Friendship Festival: Introduction & Favorites

Yesterday was National Friendship Day and to celebrate Alexa, Kelly and I are sharing a couple fun posts this week! And as you can probably already guess, it's about friendship – namely the one the three of us share.

When I started blogging, it was purely as a creative outlet for me to post book reviews and random stuff about my life. And even though I was aware of book blogs, I had no idea there was a whole community out there. But I quickly figured it out! It wasn't long before I started tweeting other book lovers like myself and meeting them at events at Books of Wonder or BEA. But some of those people became IRL friends which I honestly never expected and two of them are Alexa and Kelly. It's actually so fitting to be doing these posts this week because just last month we had a weekend getaway together. Another thing I never would've imagined happening if you had asked me 3-4 years ago. It's pretty amazing how books and blogging brought these two ladies into my life.

So how did we meet?

I have a whole post with Alexa about that but long story short, neither of us actually remember when we started tweeting or following each other's blog. What we do remember is that we did tweet each other about Throne of Glass (which should surprise no one) and one day while I complained about the long lines at Port Authority on Twitter, she responded with: "Why haven't we met yet if you're NY?". About a month later we remedied that when we, along with Estelle and Sash, went to an event at Books of Wonder and had dinner afterwards. We've been friends and talking every day ever since. I can't imagine life without her and all our fun adventures and long conversations.

With Kelly, I was even more clueless as to how we started talking. So, I went on Twitter to figure it out and lo and behold, it provided me with the answer!

It's funny how that one little tweet led us to becoming friends! 

I remember mostly tweeting and then setting up a gchat date to gush over Prodigy by Marie Lu (again, looking through Twitter reminded me of this) and then we finally met at BEA 2013! I'm pretty sure that's when we exchanged numbers and now I can't imagine us not texting each other about books, single life and more. I admire Kelly so much and she inspires me in ways she probably doesn't even realize. Like her love of travel just encourages my own and makes me want to take the same initative she does. Or when I'm in "ugh why am I single" mood and need to rant, she's my girl. She just gets me and I feel so lucky to have her as a friend. 

Then it was just inevitable that these separate friendships would eventually converge and here we are! And I can't say enough how glad I am about it. 

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In addition to sharing a little bit about our friendship, we also wanted to share our favorite friendships – one from books, one from TV and one from the movies.

BOOKS • Reagan and Dee from Open Road Summer

I've said this a million times before but I love their friendship so much. They're opposites who complement the other in the best of ways. I think the thing struck me most about their friendship was their honesty and understanding. Even if it wasn't what the other person wanted to hear, they said it anyway and constantly supported the other. And if they fought, neither one afraid to apologize and be vulnerable. It just shows how unconditional their love and loyalty are to one another. It's a rare thing to find! 

TV • Meredith and Cristina from Grey's Anatomy
Ok, their friendship coined the phrase "my person" so – how could I not choose them?! I've been a fan of Grey's Anatomy from the beginning and my favorite part has always been their relationship. It's far from perfect and they go through their fair share of ups and downs, but at the end of the day these two strong, brilliant, flawed women support each other through it all.

Movies • Lena, Tibby, Carmen and Bridget from Sisterhood of the Traveling PantsThese girls will always have a special place in my heart when it comes to movie friendships. For one thing, my college best friends and I (also a group of 4) latched onto their story wholeheartedly. We read the books together and watched the movies together. We saw something beautiful in their friendship and even now, Sisterhood is one a movie I'm prone to watch when I'm in need of a pick-me-up.  

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I'd love to hear your online friendship stories so I hope you'll comment below!

Make sure to check Alexa and Kelly's blogs too. 

We'll be posting more on Wednesday and Friday. 

Happy National Friendship Day!