North Texas Teen Book Festival 2016

This weekend was the 2nd annual North Texas Teen Book Festival. Honestly, after last year's issues with the signing lines, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. But my middle sister, the book nerd, said "yes, absolutely!" so I said okay. Then she double booked her weekend and ended up not being able to go lol. So I was kind of wavering back and forth on if I should go or not. Then the organizers announced they were doing "Fast Passes" this year, for $100 to see 10 authors (or $200 for 25, an outrageous amount in my opinion), and were giving away 2 passes. I entered the contest, with this pic below, and won! So my fate was set. :)

(click any pics to make bigger!)

It's kind of awkward going to this kind of event by yourself, especially if you're super quiet and older than most of the people there by a good 15 years like me. But I still had fun. I got there around 9:30 and headed to my first panel: "Boarding Pass", all about traveling books and experiences with Adi Alsaid, Ally Carter, Gayle Forman, Kristen Rae, and Jessica Taylor (pic below). The young girl sitting in front of me freaked out because Gayle Forman smiled at her lol. It was really great seeing that enthusiasm throughout the day. The organizers said there were probably 8,000 people there, mostly teens. It was kind of insane at times. And with those numbers, unfortunately there was at least one group that needed a little more discipline than they were getting. For the most part though, everyone was polite and friendly and very, very excited.

My next panel was "Book Boyfriends" with Jessica Brody, Ally Carter, Sarah Dessen, Julie Murphy, and Amy Spalding (pic above). This was a great group and a lot of fun. Julie Murphy had the quote in my opinion: "fat girls like to makeout too." Yeah. Also, there was a Baby-Sitters Club reference!! Which I'm sure most of the room didn't get hah. Amy Spaulding cited Logan Likes Mary Anne as her first book crush and her belief, as a teen, that every day there was the possibility of a new guy moving to town and falling in love with her. Totally. After this panel, I needed a break from the crowds and the huge escalator lines, so I stepped aside to take a selfie, as one does. (I wore my "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" tshirt.) Then I headed downstairs to buy my books at the Half Price Books shop (again, not half price, very irritating). I had brought 2 books with me and bought 3 others. Unfortunately, they sold out of one of my wants, Jessica Brody's Boys of Summer, but I'm sure I'll pick it up soon. My sister was kind enough to bring me lunch too so I wouldn't have to pay the exorbitant hamburger prices.

Heading back into the fray, I really wanted to go to a graphic novel panel but I got there too late and the room was already full so I went to a "Daring Reads" discussion instead. I'm kind of glad I did, because it reminded me that I wanted to buy Lori Goldstein's Becoming Jinn too. "Books that Rock!" featured Gayle Forman talking about her hot musician boyfriend/husband and Gordon Korman making lots of punk rock references that went over all the teens' heads lol. And that was my last panel. There were at least a dozen others that I wanted to go to, but they were so packed in each hour it was nearly impossible to choose.

(volume up on this one, down on the second)

Gayle Forman and Libba Bray did the closing keynote and had an epic rap battle that was both ridiculous and hilarious. And also quite touching, showing how much they love and need each other as author BFF's.

And then it was on to the signing hall, which was once again not well thought out. :( I am almost positive that I would not have stood in that line if I hadn't had the Fast Pass. Luckily, I did though and got to meet Gayle Forman, Rachel Caine, Lori Goldstein, and Faith Erin Hicks. They were all incredibly gracious and wonderful. Gayle remarked on my super old copy of If I Stay and Faith said that she had no current plans for a Friends With Boys sequel but it was always in the back of her head. (We can still hope!)

(book pic features my brand new bicycle! :))

Since I only used 4 of my 10 passes, I decided to head outside to the end of the line and give my remaining 6 away to someone else. I looked around and approached 2 girls who only had small stacks of books in their arms. They were beyond overjoyed when I gave them the passes and that made the end of the day perfect for me. :) So there you have it, my full day of books and authors and teenagers! I hope this wasn't overly long and you enjoyed reading it...I always enjoy reading about others' author experiences so I hope it's the same for you!

North Texas Teen Book Festival

This past Saturday I got to go to the first ever North Texas Teen Book Festival (NTTBF from now on) and I had such a great time, that I was finally inspired to break my blogging slump to talk about it. :) It was a free event (which made it 10x better lol) and I took my middle sister with me, because she is an awesome book nerd just like me!

I was super excited Saturday morning, but I had to finish the book I was reading before I went lol. (Spirit & Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore, which I'll be reviewing this week) Then I put on my pop-art comic dress, made sure my "Mischief Managed" tattoo was still there, and went off to pick up my sister.

There were 50+ young adult authors in attendance and they had panels all day long, which was so great. The only problem was there were 5-6 panels each hour and you had to pick which ones to go to...so hard! The first one we went to was about dystopian & sci-fi futures with Ally Condie and a few others. (I didn't really know any of them.) The second was one I was really looking forward to: "My True Love Gave to Me", about Stephanie Perkins' wonderful holiday anthology. Perkins, Ally Carter, Jenny Han, and David Levithan were there and it was so great. Perkins talked about her battle with depression and how this anthology really helped her break out of it and then about her next project, Summer Days & Summer Nights. Can't wait for that! B went up and asked a question: "what kind of music do you listen to when you write?" Ally Carter sometimes listens to "Wrecking Ball" on repeat lol. And afterward, we got to meet the amazing Stephanie Perkins and take a picture with her! I got B into Anna and the French Kiss so this was really exciting for both of us. :)

At noon, I had to go to the "867-5309 Jenny" panel...because, you know, I'm a Jennifer lol. There was a panel full of Jenn* authors and it was loads of fun. Some interesting facts: most Jennifers have the middle name of either Lynn or Elizabeth, would have been named Jason if a boy, and the majority were born in 1980. :) After, all the Jennifers took a picture together and we got a bookmark signed by all the authors.

(Jenn* pic courtesy of @JenBigHeart)

The last panel we went to was "Thrill Ride" picked by B because it had one of her favorite authors, Rosemary Clement-Moore (yep, the one I was reading that morning). That one was fun. We found out everyone's phobias and that monkeys were little balls of fluffy death (or something like that lol). My sister got to talk to Rosemary afterwards and she was pretty excited about that.

And now I have to talk about the not-so-great parts. :( First was the cafe, which I'm sure was not really the fault of the NTTBF organizers. Everyone converged on the cafe at once after each panel and was such a ridiculously small area that we waited around 30 min just to get thru the line to pay for our outrageously expensive hamburgers. (Seriously, $2 for a bag of chips???) Then there was the author signings. They started at 3:30 til the event closed at 5:30ish. Our last panel ended around 2:45 and we went straight down there to get in line...but they were already closed. The authors were split up in 3 different areas, but all the big ones (Perkins, Han, Levithan, etc...) were in the Grand Ballroom, which was not really that grand. They had the lines capped off inside the room and then there was a line forming outside the room to get inside already. It was not great. B managed to get her book signed in a smaller room (along with the other 2 she already had), but I didn't get any of my 4 signed that I brought. Luckily, I don't really care too much about having a signature in my book. (My other sister offered to go sign all my books while I was gone. I declined lol.) I understand this was the first convention and I really hope they learn from their mistakes for next year, because otherwise it was a really wonderful day.

And so I'm not ending on a sour note, let's take a look at the actual books that I bought there, okay? Of course, there were tons of books for sale by Half Price Books (another small issue I had...the books were all regular price, even those that had been out for years. Greedy.) I picked up 2 newish ones: Adi Alsaid's Let's Get Lost and Jennifer E Smith's The Geography of You & Me; 1 that I read a while back & really wanted still: Sara Zarr's The Lucy Variations (review here); plus 1 that will be out in a few weeks: David Levithan's Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story. This one is much anticipated, the companion/sequel to Will Grayson, Will Grayson and I'm pretty excited to start it. I also bought B Lola & The Boy Next Door. :) So that was our day...wonderful and exciting with a few small hiccups and now I have to go find room on my bookshelves for these new books. Eeep!!