6 month blogoversary

Hey Guys 


If you have read the title, you already know what this message is about; I have been blogging for 6 months :D The past six months have been awesome, I have made new friends and I discovered a whole network of awesome bookish people I didn't know about before I started this blog. People who understand it when I say that the Harry Potter books were better than the movies, and that Peeta and Katniss are a cute couple. People who understand it that you can fall in love with fictional characters. Also, I met so many new authors, and they have been so kind to me. I regained faith in humanity :)


Blogging is my way of expressing myself. I am not an artist, nor a musician. I'm not a -published- writer, nor am I a photographer. I am a reader. And I love to show that to people. Most of my real life friends don't like reading, or at read they don't like to hear me talking about reading 24/7, 365. Sometimes when I am rambling about a book their eyes almost pop out of their sockets, because they think YA dystopian/paranormal is a crazy genre, for crazy people. And actually it is. But the best people are crazy, it keeps you sane!


In the past six months I have started up 2 memes, Fresh on my Shelves Friday, an equivalent of IMM, and Manga Tuesday, a personal meme in which Lua, a friend of mine who is crazy about manga, reviews manga's. You should really take a look at it :) I myself also love manga, but I love 'normal' written books more. 


There are a lot of things that I love about blogging, but it isn't all sunshine and rainbows and pink fluffy unicorns, blogging can be very hard. First of all, it takes a lot of time to blog, promote your blog, comment, read books you accepted for review and still love your own, already busy life. I always thought blogging would be easy, and that blogs get zillions of followers in no time, without you doing anything for it. After a few days I already had figured out that this wasn't the thruth. Not at all... Secondly, it is so difficult to keep your blog unique. There are so many YA blogs out there, and it can be (is) almost impossible to make your blog stand out from all those other ones. Also, my ideas have been influenced -a lot- by y 'blogging idols'. Before I started blogging, I always wanted to be like them. Soon, I figured out that that wasn't the right way to build up my blog. I had to make it 100% me. And that was the hardest thing for me. Keeping it 100% myself, and always be honest. 


Still, there are so many great, amazing things about blogging! I just can't imagine my life without my blog anymore. It has boosted my confidence, every single time that I got a new follower, or an author sent me a review request for their novel, or I got a comment. Someone really reads the stuff I say! There are people just like me out there on this planet, people whose biggest love is the written word. I don't know lots of those in real life, but here, on the internet, I have met tons of them. Being a fan of the Hunger Games isn't strange anymore -and by that I mean the books, not the movie-, being a potterhead is common, being a nerd is normal. So many great books have been recommended to me. I have a new favorite author, a new favorite book, I fell in love with genres I had never even imagined reading before. It has been awesome!


The past 6 months have been the best of my entire life - and it's all because of you guys! Thank you, you are awesome, we should hang out some time :D


xo Mar