First anniversary of my book obsession

Today, on the 17th of October, it's exactly one year ago I finished Mockingjay for the first time, the last book in the YA trilogy that dragged me into the wonderful world of books again. And because reading these books was a strangely important event in my life, I thought I might as well celebrate it.

Everything I've read so far.

When I was younger, I read a book once in a while, but I wasn't a fast reader and often had some difficulties picking the right book. This became even worse after I became twelve and became a lot more critical. I barely read outside of school assignments. Then, one wonderful day, we had to do a presentation (I hate presentations, but it wasn't my turn yet) and a group of kids did it about 'de Hongerspelen.' The girl who summarized the first book was actually one of my best friends, and she'd told us already that she'd forgotten that her presentation was that day. I followed it a little up to the volunteering and can't remember thinking anything except for, "Prim is a pretty weird name." and "Why is it called the Hunger Games?" Anyway, months later, after the summer vacation, I ended up revisiting the books by watching a single clip from the first movie. Somehow, I found myself reading it about one month after that. The night I finished the series, I was sitting in my window sill and listening music while reading. A new song popped up right after I'd read the last sentence, and I decided that it couldn't hurt to wait for it to end. Right when the vocals kicked in, red firework lit up the dark October sky. In the Netherlands, we are only allowed to use fireworks around New Year's Eve. Once the song ended, the firework was gone again. Coincidence? It must be. I started the first book again the same night.

After two rereads of the whole trilogy, I forced myself to try something else. Since I'd also seen and liked Divergent, this was the next trilogy I dived into. I had an amazing time reading the story. At the same time, I started watching other book-to-movie adaptations as well. The Host, Beautiful Creatures and City of Bones claimed what could have been sleep, and my first attempt at what I didn't know yet was called a TBR took shape.

My very first TBR

After reading the Host, I picked up the Fault in our Stars and discovered that I liked to know how many days it took me to read a specific book. So, I decided to map out my reading by drawing little symbols in my diary. But while I was reading the Lunar Chronicles, I discovered Goodreads. On the 19th of April I added some of the first books and my TBR has continued to grow into the monster it is now: 175 books.

I still wanted to be a writer, but now I had a new goal: writing a book series in English. To achieve this, I had to learn a lot of new words. I ultimately decided to revisit my two first trilogies, THG and Divergent, and write down all the words I would not use myself or didn't know the meaning of at all. Tedious at first, but rereads are worth some sacrifices.

50 A4 pages

After coming home from my holiday to Germany, I started this blog. It would improve my English and give me a voice. I'm a pretty shy person who doesn't always find someone to talk to. So, this was my solution. Typing down my thoughts on everything I felt was too embarrassing to tell the 'real people'.

The first page of my current paper TBR

The books I read helped and are still helping me get through the thing we call adolescence, aka the Ultimate Trial. Now that I'm in the higher grades, I'm facing new challenges, but YA is still my best friend genre. It talks openly about serious things, like death and government. But LUCKILY it also talks about my stupid simple life in a way that still shows me another world. Fear of change and insecurity and drama, so much drama and angst and pressure and school and tests and personality cricis. And let's face it, romance. I might be single forever, but that doesn't mean I've got no experience on the subject. I've read about what must be over a hundred kisses. Really, it's incredible how much knowledge you can store between pieces of paper.

So much has changed for me during this year. We all change so easily and sometimes so quickly. I find myself every once in a while scared to close my eyes, afraid I might miss it. Looking back at how much I've developed myself over time is incredible, and I can't wait to see what's coming.

"There are much worse games to play."

"We can be mended. We mend each other."

"The strangest."

"I do."

"So I'm going to Luna, and I'm going to start a revolution."

"Then Jonas looked past Claire and saw Gabe approaching on the path."

"I gave him nothing." 

 "Yes, I can see her almost perfectly in this cracked darkness."

 "This isn't happily ever after. It's so much more than that."

"WICKED is good."

 "And, when I did, I’d have a ring on my finger."

 "I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that sort of thing."

 "Then I’ll come to you." 

"They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things—if love can ever be called that." 

"I can't wait to watch them try." 

"'Hi,' I reply. 'I'm June.'" 

 "And together they walked back through the gateway to the Muggle world."

Every last sentence marks a world closing. A page-messured life ending. Still, it's my favorite parts.