According to all the other bloggers that I've spoken to, BookCon is a horror show. After having gone to BookCon, I can say that they were definitely not wrong.
Stephanie and I tried our best to get everything that we needed done while at BEA, just so that we wouldn't have to experience the horror show, but it couldn't be worse than the first Heartless ticket drop right? I was wrong.
In the end I only had four things left on my list to do at BookCon. Signings for Cassandra Clare, Richelle Mead, the Amie Kaufman/Jay Kristoff signing and visiting the OwlCrate booth. And from the moment I got there I didn't even think I would get even get to two of them.
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| (Look at the skywalk.) |
The line to just enter the floor was OUTRAGEOUS, it went across two buildings, a skywalk and three floors. Because we didn't have anything we needed in a dire need, we didn't even rush to get there, (We got there at 6:30am), but by god, if you even wanted more than one ticket to a signing you'd have had to be there super early. To get tickets, you had to go into different chutes and were only allowed one ticket per chute, and even those lines were outrageous. The two I wanted tickets for were in one chute, I knew I had a decision to make.
While waiting in line, it seemed like I would at least get one. So I decided that I would go for Cassandra Clare first then Richelle Mead. In the end it didn't matter because Cassandra Clare ran out before I got to the front. So I got a ticket to Richelle, where I was a little disappointed at not having gotten a ticket to Cassandra, I was still super excited at being able to meet Richelle Mead. The two of them are in my top 5 favourite authors, so getting the chance to even met one of them was phenomenal.
Having gotten my ticket I was good to go to the floor, unfortunately with some poorly given directions I had left admittance area and had to go to the veeeeerrry back of the line. Well that was a huge nope for me, having missed breakfast that was the first thing I got. I went back when I the line was completely gone.
One point five hours later, I was finally on the floor exploring. My first stop was the
OwlCrate booth! Having met Korrina a few days before, one of the main faces behind OwlCrate, I was super excited to see her again, especially her booth!
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| Corrina and I! |
They were packed! I was so happy to see them so busy! They were definitely one of the greatest hits of BookCon 2016!
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| My version of the shot. |
Then wandering took me to the Random House/Penguin booth again where when I was about to leave, ran into both Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, together. I knew that the afternoon signing wouldn't allow you to pose for photos, so I texted Stephanie. I was to stall them while she ran, and apparently she actually did! With her heart condition she isn't really allowed to do that, her mom told me later that she thought Stephanie ran the fastest she ever did in her entire life. While I waited for her to arrive, I stalled with the two by asking for a photo, when I noticed them going to leave. If you look at the photos that were taken of me and them, then you'd probably laugh because I look so stressed out hoping that my stalling was working so that Steph would make it in time. In the end everything worked out nicely and that photo is probably Steph's favourite from the entire trip.
From there it was lunch time! So I headed up to the food court with Stephanie and her mom. We spent a good while up there just looking out over all the booths. Compared to BEA, the floor was half the size but filled with 2x as many people as BEA. It was crazy.
Then finally at 2:00pm, I had enough of just waiting around and knowing the lines from BEA, I headed to the Richelle Mead signing line. I was apparently so early that I was the tenth person in line. It was pretty great, it also meant that I was guaranteed whatever book I wanted when it came to start time. A majority of the ticketed lines required you to make a book purchase, and so I planned on buying
The Glittering Court, which is Richelle's latest release. Along with
The Glittering Court, I also brought my ARC of
Soundless and one of her adult books,
Storm Born to get signed!
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| Cassandra Clare, (Red/Blue hair) |
As I waited in line, and we slowly made our way up in line, the authors came out to get started. Besides noticing Richelle come out to the signing table, I also got a clear view of Cassandra Clare who was right next to us. I couldn't help but think that that would be the closest I'd ever get to her. So I took way too many pictures to count.
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| Richelle Mead |
Then finally it was my turn to meet Richelle. I was just as big of a mess as I was meeting Marissa Meyer, maybe even a bit bigger. She was so kind, you could clearly see that she was tired already but that didn't stop her from interacting with you. The minute she saw my ARC of
Soundless, she got excited and asked if I was a blogger, that's when the blabbering mess came out. It stayed out until after pictures were taken and everything. I just couldn't believe that I met Richelle Mead, I still can't.
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Kaufman/Kristoff, Jay smiling yet
again at Steph's nickname "Doodle" |
From there I walked star-y eyed towards the Random House/Penguin booth, where the line for the Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff signing had begun. Of course I met Stephanie and her mom there, who had almost two copies of everything for them to sign. Both the hardcover and paperback ARCS of
Illuminae, the finished copy and the ARC of
Gemina from the day before. Unfortunately I didn't realize that the event would be ticketed as well, this was because they had more ARCs of
Gemina to give away. Fortunately because I already had a copy of
Gemina they let me get my book signed without a ticket.
Then the two had one more stop that they wanted to check out before we left, (We had to leave BookCon a bit early so that we could make it in time for the Sarah J. Maas signing at
Andersons.) So while they wandered off, I headed towards the Cassandra Clare signing to see if they had finished already, and see if I could by chance sneak in.
When I got to the signing line I found a girl about my age already waiting outside of the line, I asked her if she was hoping to sneak into the signing line too. She told me that her friend was currently in line "only to buy a Cassandra Clare book", and that the security guard let her. When the girl continued to walk in the line and reach the spot that was right next to us, she looked to the guard, who happened to be right next to us, and said" I've been a good human being and listened to you, may I please sneak into the signing line?" The guard had such a big smirk, and said go ahead! So being right there, I asked if I could sneak in too, being that that was what I was trying to do as well, and he said yes, too! In the end the two friends, myself and one other girl and her mom snuck into the line. The new girl was dressed in complete Isabelle Lightwood attire, so it was really cute to see.
I was probably just as excited and nervous as I was to meet Richelle Mead and Marissa Meyer, maybe even more so. The closer I got to the the front the more I realized who was taking photos for people, it was Ursula from
@Urs_Uriarte. I'm a huge fan of her bookish photography, so meeting her was almost just as exciting as seeing Cassandra!
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| Cassandra Clare |
Then the moment arrived, and it was time to meet Cassandra Clare. Because all of my Cassandra Clare books are hardcover, and they would weight a ton to fly down, I had originally planned on just bringing my tarot cards to get signed and buying the new edition of
Clockwork Princess, but some things changed. Stephanie, as a early,
early Christmas Present had gotten me the
History of Notable Shadowhunters and Denizens of the Downworld by Cassandra Clare and Cassandra Jean. So I had that on me, as well as my cards, and because I snuck in line I didn't have to buy a copy of anything. Then I also had the cover flap of
Clockwork Princess for my friend to have signed.
The minute I handed Cassandra my copy of
HoNSaDotD we started talking about Cassandra Jean, and what a phenomenal illustrator she is. With her being one of my favourite illustrators, we had a bunch to talk about and really besides talking about
The Infernal Devices for a bit, that's all we talked about.
I left that line feeling over the moon, and just staggered to the BookCon entrance looking for Steph feeling at bliss. When I said tearing up on the spot, that was nothing compared to my crying when I found Stephanie.
Having met Cassandra Clare was the perfect ending to BookCon, and BEA, it was the perfect ending to my trip.
And that concludes my BEA and BookCon posts, stayed tuned for my Sarah J Maas signing post!
If you haven't seen my other posts from BEA you can see those here:
