We got to do some pretty amazing things this year, all thanks to reading. Here are some of our bookish highlights of 2017!

> Invited to two blogger events, one at Stripes Publishing and the other at Anderson Press, where we got to meet amazing authors we’ve admired for years and debut authors we’re excited to read more from in the next year. These events were also the first time we’ve gone to London by ourselves and we’re so proud that we managed to push through our anxiety to get there!

> We got to meet one of our closest international BookTube friends, Lea (@DrumsofAutumn) in person which we never thought would happen and it started the year off right. It’s absolutely amazing that sharing our love of reading has meant we’ve been able to connect with people all over the world!

> Attended YALC with the lovely Carys (@caryss_) where we spent time with so many people we’ve met through being on BookTube. This is definitely the best experience of the year, hands down, because we got to spend time with friends, old and new! The event felt secondary to the fun we had eating Nandos for the first time, talking about Harry Potter and the best Disney sequels. But, of course, YALC itself was amazing and we vlogged the whole thing, so we’ll never forget the experience!

> We’ve got to review ARCs of some of our most anticipated books of the year, including Forever Geek by Holly Smale, Quests for Glory by Soman Chainani and Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. No matter how long we’ve been reviewing books, it’s always a ‘pinch me’ moment that this happens!

> We won NaNoWrimo in November, completing the first draft of our book! Ahhh! This is by far our biggest achievement because it means we’re one step closer to getting our book into the hands of agents and being published which is the ultimate dream.

> Entered a few writing competitions that really motivated us and made us realise that the book we’re working on now is the one we want to be our debut. Exciting things are happening on this front, so hopefully we’ll be able to share more of our writing journey in 2018.

> We created our own readathon, Reading Double, that was so much fun in June and definitely something we want to make an annual thing! We also started a new readathon series on our channel called Read All Day that have become some of our most popular videos!

> We reached 9,000 subscribers on YouTube, which means our channel grew 50% more than we were expecting based on previous years. We made an upload schedule and posted consistently twice a week over the summer, making it our best video year yet.

> Participated in Blogmas for the fourth year running, reached over 650 followers on our blog, and our stats have increased immensely from last year, even though we’ve posted less frequently. It’s been onwards and upwards for Heart Full Of Books this year so fingers crossed we can say the same again in 2018.

> Each read over 220 books in a year.

We can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store for us, knowing that we have a few exciting things lined up already that we cannot wait to share! See you next year!