Hello!! Today, October 17th, is my fifteenth birthday! Today was really nice: I did lots of family stuff, met up with some friends, and also had a little time to myself. So much has happened this year, and I think that I’ve changed a lot.

Fourteen was a weird year. Living through covid, finishing middle school, starting high school, hitting two years of blogging, and so much more. I think that I have started to really figure out how I do best in terms of blogging, and not putting too much pressure on myself with writing.

I’ve read so much, and so much of that has been so much different. Thrillers, high fantasy, and historical romance are all three genres that a younger me would never have even considered, even when starting this blog.

Fifteen things I did in my fifteenth year

In the year I was fourteen, I did a lot, but a lot also happened in the world as a whole. Between covid, politics, climate change, and everything happening it is so stressful to thing about the world so much of the time. And that just made the smaller things in life feel insignificant, but also way harder.

I struggled with a lot of things this year. Staying in touch with some friends, trying to keep up a blogging schedule, finding value in my own writing, and keeping up with school and life in general while still having time for the things I love to do.

1. Participated in nanowrimo for the first time- and almost won!
2. Joined BBYO and made more Jewish friends
3. Finished eighth grade
4. Became more confident in dance
5. Started high school
6. Visited family for the first time since before covid
7. Celebrated two years of blogging
8. Started bullet journaling & organized my life, for about four months before stopping completely
9. Put art & stuff up on my walls making my room feel way less empty
10. Hit 300 followers on my blog & 400 on bookstagram
11. Volunteered at my library over the summer
12. Got the covid vaccine
13. Spent more time with friends
14. Went from full time zoom school to full in-person
15. I wrote, a lot, more than I ever really have before this

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Books I read when I was fourteen that shaped my year:

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All of these books mean so much to me in such different ways.

These Violent Delights introduced me to a world that became my own: one of violence, love, destruction and desperation.

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, Perfect on Paper, The Falling in Love Montage and Some Girls Do all gave me fun, but equally serious stories of self-discovery, and the obstacles of being a queer teen navigating love in a world built to oppose you.

Lovely War was a romance like no other I’ve ever read: set in a time of war, told by the Greek gods, and detailing the lives of four very different people it broke my heart into a million pieces.

The Kingdom of Back is the newest to me of all the books here, but reading it pulled me into a story of inequality, darkness, anger, and a girl who just wanted to be remembered.

I read The Bronzed Beasts more recently, but most of my year was spent eagerly awaiting it. Once I was finally able to read it, it was everything I’d hoped, and ten times better.

How We Fall Apart was really special to me: I was able to be on the street team for the book, and then near the release date was even able to get an advance copy which I devoured in a single evening.

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The books I talked about, and all of the ones pictured really shaped the last year in ways I can’t even begin to describe. Books have always meant the world to me, but throughout quarantine they really became my world. And as things have started to open back up again, falling back into a love for books that works with how my life is being pushed around right now is difficult.

And even getting time to blog in the day is hard enough, or finding just five minutes to sit down a breath. Life is hard enough, and covid complicates things enough. But I think that I’ve figured things out, or at least am in the process of doing so.

When’s your birthday? What’s something big that you’ve done this year? Chat with me in the comments below!