It always comes back to Star Wars & Harry Potter

Since the moment I took the Children’s Literature course, back in 2001 while I was at Penn State, getting my teaching degree, I have been a reader. I had to read “Harry Potter” for that class, which I had never read, and suddenly a light was turned on. I was able to bond with these fictional characters and feel like I belonged in this magical place. For months afterwards I wanted to live at Hogwarts instead of my dorm. Since then my obsession with literature and escapism has only grown.

I would say it all really started to get worse about 4 years ago when we were all locked away and suddenly had loads of time on our hands. Sitting outside on my patio in Florida I found myself scrolling through the internet, where I can across some fan art from Star Wars. Don’t ask me how but this lead to my tumbling head first into the world of fan fiction and drowning in amazing stories on ao3. From Reylo to Dramione I had discovered an entirely new way to enjoy my favorite characters over and over.

I was following these amazing unknown authors and falling in love with their head canon stories, which became mine as well. I was happily drifting from one story to another and authors would comment back on your comments and it felt like this incredibly awesome secret community that I had stumbled upon. And then something crazy happened!

One of my favorite fanfiction authors went and got real life published!! I was in aww. Not shocked that it happened because these fanfiction authors are some of the best writers I have ever read, but it was like your next door neighbor just went and became famous. I felt like I knew her, had read all of her ao3 books, and now I was able to go and buy a physical copy from this person I felt like I could say, “I knew her when…”

Needless to say, she was the first of many, and as they grew in number I grew and expanded what I was reading. If you asked me 4 years ago I wouldn’t have known romantasy was a genre. I couldn’t tell you what a trope was, or a trigger warning, or that I am I sucker for a bad guy. But this has become my world, the place I escape to when work and life get too tough.

So this is what I offer you friends, I little insight into that world. I want to share the books I’ve read, those I’m currently reading and of course have you add to my TBR list as well, goodness knows I’ll never get to them all anyways. I hope you will stay tuned and join my on this adventure. ~ Katie

*For those interested the author I’m talking about is Ali Hazelwood and her book was “Love Hypothesis” which went on to become a New York Times Best Seller. More in my next post.