2018 Blogging Recap!

Happy New Year's Eve! It's officially the last day of 2018, which means it's time to recap all of the awesome things we did this year, from new features, to bookish events, to friends we made, to milestones we've hit and more! So without further ado, let's get into our highlights from 2018!

JANUARY 2018

• We started launching our guest review feature, where we featured three bloggers/readers on The Book Bratz every month, giving them a chance to share their love for one of their favorite books. It's been so much fun reading other people's thoughts on some of the stories that we know and love!

• We looked back on the evolution of our blog headers to see how things have changed and how we've continued to grow and improve through the years!

FEBRUARY 2018

• We gushed over some of our favorite love stories in honor of Valentine's Day!

MARCH 2018

• We met Tahereh Mafi at the launch for her latest book in the Shatter Me series, RESTORE ME. We did a recap post and had so much fun!

• We saw Love, Simon together and it was so freaking adorable! We even did a Book vs. Movie Analysis to celebrate.

• We also celebrated 2/3 of our birthdays (Amber & Jessica), finally turning 20!

APRIL 2018

• We got our first bookish subscription box (Scribbler, a box curated for writers!) and we did our first ever unboxing post, which was tons of fun!

MAY 2018

• We went to BEA/BookExpo for the very first time! We've gone to BookCon in the past multiple times, but this was the first time that we were ever accepted and granted media passes for BookExpo. It was an absolutely huge milestone for us that we still can hardly believe, and none of it would have been possible without all of you!

• We also celebrated our 6th birthday here on the blog! How does time fly so quickly?

JUNE 2018

• We went to BookCon 2018 and met so many amazing bloggers, readers, authors, and fans! We truly had such a wonderful time.

• Perhaps one of the most special parts of this month (and this year!) was the fact that we met a group of blogger friends who were all super sweet and we spent time together the entire day, surviving the Penguin 2019 ARC Drop Line of Death, and continued to talk to each other every day, both about bookish and non-bookish things, and we formed a bunch of friendships that we are extremely grateful for.

• We unveiled our new blog design! Amber worked super hard on it, so it was really exciting to finally be able to show you all of her effort and the shiny new blog design that we are absolutely in love with.

JULY 2018

• We officially launched our Blogging 101 feature, in which we talk about some different topics having to do with starting and running a successful book blog. While we are by no means the cookie-cutter method for being successful (nor would we even really consider ourselves *that* successful!), we still loved sharing some of the tips and tricks that we have learned along the way.

• We read and reviewed our first-ever graphic novel here on the blog! It was a hilarious love story about a girl who falls in love with a bear, which you can read by clicking here.

• We also launched our 2018 Summer Blogger Promo Tour, back after a few years of a hiatus due to the stress of #college.

AUGUST 2018

• We celebrated Emily's 20th birthday!

• We also reached 350,000 pageviews here on the blog -- a personal milestone for us that blew us out of the water! We still can't believe that so many of you care about the silly things we say. Thank you for supporting us all of this time!

SEPTEMBER 2018

• We started our junior year of college!

• We also highlighted some of our favorite banned books as a way to celebrate Banned Books Week 2018.

• We hit 5,000 Twitter followers. That number still blows us away. Thank you all for making that possible!

OCTOBER 2018

• We launched our 2019 Debut Author event signups! You can still register by clicking here.

• We also highlighted some of our favorite spooky reads for Halloween!

NOVEMBER 2018

• We began hosting a lot more author interviews, and it's been so much fun getting to know all of the incredible writers behind some of our favorite stories!

DECEMBER 2018

• We ended another great year with so many readers, followers, writers, and friends. We love doing these posts at the end of the year and being able to see how much we've grown together!

What was your favorite thing that we did on the blog this month? What are your recommendations for future posts/reviews? Comment down below and let us know! :-)

It's been such an amazing year with so many new friends, milestones, and achievements here on the blog, and we're so grateful that we got to spend another year with all of you wonderful followers and readers. Here's to a prosperous 2019, and a great year full of amazing achievements for all!