What have I been doing the past week? BookExpo America, all day every day - well, Tuesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday, which is almost every day, and it wasn't quite all day, but... well, you get my drift.
For those who asked, here's a quick recap of the things that went on in my life the past week - plus a good list of books to keep an eye out for! I'll be picking two books from every section down here to focus on.
And yes, I went overboard on the hyperlinks. Consider it a helpful hint for all of those who wanted to be at BEA and learn about the authors and books. Just read and click for the same experience! ... sort of.
Tuesday, May 28: SimonTeen Blogger Preview Party
Books in the swag bag from SimonTeen.
After almost not finding the building - oops! - I arrived late after walking in the rain to the SimonTeen blogger preview party! And just in the nick of time - enough to get a drink and find a friend before settling in for the presentations of the upcoming novels.
Suzanne Young, the co-author of one of the novels, hosted the entire thing as a casual interview while the authors came on and off of the stage before everybody had a chance to drink and eat and mingle.
The books featured were OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu, which is self-explanatory; When I Was The Greatest by (the very attractive) Jason Reynolds, about a teenage boy living in Brooklyn; Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield, a fantasy with the tag line "sing and the darkness will find you" (eep!); Fire with Fire by Siobhan Vivian and Jenny Han, the sequel to Burn for Burn; and Just Like Fate by Suzanne Young and Cat Patrick, about two different timestreams of the same girl.
The two stories that stood out the most to me were When I Was The Greatest, simply because of how awesome Reynolds was, and Chantress, whose tagline and concept fascinated me.
I also ran into a whole slew of my favorite bloggers - Mitali and Erica and the West twins (Jeremy and Jeffrey) and Rachel!
Books of Note: When I Was The Greatest by Jason Reynolds, about a teenage boy living in Brookyln; Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield, where if you sing, the darkness will find you.
Thursday, May 30: HarlequinTeen Blogger Breakfast
Editor Natashya Wilson with Elizabeth Scott, Julie Kagawa, Katie McGarry and Amanda Sun.
The HarlequinTeen breakfast was absolutely fantastic! I ran into Rachel again and sat with her and a whole bunch of lovely bloggers (whose business cards I have already misplaced whoops). Natashya and the Harlequin team really know how to treat a blogger - the breakfast was delicious and absolutely fun. The editors and the authors went around the tables round-robin style and gave us a chance to talk to all of the authors individually.
Everybody was SUPER nice - I got my hug from Julie and got my books signed by her, and got a big hug from Elizabeth Scott as well. Katie was super sweet and happy to talk about the hot guys on her covers. As this was Amanda's first BEA, it was exciting to be her first big event of the day and to loosen things up for her going into the day!
Books of note: Julie Kagawa's Eternity Cure, the sequel to The Immortal Rules; Elizabeth Scott's Heartbeat, about a girl whose brain-dead mother is kept alive for the unborn child inside of her.
Thursday, May 30: BookExpo America (Day One)
Books picked up on the first day of BEA.
After the HarlequinTeen breakfast, the first day of BEA really began. I spent a little bit of time wandering around the booths before meeting Julie and heading down to the Young Adult Editors' Buzz Panel. I got to sit with my fabulous boss Brooks Sherman (Fine Print Literary) as well as Chelsy Hall (Big Honcho Media). The panel was hosted by Suzanna Hermans (Oblong Books), who is definitely my favorite bookseller of all time, and runs one of my favorite bookstores of all time.
The buzz panel featured five books: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, about a fangirl entering college; Tandem by Anna Jarzab, a parallel-universe romance; All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill, a sci-fi time travel romance which hooked me with the line 'you have to kill him'; Entangled by Amy Rose Capetta, a sci-fi described as a YA version of Joss Whedon's Firefly; and If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan, about a young teenage girl in the Iranian LGBTQ community. Both Fangirl and If You Could Be Mine absolutely rocked their pitches, and it's interesting to see a resurgence in sci-fi with the other three - all of which I'm mildly interested in, but will wait to reviews to see how heavy the love plots are.
I got the chance to wander around with Julie for a little while after that, where I ran into Mitali and Rachael and Katie and Susan and Erica and a whole slew of other fantastic bloggers. (Don't be mad if I forgot you -- I have the brain of goldfish.) I snagged a copy of Maggie Stiefvater's The Dream Thieves as well as an autographed copy of Sarah Maclean's latest. (I'm a sucker for her romances.) I also ran into the fabulous Jennifer Castle on the floor - her new book, though not featured at BEA, releases in a few weeks and I'm super-excited for it.
I stood in line for an hour after lunch to get Veronica Roth's autograph for my youngest sister. Her reaction was totally worth it.
Books of note: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, about a fangirl entering college; If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan, about a young teenage girl in the Iranian LGBTQ community.
Friday, May 31: Penguin Luncheon with Richelle Mead & Melissa de la Cruz
Anna Jarzab, Richelle Mead and Melissa de la Cruz.
I started day two of BEA with a luncheon sponsored by PenguinTeen! Richelle Mead and Melissa de la Cruz answered questions with Anna Jarzab - author of the upcoming Tandem, one of the YA Editors' Buzz Panel picks - moderating.
April sat across from me, and I had a perfect trifecta of bloggers around me - Liz and Julie to my left and Tirzah to my right!
A lot of things were talked about at the panel. Both de la Cruz and Mead are excited for the upcoming adaptations of their books and think the scripts are really true to the books. Mead says that "you need to be very organized and neat in your world-building," which is why she doesn't enjoy it - she's messy in every part of her life - but it's de la Cruz's favorite part of creating a story. de la Cruz finds pressure "paralyzing" when it comes to writing series. Both Mead and de la Cruz are plotters, not pantsers. As Mead said: "I like to be meticulous and make sure everything feels right in the end." And de la Cruz's Frozen starts as an "alien sci-fi dystopia and ends up as Lord of the Rings."
All three authors signed books afterwards, and I got a copy of The Indigo Spell signed for Lucy, whose Bloodlines meta always makes me happy.
Books of note: The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead, the next (heart-breaking) book in the Bloodlines saga; Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and husband Michael Johnston, a pirate and dragon filled fantasy.
Friday, May 31: BookExpo America (Day Two)
Books picked up on the second day of BEA.
I actually didn't spend too much longer after the PenguinTeen lunch at BEA - just enough to wander around the floor and hang out with a few friends. I helped Julie snag a book and talked with her and Mitali and the West twins for a few minutes. I hung out for a little while around the Flux booth and browsed what they had, as well as the Sourcebooks booth. (All of the big six booths I had visited yesterday. It's weird to think that Penguin and Random House will merge their booths one day.)
I ended up over at Bloomsbury and had a chance to talk to my old boss from when I interned there, who was sweet as always. She slipped me a copy of Samantha Shannon's upcoming The Bone Season, which has already sold in 18 countries AND has film rights. (And I know Shannon has already been called the next J.K. Rowling in England!) I had a chance to look at a little bit back when I was interning for them, so I'm excited to see what happened.
A bright spot of the day was definitely running into Catherine, who I had spent time on the Veronica Roth line with, and finding out that she had gone to the Julie Kagawa signing and wanted to read The Immortal Rules herself after I raved about it! I love when people pick up books.
Books of note: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, a dystopian fantasy; Gold by Talia Vance, the time-travel sequel to Silver.
I skipped the last day of BookExpo America - partly due to exhaustion and partly because I had nothing really left to grab, since Mitali was kind enough to try to get me a copy of Gail Carriger's Curtsies and Conspiracies.
How was everybody else's BookExpo America experience? (And if I forgot to add you to the list of bloggers I saw - I'm sorry!)