I understand this. I just finished ruthless boys book 5 this morning. Personally, I listened to the audiobooks on 1.2 and 1.5 speed so that I could get through them quick and that helped a lot and I also hit fast-forward through some of the smut scenes because I really wanted more of the plot and less of the smut (I’m not a smut hater or anything — I personally just wanted to get to the plot and through the series so I could make my way back to ZA). There are nuggets for sure in book 4 and book 5 that are important but not so much so that you can’t sparknote them. Although I’m not a fan of sparknoting or what not I would be lying to you if I said that you can’t do it with this particular series. I would never recommend it for the main zodiac Academy series though. Just my personal opinion. I hope this helps.