Meg-A Readers Week!! Day 7: Goodbye to Meg-A Readers 2014!

Hello Everyone!!!

It's already that time...time to say goodbye for Meg-A Readers for this year.

2014 Meg-A Readers has come and gone, and it's been, once again, an absolute blast!


This is the third year Diana, over at Little Miss Drama Queen, and I have been doing Meg-A Readers.  We've had so many amazing memories so far through this experience, such as receiving our first boxes in the mail by Meg Cabot, containing a bunch of signed books, getting our first interview with Meg Cabot, reading and rereading a bunch of our favorites by Meg!

It's just been an amazing experience these past three years!

Year four, as some of you already know, Diana and I are planning a SUPER exciting year!!!!  Meg is releasing THREE new books!!!!!!!! THREE!!!!!  And two of them are continuations of two of her series, that we haven't heard of in a while, including my absolute favorite series by Meg...The Princess Diaries!!

Anyway, this year in honor of that exciting announcement, I decided to read The Princess Diaries Series.

I know I've said it time and time again, but I'm just going to say it one more time...this is my absolute favorite series of all time!!

I've reread it a bunch of times!  I just never get tired of it!

My mom has even started saying when she sees me reading one of the books, "Again?!"

The reason for this series being my absolute favorite series, is one I must tell you through a letter to my favorite author of all time...

So let's go back to 2006 to 14 year old freshman girl in her second semester of high school...

Dear Meg,

First semester of high school was extremely tough for me.  

I lost my supposedly best friends.  I was having a tough time with a couple of my classes, and I was having problems with a group of boys who wouldn't stop making fun of me.

Roll on forward to the second semester, when I was switched to a different English class, due to my other English teacher leaving on Maternity leave.  

This new teacher gave us a semester long assignment...read 1,000 pages.  

1,000 PAGES?!!

1,000 pages!!?? Really?? 

I was scared!! 

Reading was not something I liked to do! 

English is my second language, so reading wasn't one of my favorite things.

It's not that I was bad at it or anything.  In fact, I'd read some great books over the years (for instance, I had really gotten into Harry Potter and The Nancy Drew Mysteries), but I guess I was scared.  Scared of, what I thought to be, a huge number!

But me, always needing to do and finish my homework, knew I couldn't wait last minute to finish this assignment, went straight to the library after that first class, and looked for something to read.

That was when I came across The Princess Diaries.  I had of course already seen the movie by that time.  In fact, I had seen it in theaters when it had first come out in 2001 and loved it! So I figured let's read something where I've seen the movie :).

Yes, I was one of those students.

Anyway, I read and devoured the first book in the series, and soon realized how much the movie had been Disneyfied, so to say.

I went straight to the library afterwards for book 2, and it just went on from there.

I eventually started buying all of them, because I found myself rereading them.  

If you're wondering, I did end up reading those 1,000 pages, in fact, I believe I even went over the 1,000 pages.

High school was tough for me. I didn't really have any friends, at least good ones.  I worked extremely hard to keep up my B-average GPA.  

In the end, my goal was to be invisible.  

I spent many hours in the library reading as many of the libraries books as I could.  

By the time I'd reached sophomore year, I'd caught up to all the releases of PD, so I found myself having to wait for the new ones to come out. 

Waiting was agony!  

Mia Thermopolis became my best friend in ninth grade.  And she remained my best friend until I graduated with her my senior year, when the final book (or at least what all of us thought to be the final book), Forever Princess, came into stores.


I started reading because of Mia...or I should say Meg.  

Mia and I were so much alike when it came to our characteristics!  It's actually pretty unbelievable how much I related to her thoughts.  I didn't have the close group of friends she did, and I never did have a boyfriend in high school, and of course I never found out that I was a princess.  But Mia dealt with so many things, and while I didn't deal with the same things, I myself had many hardships those four years.  And with the help of Mia I learned to deal with them.

After Mia, I got my hands on as many books by Meg I could, and devoured each and every single one of them.  In fact, in my top ten list of books that are my favorite of all time, Meg's book probably take up at least half.  

Meg made high school bearable for me many times during those four years, when I was having a hard time.  And all I can say to her now is...Thank you!

You are part of the reason of how I am the way I am today.  You made me strong, you gave me some independence, and you helped me move on from those tough times.

Thank you Meg!

Love, 

Mandy

I hope that wasn't too emotional, but maybe helps some of you understand why I dedicate so many posts to Meg Cabot.  I owe a lot to Meg!

I recently got a couple of new book shelves as a birthday present from my dad, because I was running out of space.  I turned those two book shelves into my favorite authors shelves...


The first row is ALL Meg Cabot, the second row contains about a quarter Meg Cabot, then also Simone Elkeles, Sarah Dessen, Kody Keplinger, and Miranda Kenneally.

As you might be able to tell, I love me some contemporary romances!!

Now, to end Meg-A Readers on the future...

I REALLY hope Meg goes on tour next year and hits Southern California again!!

I got to meet Meg in 2012...


And it was one of my most fondest memories ever!  She was everything and more of what I could have dreamed of when I met her.  It was like seeing her characters come to life! It was amazing!!

And now to really end Meg-A Readers 2014...


THANK YOU MEG!! You Rock!

The Romance Bookie :)


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