The Story Behind Queen of Midnight

Hi there! My name is Joyly and I'm a twenty one year old book lover from Belgium.

I like to think that I've only recently gotten into reading but that would not be entirely true. The truth is I've been reading my whole life though not all those memories are fond ones. There are times I remember when I disliked reading, not only because of the stories I was reading but because I was a very slow reader and as a child I didn't have the patience to keep at it for long. Much later we found out that I have dyslexia which made a lot of sense for many things and gave me a better understanding of my abilities.

But when looking at the fond memories about reading I remember my mother reading me bedtime stories going from my good old fairy tales to my favorite childhood books. I remember growing up and picking up my own books and reading them over and over again.

Until I became sixteen and I stumbled across a particular quote from a particular book that changed my life forever.

I looked up which book that quote belonged to, started reading the book, and immediately became obsessed. I knew even back then that these books were different from everything I had previously read. I was an angsty teen, struggling to find myself like most teenagers out there. And this series gave me the one thing I desired more than anything else at that time: to escape reality. For a long while I was obsessed with this story, its world and its characters. I daydreamed about them in class, I thought about them when trying to fall asleep. Life became just that tiny bit better with these characters in my life. Especially because I could relate to the main character in a way and it helped me solve a lot of questions I had about my mental state at that time.

That series was the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin.

From those books, I stumbled upon another quote and again the journey began with a new series. I read more and more until I got caught reading on my phone in class one too many times. But it helped me get through the day over and over again.

Moving on to January 2016 when my parabatai (back then a fairly new internet friend) introduced me to The Shadowhunters Chronicles and changed my life so vividly I knew I would never be the same again. I devoured one book after the other and was so glad to be able to talk about these books with my friend. I had never had a friend who loved reading as I did, had never had anyone to talk about books with before. And it felt so good to realize I wasn't alone.

And so the journey of friendship and fangirling began. We talked every day and I read more and more, got introduced to the fandom life and the world of nerds and fangirls.

And I knew I was home.

So here I am now, two years after stumbling face first into that crazy world of fandoms and fangirls. And I couldn't be happier. Couldn't be more grateful for it helped me find myself at a time I felt so lost and alone I was dangerously close to slipping away for good. It saved me and helped me find my way back, it made me find the real me after years of struggling with who I'm supposed to me. It gave me a goal in life, something I'd never had before. It made me imagine a future for myself, something I had stopped doing years ago.

My journey into books has been a slow one, with lots of bumpy roads and steep stairwells. But I reached the top, laid eyes upon the dazzling view of the broad horizon and the rising sun, and knew this was where my road was supposed to lead.

Something I had been carrying inside me all along.

Home.