Books I'm Thankful For

Hi, friends!

It's been a long time since I have made a blog post, and I've also been pretty absent on social media. I'm sorry that I disappeared for a bit, but school always ends up getting to me. It gets super busy by the middle of the semester, and I always end up falling off of blogging. The semester is now winding down for Christmas break (woot woot!!), and I am missing blogging!

So, as I am coming back on the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share some of the books that have had a big impact on me in some way. These books have had a big impact on my life one way or another, and I will always be thankful that I found them!

Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer 

I know, I know, please don't hate me for being thankful for Twilight. But truly, I am! I found these books in early middle school while I was looking around at the books in K-mart. I decided to just pick one up one day, and I was hooked. I will be honest with you though, New Moon did get on my nerves when Bella was being all mopey, so I just skipped until I saw Edward's name again and started reading there 😂 I loved this series so much, I read the entire thing in one month! That was a big deal for me because 1) I was in middle school and these are pretty big books, and 2) I had been in a phase of life where I wasn't super into reading anymore. These books changed that for me, and I will always be grateful for them getting me back into reading! 

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

I found this book in my middle school library one afternoon, and I thought it was cool because it was about music. I've always loved music, so I thought that I would give it a try and I LOVED it! This book is the book that got me into reading contemporary, and I read every single Sarah Dessen book that my library had that year. I'll always be thankful for Sarah Dessen and her books for introducing me into the contemporary genre which is one of my favorite genres today!

The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty

This book was so much fun to read for me! In middle school, I had to two best friends who also liked to read. One of my friends originally found this book in our library at school, and myself and our third friend both read it. We were all obsessed. We loved this book and would talk about it all the time as the other one was reading it. It was my first experience of a book club or buddy read type of situation, and it was just so much fun! This book brought us closer together, gave us so much joy, and started our trend of finding books in the library to read together. This book was the beginning of so many fun memories with my friends, and I will always look back on it and smile. 

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys 

This is a beautifully written historical fiction novel that follows a teenage girl, her mother, and her younger brother as they are arrested in Lithuania by the Soviet police and sent to Siberia to the work camps. This story is heartbreaking, but it also shows such bravery and courage in the face of the most challenging circumstances that these characters will ever face. Not only does this give a voice to a piece of history that is sometimes looked over, but it gives a voice that shows the courage and the strength of these people. This is the first book that I read by Ruta Sepetys that began my love for her work. All of her books are beautifully written stories with amazing characters that show such strength. She tries to shine a light on pieces of history that are often forgotten, and I have so much respect for her for that. I am so thankful that I found this beautiful story and that it led me to one of my now all time favorite authors. 

Everything All at Once by Katrina Leno

This book will always hold a special place in my heart because of the time that it came to me. I received this book in an Uppercase subscription box last year, and very soon after my grandfather unexpectedly passed away. We had no idea that he was sick until 3 months prior to his death when we found out that he had a very aggressive stage 4 cancer. He was sick and passed quickly, so it was all very hard for me to process. I was very close to him, so it was really hard for me to cope with his death and I still struggle today with missing him. This book came to me in that period of my life after his passing, and it gave me so much comfort. It was the perfect book that came at the perfect time for me. This book is about a girl who loses her aunt to cancer and is going through the grieving process and missing her as the story progresses. Being able to watch her struggles and relate to all the emotions that she was feeling after her aunt's death was so comforting to me. I got to see that what I was feeling was not abnormal or over the top, it was a normal and okay response to a tragic event that happened in my life. I feel like I will never be able to fully express how much I love this book for what it gave me, but I will definitely always be thankful that I read it when I did. 

There have been so many books in my life that I have loved, and these are just a few that have had a bigger impact on me as a person. I would love to hear from you in the comments about books that have had an impact on your life and that you are thankful for today. I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and you remember all that we have to be thankful for. Thank you for reading!