2017 Blogging Recap!

Hey, everyone! As 2017 comes to a close, it's time to recap on the incredible year we've had, all of the books we've read, the places we've been, and the friends we've made. We've done recaps for 2016, 2015, and 2014, and looking back on these are always super great. So without further ado, here are some of our highlights on The Book Bratz for 2017! 

JANUARY 2017

1. We Started The College Diaries. Blogging in college is definitely a challenge, and we collaborated with tons of college bloggers to get their opinions on how they managed to keep up with blogging in college -- and we kept up with it ourselves!

2. We started our monthly book recommendations. In which the first day of every month was spent recommending three of our most recent reads that we thought you guys would love!

FEBRUARY 2017

3. We helped bring a bookstore to the Bronx. We shared the fundraiser being put together by the Lit Bar, and it turns out that they reached their goal and even rented out the space for an upcoming bookstore -- and the only bookstore -- in the Bronx!

JUNE 2017

4. We went to BookCon. Emily also did her own recap here! It was another great convention filled with great books and great friends.

5. We went to the Jomny Sun book signing. It was one of the most wholesome and adorable book events we've ever been to!

JULY 2017

6. We said goodbye to Sarah Dessen. And then jumped for joy when she replied and confirmed that she was going to be writing more books and that Once and For All being her last book was just a rumor.

AUGUST 2017

7. We started another year of college. And so far, it's been great!

OCTOBER 2017

8. We celebrated the release of Turtles All the Way Down. And we cried through every page.

9. We teamed up with publishers, agents, and authors to give you professional advice on the publishing industry. And it still remains one of our most popular posts of all time -- we are so glad that we were able to give you all such incredible advice with the help of so many people!

NOVEMBER 2017

10. We participated in NaNoWriMo 2017. And we're proud to announce that we crossed the 50K finish line again! :-)

DECEMBER 2017

11. We wrapped up this incredible year with all of you! And we're so excited to see what 2018 will be bringing for us here on the blog!

And now, we assessed our goals for The Book Bratz that we put together right after New Year's -- let's see how many of them we stuck to!

1. Keeping up with our review archive. Done!

2. Tweet the links to our posts each day. Also done! TweetDeck is a godsend.

3. Be more active on Twitter in general. Even though school was crazy, we made an effort to spend at least a little bit of time on our blog Twitter every day, and it was a lot easier than we thought!

4. Read and review more books. College kicked our butt last year, but as 2017 being our first full start to finish calendar year in college, we ended up reading a lot more than we thought, even if it still wasn't as much as we read in high school. So we'd consider this one done!

5. Comment on more blogs. We are still terrible at this because we always forget or don't have time. :-( So it looks like this one will also be a 2018 resolution!

6. Read more backlisted books. Done! We've read almost exclusively backlisted books this year for some odd reason.

7. Request less ARCs. We've actually (unfortunately) been really good at this, since college sucks up all of our reading time. 

8. Make blog improvements. We'd like to think that even though the layout of the blog hasn't changed, the quality of our content has. :-)

9. Put up more College Diary posts. Done! 

10. Go to more book events! This year we went to BookCon and also a few author events at The Strand, so we consider this one done!

Overall, it seems like we did a good job with keeping our 2017 resolutions. Be on the lookout for our 2018 resolutions post, which will be coming soon! 

2017 was an incredible year with so many great books, events, and blog-related fun.  We are so grateful for all of the opportunities we've had, and we're really looking forward to another great year in 2018!