favorites

another month has passed whhhhaaaattt??? i’ve begun to accept that fact that time is a fluid and i’m slowly (or not so slowly) becoming an old fart. (and my eighteenth birthday is coming in two months and THAT FRIGHTENS ME.) i’ve also begun to accept that i will be obsessed with hamilton for quite a while so there’s that. but besides my growing obsessions with time (did you know i’ve only been – roughly – alive for 6,500 days?! my whole life! in 6,500 days!) and hamilton (if you only had time! i rely on angelicaaaa – and her voice of an angel because she is ANGELica… okay i will stop now.), here were my other obsessions:

bookish aesthetics

i dedicated an entire post to this and have been constantly tweeting about it, so it’s not all thaaaat surprising. there’s something weirdly satisfying about finding the PERFECT picture for a book/character and finding three other pictures that compliment each other SO WELL and basically sum up the book.

THE UNEXPECTED EVERYTHING, by @morgan_m

“Life is so short, my darling. And there’s no day like today.” ? pic.twitter.com/dJKRMHNEMX

— alexandra (@twirlingpages) May 4, 2016

the twirlings clothing

if you didn’t know, my sister and i founded a clothing shop dubbed “the twirlings” and we (finally) got new merch last month! i’ve been shamelessly obsessed with our new stuff, which is to say i’ve been wearing the same three shirts for the past month.

farewell, april

april was a surprising productive month, now that i’ve decided to list out ~all the things~ in my bullet journal. my sister came back for a few days to take the annual ballet photos at our studio; my new phone finally arrived (and it broke down in two weeks, which meant i had to exchange it for another one with the same style); my parents bought a new car (a tesla!! but it’s yet to arrive) (i’m so excited because it’s electric and my family is saving the earth one drive at a time and it makes me feel like blue sargent); the rest of my YAGP videos arrived (and kaitlin from next page please made an EPIC GIF):

I saw the end of @twirlingpages dance video (omg it’s so good btw) AND I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF BUT pic.twitter.com/2MBOdF92YO

— Kaitlin (@NextPagePlease_) April 6, 2016

nobody has ever gif-ed me, so kaitlin, you are the bomb dot com. annnnnd my video from boston, if you haven’t seen it yet:

another very very exciting thing about april was YALLWEST!! i’m honestly so grateful my parents allowed me to go. it was my first time going to a book event with my mom, so i was so surprised by how much she enjoyed herself. she was sick and i expected her to – naturally – be annoyed by the crowds and waiting, but she was awesome. i didn’t get to go to all the signings i originally hoped nor did i get that many books/swag, but i don’t particularly mind because i still had an awesome time meeting people.

i managed to get five books signed: i waited in line for marie rutkoksi, stalked leigh bardugo after watching her belt hamilton songs, and kindly asked a girl if i could use her spot in line for the alexandra bracken signing (which was ticketed and i couldn’t make it to get a ticket, but THANK YOU RANDOM GIRL I OWE YOU). i managed to snag an ARC of TELL ME SOMETHING REAL and some cute bookmarks and such, and i’ve decided to give it away! (details below) and i met a bunch of fantastic people including, but not limited to…

• nanna from @overflowingshelf on instagram
• alli from a traveling book
• emma from @emma.in.bookland on instagram
• jess from princessica of books (who was wearing a NO SHELF CONTROL tee hey hey hey)
• andrew from endlessly reading 99
• ryan from unbookly
• and a few others came up to me because THEY RECOGNIZED ME AS TWIRLING PAGES *spasms* i felt like a mini-celebrity because YOU FOLLOW MY INSTAGRAM & KNOW MY FACE & THAT’S SO COOL & i’m kinda screaming internally and externally. i still get shocked and giddy.

read this month:

• THE WINNER’S KISS, by marie rutkoski – ★★★★✩
• TELL ME THREE THINGS, by julie buxbaum – ★★★✩✩
• THE UNEXPECTED EVERYTHING, by morgan matson – ★★★★★ (i was so positively obsessed with this book i considered adding it to the “favorites” part of this blog post)
• THE SQUARE ROOT OF SUMMER, by harriet reuter hapgood – ★★★✩✩

on the blog

bookish:

• how to cope with a book hangover
• REVIEW: the unexpected everything, by morgan matson
• BOOK AESTHETICS 101
• how to create a bookstagram account
• REVIEW + DISCUSSION: the winner’s kiss, by marie rutkoski

other:

• we’re haul in this together
• ballet competitions with xan – 2016 edition

it was a slow blogging month for me, but i hit some milestones in numbers! i got to 40k followers on instagram and 2k followers on twitter, so that was super exciting. *pops champagne* HELLO NEW FRIENDS. i also looked through some of last month’s search terms and saw how people ended up on my blog.

favorite search terms:

• (SPOILER FOR THRONE OF GLASS SERIES) “why did sarah j maas break up chaol celaena relationship” // i dunno, but it is what it is
• “seriously, who does sarah j mass eant celaena to end up with?” // THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW
• “ex girlfriends favor from sisters of a boyfriend” // okaaaaaaaay don’t know how you ended up on my blog but HI

foresights of may

technically it’s already a week into may, so SPOILER some of things i was previously going to add onto my looking-forward-to-in-next-month list have already been fulfilled. liiiike taking my driving exam (PASSED!!!) and awaiting the results of an upcoming ballet competition (ACCEPTED AND I’M GOING!!). i won’t talk too much about it until next month’s recap, but that’s a little preview. there’s also another ballet competition at the end of this month, which is always fun (i’m actually not being sarcastic this time; this comp is actually quite fun).

goals for the month:

• almost finish the rest of your schoolwork
• complete the bookstagram challenges
• don’t stress out too much
• try to stop crying over the raven cycle and/or hamilton

giveaway!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

terms & conditions:

• this giveaway is open to US only (sorry but international shipping is so difficult)
• it will run from may 6th, 2016 to may 15th, 2016 at 11:59 PST.
• you must be 18 or older OR have your parent’s consent to release a mailing address.
• you will be disqualified for picking up entires you didn’t do.
• you may only use one account to enter.
• if the winner doesn’t respond in 48 hours, i will choose another winner.
• i am not responsible for anything lost in the mail.

how was your month? let me know in the comments!