BEA Recap

I am still reeling from Book Expo America last week and the epic journey to and from New York.  BUT- I thought I would go ahead and try to sum up the experience for all my bookish friends out there!  I probably won't remember everything and there will be a fair amount of fan girl squee-ing so be prepared for that! 

We arrived in New York City Sunday evening after leaving Ohio around 11 AM.  It was around 8 PM when we pulled up to Casa de Blogger.  The brownstone was really cute.  It had a long of charm and I loved the age that it showed while still being a nice rental.  We met up with Cindy from Books Complete Me and a number of other bloggers from blogs such as: Reading Teen, Page Turners, Once Upon A Twilight, The Optimistic Pessimist, Tales from a Ravenous Reader and more!  It was a great atmosphere and everyone was really fun.  

Monday we rode the subway down to check in at the Javits Center then we headed over to the blogger luncheon hosted by Simon and Schuster.  It was a VERY exciting event!  We got to hear from some of the girls who work there about what books they are excited for this summer and fall.  We also got to hear from Ellen Hopkins as she told us about her new book Perfect and even read a  couple of passages from it for us.  Ellen gets a high five from me for dealing with difficult topics and doing it well.  Love her.  I'm personally super excited about the new book Fury which is coming out later this year.  We bloggers not only got to ask questions of the author, Elizabeth Miles, but we got signed ARCs to take home!  This book is going to be awesome.  Ya'll need to add it to your To Read List! Simon and Schuster also took us all up to the TOP OF THE ROCK!  Which was CRAZY!  We could not see ANYTHING because the top of the building was all covered in clouds.  Monday evening, we headed across town to the Teen Author Carnival which was perhaps to big for it's venue.  It was stiffling hot and hard to see and hear because of all the people there.  Authors present included: David Levithan, Malinda Lo, Courtney Allison Moulton, and Andrea Cremer.  There were just SO many great authors there talking about YA literature and signing books.  I bought a copy of Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithan to have signed ( I have been dying to read this and thought a signed copy would be even better) and I bought a copy of Personal Demons to have signed (I have an ARC of the second book to read and you just HAVE to read the first book, right).  After Teen Author Carnival, we went out to dinner at Haru with authors Kristi Cook, Jeri Smith-Ready and Jana Oliver.  This was one of the highlights of my week because all three ladies are AWESOME and I LOVED getting to pick Jeri's brain about her recent book Shift, which I am totally in love with.  Like I said, these ladies are awesome so go read their books- NOW.  Seriously, you will be glad that you did.  

Tuesday was the first official day of BEA.  On Tuesday, I went to Jana Oliver and Jeri Smith Ready's signing- it rocked, love those two!  I also got an ARC of Forever by Maggie Stiefvater, and a ton of other books.  Here all the rest of the week will blur into one for me so I will just say: I got a ton of books and had a great time.  Highlights included:

• Getting a signed ARC of Goliath and meeting Scott Westerfeld.  (SQUEE!!!! and YES, I totally read it already!  And it is AWESOME!)
• Getting a signed copy of Passion from Lauren Kate
• Got signed books from Scott Tracey and Leah Clifford and found out that they grew up and live in the same county where I grew up.  (It IS a small world after all!)
• Christopher Paolini signing Inheritance series posters (I was shocked by how nice he was and how adorable his smile is... I nearly forgave him for taking 3 years to write the last book!)
• Ally Condie signing ARCs of Crossed- she actually kept saying that she hoped the book was worth our wait in line and that she wasn't sure we'd like it.  I already read it and it is mind blowing.  
• ARCs of Forever !!! Totally awesome way to open the event!
• Meeting Julie Kagawa and having her say that she wanted to check out my blog! SQUEE!!!!
• Having Kady Cross thank me for loving her book!!  Uh hello, it was beautiful!  Of course I loved it! 
• Meeting and talking to Kate Kaynak about her Ganzfield books and getting the ARC of Accused- I love these and I was so stoked to meet the woman who created Trevor- one of my FAVE book boys!
• Meeting Kristi Cook and getting a signed copy of Haven (which I have to read because it sounds AWESOME!)
• Finding the ARCs of In the Forests of the Night- there were very few and not many people got one!
• Meeting Karsten Knight, author of Wildefire.  He is amazing and he's going to be HUGE.  Mark my words.  
• Eating with chopsticks for the first time
• Riding in an NYC taxi for the first time
• Riding the subway for the first time
• Meeting TM and Blogger friends for the first time in person
• Coming home with a HUGE collection of new books!!!!!!  

To sum it all up, I learned SO much at BEA and I came away from it feeling stoked for the upcoming season of new releases.  I am beyond excited for all the upcoming books and I would totally do it all over again!  Feel free to ask questions in the comments and I will totally try to answer them.