Ahhhh!!! I cannot put into words how exciting today is! It’s my blogiversary! And in case you don’t know what that means….. I’ve had my blog for exactly one year! I didn’t think that I would ever make it this far with my blog. But I have and I am sooooo happy that I created it! I always have such an amazing time sharing my thoughts on books with all of you. And blogging has showed me so much of the world that I never knew was there. Especially all of you! Reading is what I wake up and want to do everyday. It makes my days so much better. And being able to share all of my thoughts on books with you guys fills me with joy!
SO, since today is such a special day for me, I thought that I would share my reading and blogging journey with all of you. It sounds suitable for the occasion, right? So who’s ready to jump straight into this post? I am!!
My Reading Journey:
Most readers who have a blog have been reading for what feels like forever. But, I’m not really like those people. I used to read when I was younger but I wasn’t really counted as a reader. I remember loving to look at books in my school’s library but very few actually interested me. I used to always have to read small books for school such as Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. But, when it came to picking up books on my own, none of them interested me. But, I do remember taking as much Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones’ books out of my library. Those were some f the only books that I would hide out in my room and fully enjoy reading. Soooo, as you can see, I wasn’t like a lot of readers who grew up reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
It wasn’t actually until grade 7 when I got really into reading. Years before, I would prefer to just scroll through my phone than ever pick up a book. But, when I got reunited with one of my best friends, Emily (she’s a year older than me so we were in a 5/6 split class and a 7/8 split class) that I got tugged into the world of fictional stories. When I first met her in grade 5, she wasn’t really into reading but, when I saw her again in grade 7, she always had a book with her. So, that led me to start borrowing books off of her.
Funny story, the first YA book that I ever read (lended to me by Emily, of course) was a bind up of the first two Pretty Little Liars books. I was really into watching TV back then and Pretty Little Liars was my favorite show. And since my friend Emily always had a book with her, that led me to finally toughening up and borrowing it off of her. And look where I am today. A complete book hoarder who would spend all of her pocket money on books. So thanks Emily for showing me the beautiful world of fiction. I don’t regret it one bit.
So from then on, I have become a complete lover of books! It is rare when I don’t read a book and I usually have a terrible day without reading. But the real reason that I read is because it brings me out of reality. Sometimes I’m just having a really terrible day and just simply reading a few pages can drag me out of reality and into a fictional world. And although some fictional books can get terribly sad, it shows you that not all books all fully fiction. Authors are able to make books feel as if they’re real which is so nice.
I live on books. I am always reading and am very proud of it. I am someone who will read anywhere at any time, even if that means having my parents yell at me for it. I am a reader and I am proud!
Total # of books read since January 2015 (bind-ups counted as 2): 61 (not including finished Wattpad novels)
Total # of books owned: 82 (not including my little kid books)
My Blogging Journey:
On October 23, 2015, I started An Infinite Book World. I really wanted a way to share my thought on books with the world but hadn’t heard of Goodreads or Bookstagram. Sooooo, I full out spent a night creating my blog. It had probably the worst lay out to think of but, I thought it looked really cool back then. Since then, I have redone my layout probably over 100 different times.
Now, some of you have probably wondered, how did I come up with my blog’s name? Well, I have always thought that there are an infinite amount of written and published books around the world. So I reworded that and came up with “An Infinite Book World”.
My first ever post was a Welcome! post. It basically talked about what would be doing on my blog (which is so inaccurate now). That post led me to doing Currently Reading posts and Top Ten Tuesdays’. And when I finished City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (the first book I read since I started my blog), I was very quick to write up a review for it. If you go back and read it, you can tell how much shorter it is compared to my most recent reviews.
I was doing so good with blogging until January 2016. I went into both a terrible reading slump and a blogging slump. During my reading slump, I would only read Wattad novels so it was very hard to count any books as read since most of them weren’t finished. And during my blogging slump, I would only get 1 post up a month. But, I found a solution to it and now I can get up to five posts up a week!
Blogging has helped me with so much. It’s made me become a lot braver when it comes to talking about books. I don’t have a lot of friends in real life who can deal with me talking about books so I use blogging to interact with people about books. And I’ve got to say, it is so much fun talking to you guys on here!
That’s it for today! I’m so happy that I created my blog because I really don’t know where I would be without it. I am so grateful that all of you take time out of your days to read and comment on my posts! Since this is such a big moment in my life, I will treasure it forever and ever. Thank you all! Happy Reading! ~Alaina
An Infinite Book World 