on His Fingers

Some tension, some character development, nothing to not like. Based on a true story so that's a plus.

Pilgrims Progress

The allegorical tale has character development but is so laden down with theological dialogue at times it ceases to be a story and becomes a sermon. As for tension, it kind of goes up and down. Sometimes lots, mostly none. 

Tom Swift (Series)

This book suffers from old-book-itis, in other words, zero character development throughout a close to 50 book series. The only beliefs the heroes seem to share is a ridiculously strong belief in pacifism. The tension is mostly constant. Suffers from lots of plot armor. 

Tom Corbett (Series)

Some character development, the books do a great job of building tension and keeping it constant for the most part.  

The Hobbit

Lots of tension with fantastic character development. 

Lord of the Rings (Series)

Plenty of tension once it gets going with strong character development, though the movies do a better job at character development in my opinion.

The Green Ember (Series)

A large amount of tension. There are tons of character development, though most of the character's beliefs don't really change.

Dave Dawson

Not much character development, but action-packed, resulting in plenty of tension for a few nights spent reading under the covers. It also has plot armor. 

G. A. Henty

This one has a very bad case of old-book-itis. No character development, slow, bad job of getting rid of the plot armor, tension at spots. 

Jim Kedjelligard's Books 

I'm reviewing all of these at once because all of the ones I've read have the same problems. All of the ones I've read have no character development (Growing physically stronger is not character development) with a little tension and mostly unsatisfying and sudden endings.

The Mysterious Benedict Society 

Most of these books, especially the first two, have lots of tension, though the books tend to focus on developing only two or three people's characters at a time. Also, the second one's plot basically consists of them getting stuck in a room and trying to get out, so we have to pretend that that one doesn't exist OK? :) 

Parker Twins

It depends on the book, though most of these have pretty good character development and enough tension to keep it interesting. The author does a good job of actually integrating the character's Christianity into their character development, something which is very surprisingly a rarity in Christian literature.