Eight Years! Count 'em, eight!

It's true.

My blog is now old enough to enter the second grade (*sniff*). Blogs grow up so fast! During that time, I graduated high school, obtained a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature, got a job, moved out, had a story published, had a novel looked at by agents and publishers (but ultimately not published), and discovered a whole, wide, internet world of friends and fellow readers!  I've started and given up so many projects in my life, but I managed to hold onto this one, and I'm so glad you readers did, too. That being said, it didn't start as a book blog. Oh no. But there are still a few gems. 

Stay awhile, won't you, as we go down memory lane?

Year One
1. My absolute first blog post ever, where I muse about the end of high school and the lameness that is the High School Diploma Exam.

2. My exceedingly verbose attempt to find a summer job. with less-than-stellar results.

Year Two
1. Whoring for Candy, a post wherein I relate the surest way to my heart. Hint: It involves sugar.

2. I am the Butter Queen, wherein I lose four teeth but gain 11 movie passes and a free Madagascar watch.

Year Three
This was the year I started to review books - unfortunately, they were all the books I had to read during university for my English degree. Guy Vanderhaeghe, anyone? I was also very heavily into my short-story phase. Submitted a lot of stuff, got rejected a bunch of times.


1. Five Reasons Why I'll Never Be a Great Writer: thanks a LOT, MUM.

2. Ten Rules for Writing Epic Fantasy. I thought in multiples of five back then. For reals.

Year Four
This is the year I morphed into being a book blogger - starting with romance, thanks to the recommendations of the Smart Bitches.

1. My fiction is published for the first time!

2. My first romance review: "Bet Me," by Jennifer Crusie.

Year Five

1. I review a movie so bad it's good (with an Easy Bake Oven of Nazi DOOM): S.S. Doomtrooper

2. I discover Lost In Austen, one of the best Jane Austen adaptations of ALL TIME. ALL TIME.

Year Six

1. I accept a Guest Dare from The Book Smugglers and review Games of Command, the best romance with a virginal cyborg hero I've ever read!

2. I write a blog post that has seriously never lost its relevance, especially now: The Author's Attitude. Geared especially towards authors who get riled up about negative reviews.

Year Seven

1. AnimeJune's Guide to Exploiting the Dead for Fun and Profit - where I take on the recent glut of Jane Austen and insert-paranormal-creature-here fiction. 


2. A commenter under then name "Miss Manners" tells me how very disappointed she is in me for being a Mean Girl Blogger of Meanie Mean Blog Reviews - and I respond with Miss Manners vs. AnimeJune.

Year Eight 
This brings us to 2011 and the start of 2012. I slowed down somewhat in 2011 due to the circumstances of my moving into my first apartment that was close enough to my workplace to walk. No longer having to take the bus twice a day, every day, five days a week seriously cut into my reading time. But I brought it up again by 2012.


1. Against the warnings of my blogger friends, I read Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught and it seriously hurt my brain.

2. When the Blogger Who Shall Not Be Named Or Linked To was revealed as a plagiarist, I read the comments section in her (non-)Apology Post, which inspired my insanely popular: So Your Favourite Blogger's a Plagiarist.

3. I take umbrage at Jennifer Weiner's BEA Book Blogger con assertion that bloggers should just be shiny happy people and discover the book blogosphere is a small (snarky) world, after all: The Importance of Being Nice.

As you can see it's been quite an interesting eight years, and I have my readers, followers, and awesome blogging buddies to thank for keeping it up for so long! Here's to another eight years!