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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24674
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24674
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I've seen it more than once. It can be a bit jarring, but it can also work fine. It depends on the plot and the writer.

- Susan Cooper's _The Dark Is Rising_ pentology: the first book is about three siblings, and then the second book is about another young man entirely in a different country who has nothing to do with them. They eventually meet in the third book and books 3 to 5 alternate between their viewpoints. It was confusing at first, but smoothed out eventually.
- Anne McCaffrey's YA Harper Hall trilogy does something similar: Books 1 and 2 are about Menolly, a young girl who has to escape her abusive home to become a musician, and Piemur is a younger boy who is a singer whom she meets and befriends. Book 3 is about Piemur's adventures and Menolly plays little to no role. It works better because McCaffrey set many books in this universe and frequently switches protagonists. Robinton, the Master Harper, is a secondary character in several stories and then eventually got his own origin novel. 
- Another McCaffrey example in the same universe: _Moreta_ is about a queen dragon rider, while _Nerilka's Story_ is set starting about two-thirds of the way through _Moreta_ and follows someone else's experiences. Each woman is a tertiary character in the other's story.
- The [Rama series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Books_in_the_series) by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee: Book 1 is almost a "history of the future," and books 2 to 4 are more traditional novels about a family (and are set some years later, IIRC).

So yes, you can do it. Make all your protagonists worthy of being admired and trust that the reader can keep up.

Original score: 4