There are moments in your life where you can trace the exact point where something changed you.
Not dramatically. Not loudly.
But permanently.
For me, that moment started with a book I refused to read.
My best friend had been telling me about ACOTAR for months. Maybe longer. She wouldn’t stop. Every conversation somehow circled back to it.
“Have you read it yet?”
“No.”
Every time.
I even bought the first book once, mostly as a joke. I sent her a picture of it like, look, I bought it, are you happy now?
She replied instantly.
“Have you read it?”
“No.”
Every week, she asked. Every week, I didn’t read it.
I don’t even know why. Maybe I wasn’t ready. Maybe I didn’t understand what was waiting for me. Maybe some part of me knew that once I started, there would be no going back.
And then one random day at work, a coworker mentioned that the entire ACOTAR series was on sale on Amazon.
I didn’t think about it. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t ask anyone.
I just bought it.
All of it.
Like something inside me already knew.
—
I remember starting the first book and feeling… underwhelmed.
It was slow. Painfully slow. It felt like walking through fog, like nothing was happening, like I was waiting for something that wasn’t coming. I almost stopped reading it. I remember thinking, I don’t get it. I don’t get why everyone is obsessed with this.
But I had seen people online say the same thing. Give it time. Let it build. Trust the process.
So I kept going.
And then Calanmai happened.
And suddenly, everything shifted.
That scene lives in my brain permanently now. The tension. The danger. The way something ancient and instinctual took over. And when Tamlin found Feyre afterward, when he told her he knew she had been there, when he lost control for just a moment—
I remember physically reacting.
Like, oh.
Oh, this is different.
This isn’t just a book.
This is something alive.
That night, I made my first reaction video without even realizing what it meant. I wasn’t thinking about content. I wasn’t thinking about building a brand or posting consistently or any of that.
I just needed to talk about it.
I needed to exist inside it a little longer.
—
And then Rhysand appeared.
And I was done.
Completely.
Irrevocably.
Done.
There’s something about him that is impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Not just read it, but experienced it. Because Rhys isn’t perfect. He isn’t clean. He isn’t safe in the traditional sense.
But he is intentional.
He sees her. He chooses her. He protects her without owning her. He gives her space while still being there. He carries things silently so she doesn’t have to.
He loves in a way that feels eternal.
And I remember thinking, this is it. This is the standard. This is what it feels like to be chosen in every lifetime.
Some people hate him.
I don’t.
Because he feels real to me.
Because loving someone isn’t about perfection. It’s about devotion. It’s about seeing someone fully and staying anyway.
And I see pieces of that in my husband.
Not in the fantasy way. Not in the wings and shadows and power.
But in the quiet ways. The real ways.
The choosing.
The staying.
The loving.
And that realization alone made the entire series feel personal.
—
But the character who broke me the most wasn’t Feyre.
It was Nesta.
I hated her at first. I didn’t understand her. She was cold, distant, angry, cruel even. She pushed everyone away. She refused help. She refused softness. She refused love in the ways people wanted to give it to her.
And then I realized why.
Because she didn’t feel like she deserved it.
Because she was carrying too much.
Because she didn’t want anyone to see how broken she actually was.
And I saw myself in her.
Not in her actions. Not in her cruelty.
But in her defense mechanisms.
In the way she disappears inside herself. In the way she punishes herself. In the way she carries expectations and pain and guilt and responsibility without ever asking for help.
I’m an only child raised by a single mother. That creates something inside you. This quiet pressure. This constant awareness of what you’re supposed to be. Who you’re supposed to become. How strong you’re supposed to remain.
You don’t get to fall apart.
You don’t get to be weak.
And when you do, you hide it.
Nesta hid it too.
She buried herself in anything that would let her feel nothing. She isolated herself. She destroyed herself slowly and deliberately because it was easier than facing the truth.
And watching her heal felt like watching something inside me heal too.
It was uncomfortable.
It was painful.
It was necessary.
—
ACOTAR didn’t just give me a story.
It gave me a world.
Velaris feels real to me. The Sidra feels real to me. The House feels real to me. The quiet nights. The laughter. The safety. The love. The way the world feels infinite and contained all at once.
It gave me characters who are flawed and messy and human, even when they aren’t human at all.
It gave me permission to feel deeply.
To escape.
To hope.
And maybe that’s the hardest part about finishing a series like this.
Because you have to come back.
Back to your real life.
Back to your real world.
Back to a version of reality that doesn’t have wings or magic or Illyrian bat boys waiting to fly you into the night.
And yet.
Something inside you is different.
You carry it with you.
You carry the love. The strength. The softness. The bravery. The reminder that healing is possible even when it feels impossible.
ACOTAR didn’t just entertain me.
It changed me.
It reminded me that stories matter.
That imagination matters.
That feeling deeply isn’t weakness.
It’s power.
And I don’t think I’ll ever be the same version of myself that I was before I opened that first book.
And I don’t want to be.
Because that version of me hadn’t met Velaris yet.
That version of me didn’t know what it felt like to be chosen in every lifetime.
That version of me didn’t understand what it meant to survive yourself.
This version does.
And I fear I will never recover.
But I don’t think I want to.