Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Tale of YALLFest 2016

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I had such a great time in Charleston this year. It was beyond exhausting, but it was still more relaxed and chill than last year. So how about I tell you the things.

This tale starts on Thursday afternoon as I got up for work at 3pm. I packed and eventually went to work. By 4:30am, I left work and was on the road to my sister's house. She was kind of mad that I got there so early lol. But what are you gonna do, right? 

So let's move forward in this story. We were getting ready to leave her house. We had about 2 hours before we really had to get out of there, and we were going over our schedules. That was when I realized I forgot all of my Sabaa Tahir books at my house, because I'm a dumbass.


Anyway... We drove and drove and finally made it to Charleston, where we were staying half a block from Blue Bicycle Books and were right across the street from both the Charleston Museum and the Best Friend Train Museum (also right next to the Music Hall). So we were so super close to everything

When we got there, I was basically texting Lillie and Cat so we could meet up. Also because Lillie had the tickets to the Fierce Friday, which was super fun.

So let's skip some boring details and go to the Fierce Friday.

So the first image is of Jay Kristoff signing and signing and signing. As an awesome surprise, Amie Kaufman showed up to the Fierce Friday thing and signed as well. That really freed up my Saturday, since I didn't have to wait in the suuuuper long line for them. Sadly, I accidentally left my Nevernight arc in the hotel room. Oops.

That second image is during the first round of the author Truth or Dare. Sooz is doing push-ups all through the next person's turn lol. At one point she shouted out, "I WILL KILL YOU ALL," it was pretty great.

Afterward, we just walked around a bit. I literally bumped right into Roshani Chokshi, who is the sweetest ever. I talked to her for a minute, and that was pretty much the end to Friday. I was so exhausted, having been up for about 27-28 hours. I passed out as soon as I got back to the hotel room.

Start Saturday. Me, Lillie, and Cat got up and waited at the Charleston Museum for 5am for wristbands to Alex Bracken's signing. Damned if we weren't getting a Wayfarer arc, right? The line slowly got longer and longer. Eventually my sister showed up and we were all there waiting and waiting. until they finally gave out wristbands at like 9am. Yes, we were there that long haha. BUT THAT IS OKAY BECAUSE I GOT WAYFARER.


We then went and "loitered" around the Epic Reads booth, because there was a giveaway at 10:30, and we didn't have anywhere else to be. But they wouldn't let us actually line up until 10:15. So yea. Loitering. I love the face Cat is making in that picture haha. Becky Albertalli and Angie Thomas were standing near us, chatting. And these two dorks were too shy to go up and ask for them to sign, so I grabbed their stuff and was like, "Hi, my friends are too shy to come up to you. Can you sign these for me?" So that was a thing.

After the giveaway, we booked it to Adam Silvera and ended up being the last in his signing line. We went up to him as a group effort, which was cool. He is hilarious. 


You can see I'm wearing a burgundy sweater underneath my top black sweater. So I'm a traitor to the slytherins xD. I knew I should have brought my green jacket from work! So yea, we all stood there and chatted with him for a bit. He was hilarious and adorkable.

And then was the dreaded giveaway for A Crown of Wishes. Oh god. If you saw people complaining about this online, there was reason. We were lined up all nice and single file. Because we were there early. But the lady at the booth was mad because she didn't want us lining up yet. So at the time she told us to officially line up, she called out to us to line up on the other side of the booth from where we were, where there were some people who hadn't been there nearly as long. Everyone had to stampede to get there so they could get back to the front. It was, well, kind of unfair and unsafe. We all were telling Roshani about it when we saw her later that day (and by all I mean literally everyone around us).

So I got A Crown of Wishes. Yes, I requested it from the publisher. So, if they send it to me, I will happily share the book love and do a giveaway for it.

Leigh Bardugo's line was long. Very long. I didn't end up seeing her, because I was afraid I was going to miss Alex Bracken's signing if I stayed in her line (I'd been in the line for two hours when I finally decided to split). But someone in the line took my books for me and got them signed. So at least there was that. After Alex's signing when I went back to meet them and get my books back, I ran into Roshani again (hence the above reference). I stopped her and asked her to sign A Crown of Wishes for me (I swear I kept seeing her all weekend lol). Of course, my sister had walked away, not realizing that I had stopped so I had some texts like "WHERE ARE YOU" and others like that. So as soon as she was done signing I had to run and find my poor sister who I had accidentally abandoned. My bad.


The day was pretty much over aside from the YA Smackdown. We rested in the hotel for a bit before heading down the the music hall, where we saw Roshani again lol. I'm just going to leave this video of Scott Westerfeld here without comment.


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