Closing the book on my blog

Last month was the nine-year anniversary of my first post on this blog. An anxious college student dared to share with the world that she was an atheist while sitting in her top bunk in her junior dorm room at Grove City College, one month before her 21st birthday. It’s hard to believe, having turned 30 this week, that that person was me. It sometimes feels like everything in my life has changed since then, as it does for most people in their twenties, but I have had the privilege of documenting this decade on my blog every step of the way.

I published a blog post every single Sunday from November 27, 2016, until June 5, 2022. That’s 288 consecutive weekly blog posts without a break for or over five and a half years. At that time I pivoted to writing primarily book reviews and hosting Nonfiction November. Even when I wasn’t churning out posts like my life depended on it, I always loved blogging.

Whenever I’ve quit things in my life — like my blog’s Instagram account, for example — I’ve compared them to my blog as the gold standard of something I always love to do. I would realize that I since didn’t love that other activity as much as I loved writing here, there was no reason to waste my time on it. So it was difficult when I discovered that, for the past couple of years, I had felt that same reluctance when sitting down to write blog posts.

In the three years since I announced in 2022 that I was stepping back from weekly posts, I’ve written only four major posts that were not book reviews:

• Of Abortion and Abolition from February 12, 2023; in which you can feel my passion about the subject and my pride in my total obliteration of my opponent’s arguments;
• The Insidious Transphobia of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” by Megan Phelps-Roper from April 14, 2023; which, being 20,000 words, I continue to believe is the most comprehensive analysis of this awful podcast that exists anywhere on the Internet;
• Why Christian Nationalists Love Israel from January 17, 2024; an early Fuck You to Americans United for Separation of Church and State at a time when I couldn’t be more explicit about their complete hypocrisy regarding their stated mission;
• The Zionist hypocrisy that Americans United for Separation of Church and State doesn’t want you to know about from July 28, 2025; a proverbial burning down of the place after quitting Americans United due to the aforementioned hypocrisy.

Posts like these, when I Have Something To Say That Nobody Has Ever Said Before, are the crowning jewels of my blog. While they are still labor, as any blog post is, the research for posts like this was almost addictive. I would not stop being able to think about them, collecting more sources and screenshots, until they were done. I would lock myself away in my office for days. There was never any reluctance, any longing to instead be playing video games or crocheting something, when I was uncovering something this massive.

Book reviews were another story. Over time, my ability collect my thoughts, to summarize and review what I had just read, deteriorated. I had been reading fewer and fewer books in the first place as Americans United demolished my mental health. When I did finish a book, I would often not find myself having anything to say about it. I was writing a book review in September when I realized I just didn’t want to keep writing it. Actually, I didn’t want to write any book reviews. So I stopped.

It’s an odd feeling, processing the fact that something doesn’t bring you joy anymore. I started my blog as a remedy for my poor mental health at the time, and it was because of my mental state nearly a decade later that I found myself wanting to stop. I felt at first like I had to write a review when I finished a book, until I asked, “Says who?”

I started this blog to bring myself joy, and it did. Now that it no longer does, I believe it has served its purpose. I’m not quitting anything. My blog has just run its course; it’s done.

Since I left Americans United, I’ve taken some time to figure out who I am and what I want to spend my time doing. I was able to actually remember what I liked to do and think about before I started working there in September 2022. I loved reading. I loved writing book reviews.

In the 12 months between July 2024 to July 2025, I read seven books. In the five months between July 2025 to now, I’ve already read almost five. In other words, I do still love reading. Without the pressure of getting a book review out or having a long list of finished books each Nonfiction November, I can enjoy reading again.

Still, there is a feeling of accomplishment, of completion, in finishing a book and then collecting my thoughts in a book review. I don’t have the patience to organize my scattered thoughts on every book I read into a blog post that makes sense and that people will find valuable. So I decided to create a book journal.

My book journal is a combination of everything I love to do. Of course, the book journal part is self-explanatory. But with me, it couldn’t be just any book journal; it had to be nonfiction-focused and custom to exactly what I want to share in a book review. This need for customization was the perfect opportunity for me to design my own pages with my own prompts. And the cover is about as one-of-a-kind as it could get: I Tunisian crocheted the cover and cross stitched my blog’s name and logo onto it.

This journal will satisfy my need to document my thoughts on the books I read before moving onto the next, while keeping track of the latest books that make their way onto my shelves. In this regard, it is also replacing my Goodreads account, which I plan to delete soon. I don’t need to share each book I buy and read on a Bezos-owned app. It’s none of his business, and frankly, the journal is a lot cuter.

For so many years, this blog has been one of the best things in my entire life. Whenever I met someone new, it was only when I really trusted them that I would tell them about my blog. My husband has read every single post I’ve written before I’ve hit publish. (He even wrote a few himself back in the day!) In our household, a common response to my having some political or philosophical epiphany is “Write a blog post about it!” And who knows, only time will tell which epiphanies I could have in 2026 and beyond that simply need to be shared here on She Seeks Nonfiction. Until then, what better way to pass the time than expanding your worldview with your nose in a nonfiction book?