HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY! I’m super excited about today because it always makes me nostalgic for when I was younger, and the amazing £1 book selections that, honestly, I still buy at age twenty-two… As a book-addict for as long as I can remember, World Book Day holds a special place in my heart and, to honour that, I wanted to take a trip down bookish memory lane.

So, to do that, I thought I’d share a very small selection of some of the books that got me into reading!

Rainbow Magic by Daisy Meadows – this was one of the first series’ I ever read. I only recently found out that Daisy Meadows was a pseudonym for multiple authors, which slightly broke my heart, but that doesn’t take away from how much I adored these. I have at least seventy in a box at my parents’ house (including a World Book Day special!) and I don’t think I’ll ever clear them out.

Totally Lucy by Kelly McKain- I was obsessed with the Totally Lucy book series. I read the second book first, got completely hooked, and then read the entire rest of the series in a couple of weeks. My name is never on anything, but my middle name is Lucy, so I was super excited about the fact that a character almost shared my name, and her love of fashion really resonated with my (clearly very stylish) ten-year old self. I started reading a lot after that, but none of my younger reads stuck with me quite as much as this one.

The Shapeshifter series by Ali Sparkes – This is another series I got completely obsessed with, but this time it wasn’t a series of quick reads, but a really intense, slightly-shorter, action-packed series. It’s middle-grade, but it definitely acted as my bridge into YA, and I loved everything about it. The fantasy elements, the twists and the characters were all incredible and, honestly, I think I would still love this series to this day.

Divergent by Veronica Roth- The beginning of my YA obsession! This is the first YA series I read and, after finishing Allegiant, I never really stopped. I went from this, to The Hunger Games, to The Mortal Instruments and fairly quickly through all of those big YA series from the early 2010s. I got completely hooked on this in 2014, bought merchandise, started buying multiple copies and made my first ever (slightly embarrassing) Instagram fanpage…

Wings by Aprilynne Pike – So you can probably tell from Rainbow Magic that fairies were kind of my thing growing up. I was obsessed with all things fae (and it definitely carried over into my YA love of The Folk of the Air and Wicked Lovely) but Wings is the fairy series that I think I hold dearest. Also, Aprilynne Pike is the first author who ever tweeted me back (in 2014!!) so that holds a special place in my heart too.

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare – This one may be slightly cheating since I was very much into reading by the time I read The Mortal Instruments, but this is another series that made me realise just how deeply obsessed my teenage self could get with books. I wore a rune necklace all through college (and actually made a lot of reader friends because of it) and got hooked on all things fantasy. I never got round to continuing with the Shadowhunter books after The Infernal Devices, but this series will always hold a special place in my heart.

I could go on forever about books that I obsessed over when I was younger, but I think I should probably stop here. I hope you’re having (or had) a wonderful World Book Day, and would love to hear about the books that got you into reading too!