A Very Special Update

Hello friends and followers, I’m back! Well, sort of. Back to tell you that I may not really be back.

As some of you may know, I gradauted college this May! And post-grad life treated me, at first, terribly, with a lot of laying in bed and reality TV while I relaxed for what felt like the first time in my life, then wonderfully as I’ve switched gears a bit with the direction of my career (believe me, publishing is still the goal, but I’ve started to look into pursuing different facets of it than what I was originally gunning for) and took on a communications role at a non-profit. And ever since, I have, for lack of a better word, been busy. Like, you have no idea how busy.

As a result of how busy I am and a lot of other current obligations in my life, YA Books Daily will be on hold for long-term projects indefinitely. BUT LET ME EXPLAIN!

I still have ARCs to review, ARCs I hope to recieve and review, etc. etc. and so forth. I will not be halting all my posting, but as someone who now day-in and day-out sits in front of a laptop and creates ✨ content ✨, picking up projects like book tags and our Anticipated Releases series has just not even crossed my mind at all. This blog began to feel like work long before content creation became my actual work, and it sucked some of the passion out. So, moving forward, this site will likely go back to its original and I think truest and purest form: a review blog.

A lot of people in the book blogging sphere tell you to do more than just sit around and review, tell you that these are the least engaging posts. Well, not to me, and not to the people who I know trust and value my literary opinions and want to hear me provide great, nuanced, well-written, and engaging reviews. I’ve gotten here because of those reviews and for now, I think I’ll stay here because of them and with a committment to them. Reviewing is what I love about book blogging, and that is what I want to return to. I don’t have the time nor the inclination for much more than that at the moment—it’s hard to spend my valuable weekends digging deep into my brain for content ideas and feeling frustrated and disappointed in myself when I’m coming up empty, when really, I’m coming up empty because my priorities have shifted, and writing my own copy for fun is just not time I have anymore.

So, this is all to say that moving forward my engagement with this site will shift. For now, I’ll transition back into straightforward reviewing when reviewing happens. But moving further down the line, I may begin to shift away from a sole dedication to YA books! I don’t know. But what I DO know is that I care deeply about this blog, what I have done, and what I want to continue to do, and I simply need to re-find my footing and my passion for it again. I have done so much career soul-searching, and I’m so thankful for what YABD has opened up for me, but the truth is, this blog has proven something new to me that may make this whole shebang somewhat obsolete in my own life: I love contributing to publicity for books, and I love advocating for them. What began as a way for me to flex my own editorial mind has become a rich archive of proof that what I actually love to do is talk to you about books and why you should read them. And to be quite honest, it’s time I take this site to be a little bit of a time capsule and an interview talking point, as a place I engage with when it feels right, as I try to become the person supplying you your ARCs or announcing your newly anticiapted titles.

I don’t know how, exactly, this blog will continue, or what it will become to me as I continue reviewing, but as I continue to churn out YA reviews for you while making space for my true love of literary fiction to come back into my life, while I hone my social media and PR skills, while I try to remember why I started this in the first place, I’m going to constantly remind myself that this is not a business, and has always been a stepping stone. Maybe one day I can hand this site over to someone who will realign it with its original intent: to elevate the voices of young critics in the YA space.

So I hope you see me (like actually ME!) in your emails one day in a new fashion, or on your social media feeds in a new way, and I hope we meet again during the times this blog feels good and right and healthy in my life, not when it feels like an obligation or a business venture. So this is not goodbye, but more of an “the artist formerly known as,” Taylor Swift reputation era, etc., announcement.