10 Things I'm Thankful for this Year

To everyone in the U.S. that’s celebrating Thanksgiving this week: Happy Thanksgiving! We don’t celebrate here in Ireland, but I hope everyone that does has an awesome day. For my list this week it will be separated into real life things and bookish things I’m thankful for. I'm linking up with Top Ten Tuesday this week, and it's a weekly meme run by The Broke and the Bookish.

Things I'm Thankful for in Real Life

My family and friends: How could I not be thankful for my friends and family?? They’re everything to me.

My dog: From angelic puppy to manipulative mastermind, this little bundle of fur came into my life almost five years ago, took over and has ruled with an iron paw ever since. All joking aside, she’s the most precious thing to me, and if you can’t already tell, I love her to pieces. (And, yes, that is my bed she insists belongs to her, not me. We may have regular disagreements over this!)

Music: “Without music, life would be a mistake.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche. I couldn’t agree more.

Having a warm home and food to eat: There are so many people out there right now that don’t have a single thing in the world beyond the clothes on their backs. And they don’t know where their next warm meal will come from. So, as we all sit down to feast ourselves on huge meals over the coming months for various holidays and celebrations, please take a moment to remember those that don’t have what we have. Please.

And on that sombre note, moving onto...

The Bookish Things I’m Thankful For!

Books and Reading: This one is pretty self-explanatory, really! I’m so thankful my mum got me into reading when I was very young. I may have wandered away now and again, but I always end up returning.

The Bookish Community: I love how welcoming the online bookish community is, and no matter what books we love we can find people that have similar tastes to us. It’s so hard to find people in real life that share what we love, and it’s awesome to have the space online where we can find those people, even if they live thousands of miles away from us.

Twilight: Regardless of whether the Twilight saga deserves the hype it got, I’ll be forever thankful that I read this series. It completely changed my attitude to reading, and liking Twilight gave me a much needed kick up the rear and encouraged me to find and read the books I really love and can become invested in, rather than what others or society deems acceptable.

The Hunger Games: Twilight might have changed my attitude toward reading, but The Hunger Games was the series that started my YA addiction. Once I finished the series, I began to be drawn to more and more Young Adult books, and to be perfectly honest I haven’t really looked back since!

Young Adult Authors: I never understand why the label “young adult” gets so much blind hatred and sneering, but that’s an argument for another day… What I would like to say is thank you to all the YA authors that keep sharing their awesome stories and don’t let any negativity silence their words.

All My Favourite Books! This list keeps growing, and it’ll never stop growing and evolving throughout my life, and the image above shows only a handful of my favourite books. From Pride and Prejudice to Angelfall to Nevermore to Crooked Kingdom, I love them all so much and I’m so thankful that I read each one.