It is sadly time for the last post for Rachel's Blogging Extravaganza - pop over to see her thoughts @ Beauty and the Bookshelf. The main point of the event was to remind us all of how important creativity and our own enjoyment are for blogging, so today's prompt included the following questions:

Why are you still here? What makes blogging worth it? Why is it so fun and fantastic and you don't want to let it go? Why do you love it?

So I'll give it a go, shall I? Even though I'm new at blogging, I appreciate that it's not always easy to keep going. For me, the reasons why blogging is worth it can be summed up in one word: community. Yes, I'm embarrassingly aware of how cheesy that sounds, but let me do what I do best and make a list (that today includes references to musicals because I like being random and making people uncomfortable) for you, okay?

Reasons Why Book Bloggers are the Best People in the World

WE'RE NOT ALONE. Having a blog means you have your own little corner of the world [/internet] where you can talk about the things that matter to you. You control it. It's a good feeling. But you also have people to share that space with you - they'll come and visit, you'll visit back. It's awfully nice. I like the social aspect of Goodreads, but it's still something quite different to blog and to share opinions that way. (If we're not friends on GR yet, go ahead and add me! I promise I'll be nice. Just be prepared to tell me what your favourite book is - sorry, I know that's a mean question.)

I HAVE CONFIDENCE. Or not. I'm not the most confident person in the world. Blogging and comments from other bloggers help me feel better about my writing skills though - and that gives me confidence in many other ways as well. I suppose you could call it agency? Blogging gives me a choice, and lets me make decisions for me, and that's something I find really important.

GOTTA GET MYSELF TO HOGWARTS, WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS I'M COOL. Shared fandoms are the best. Something that comes with the territory of blogging is sharing your favourites with others, and I know if I go on twitter or blog about a book I love, someone will immediately go "YES I LOVE IT TOO" and the rest of the conversation will mostly consist of GIFs, capslock, and exclamation marks. I'm pretty okay with that.

SOMEBODY KILL ME. When a book makes you feel a bit like this, you have a support network of people who've read the same thing, experienced the same despair. You may feel like this either because a) a book is pretty perfect and just kills your soul [All the Bright Places, I'm looking at you and already crying again!] or b) a book actually just sucks and you can't take it [giving examples would be too mean]. (Sometimes the effect of either a) or b) can be something along the lines of feeling like you'll never be Satisfied.) All of this also applies if it's not a book making you feel this way. The emotional support of this community is just everything.

WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. All the book recommendations you get from others are wonderful and horrible. My Goodreads TBR has about 600 books on it now, I think? I keep adding to it on a daily basis, and that's actually not even an exaggeration. The good thing is everyone is dealing with the same problems (obviously real problems as well as the TBR one) so you know there's someone you can talk to. I should probably stop before I make myself cry over how lovely everyone in the community is ;) But really, everyone who ends up reading this: thank you for being there.

Thank you so much to Rachel for putting together this awesome event, and for everything you've done to inspire us and remind us how much we love blogging ♥

So tell me: what's your favourite thing about blogging? Do you suddenly have a song from High School Musical stuck in your head? Let me know in the comments!

Hi guys! I'm starting to resurface from under the mountains of uni work I've been stuck with. What better way to do that than to write some book spine poetry (in honour of World Poetry Day)? This is a challenge related to Rachel's Get Up Offa That Slump Blogging Extravaganza.
Check the details and the introductory post over at

Beauty and the Bookshelf!

The secret in the night garden Shadow and bone entwined The versions of us: starborn, stardust

My book spine poetry has this tendency of resembling haiku. I tried not to succumb to my first instinct of a super short poem but... it didn't exactly work out for me. 

I spent some time yesterday trying to come up with poems, but in addition to shaking her head and repeating "you are so strange," my bestie also said that my poetry didn't make sense. I think this one does! 

But I will resign myself to wait for your verdict - does what I wrote count as a poem? Does it make any sense? Let me know in the comments ;)

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Another post related to an event hosted by the wonderful Rachel @ Beauty and the Bookshelf. Please do go check out her blog! Today's prompt was to review your favourite book - fangirling allowed and encouraged.

Story time! (You don't actually have to read this entire following paragraph. You can skip to the last few lines. I was just in a writing mood.)

I walked into Waterstones. I didn't mean to, I just accidentally ended up standing inside the shop, staring at a stack of wonderful new hardcover releases. After a struggle of heroic proportions that really should be told in iambic pentameter to do it any justice, I decided on only two books(!). I walked over to the friendly cashier who was communicating with a 2-year-old kid about buying a book focused on incy wincy spider. (She seemed just as excited about her book as I was about mine. [The little one was obviously in the arms of her mother who was letting her practice the process of buying things.]) It was adorable, but I digress. As they left, I stepped forward and somehow ended up in a long conversation about Garth Nix, Trudi Canavan, Philip Pullman, Patrick Ness and got invited to a YA book club meeting. 

But the most wonderful thing was that when I said "you know Patrick Rothfuss? I'm absolutely obsessed with his Kingkiller Trilogy," this guy beamed at me. 

"Yes. He is excellent."

This made me really happy, because a) I seriously freaking love those books, and b) it's awesome when someone's actually heard of them before I passive-aggressively and almost reduced to tears force them to just read the bloody book and see for themselves.

Check the details and the introductory post over at Beauty and the Bookshelf and get involved!

It turns out it was World Kidney Day yesterday, so prompted by Rachel (make sure and check the link above!) I came up with a list of three bookish things that would totally be worth handing over one of my kidneys. (obviously I'd only be able to choose one of these because I'm pretty certain I need to retain one of my kidneys, but let me dream of having extra kidneys and getting all three things, okay, thanks.)

This is my first post that is part of the Get Up Offa That Slump Blogging Extravaganza (don't you just love that name?!) hosted by Rachel @  Beauty and the Bookshelf. It starts today (Wednesday 9th March) and runs for the next three weeks, until the end of the month. You can take part on your blog, instagram, booktube - it's up to you.

Check the details on the introductory post and get involved!

If you don't feel like you can cope with insanity today, you may want to skip this post ;) It's okay - I'll love you anyway.

[Me]: I feel ridiculous asking you questions I know the answers to.

[Me]: You are ridiculous. But do you know the answers? I might surprise you.