For Review:
Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr (ARCycling)
Bought (for signing):
Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd
Prodigy by Marie Lu
The Archived by Victoria Schwaab
From the signing:
Signed bookmarks from Marissa Meyer, Victoria Schwaab, and Megan Shepherd
Signed postcard from Beth Revis
“Prince Kai” and “Lunartic” buttons & Scarlet sticker
Won:
Signed Harken poster & postcard
Harken ring & Kaleb Nation bracelet (glow in the dark!)
*I won these from Making the Grade (now Jenna Does Books)…big thanks to Jenna for hosting the giveaway!!!
As you can see, it was an AMAZING week for me! Now for a story….
Remember back in January when 5 lovely authors held this wonderful voting even called Bringing YA to you? Well, when I heard that the winning city was in Tennessee (Algood Middle School in Cookeville), I was STOKED! I was like, DUDE, that’s only like 5 hours away! I got the email about it Sunday night, so it was very last minute…but I had Tuesday off already so I thought to myself, Hell, why not Geo? You only live once, right? Be adventurous! So I decided to take an unplanned mini road trip to go to my first ever author signing! EEP! Nothing awesome ever comes anywhere close to Ohio, so I figured it was worth it because I don’t know when I’ll get another chance like this.
I went with my boyfriend, and we got a little lost on the way down. It was supposed to be a 5 1/2 hour drive (according to Google maps), but we used the Garmin GPS and it got us lost. Seriously, we were driving around in circles for like an hour because the stupid thing kept messing up and doing the annoying ‘recalculating…recalculating’ thing. It was showing the route we were supposed to be on, but showing that the car was out in the middle of a field. And telling us to turn where there were no roads. (The importance of keeping your maps updated!) Neither of us had ANY cell phone service, so we had no choice but to listen to the stupid thing and hope we eventually got on track. It took us six and a half hours to get there. Ridiculous. Thank goodness for the time change that I didn’t know about, because we didn’t get there til 6:15 our time – EST (signing started at 6 CST)!
But we made it, the event was EPIC, and I got to meet Beth Revis, Marissa Meyer, Marie Lu, Megan Shepherd, and Victoria Schwaab! It was so cool to hear them talk about their experiences and answer some questions (they answered one of mine in the video!). Even cooler to get to talk to them personally! Beth was my favorite to meet because she’s just so spunky and charismatic. Not to mention that when I told her I was a book blogger she said I could send her an email for an interview sometime! *fangirl squee*
There were hardly any people there – it was pretty much just some middle school students and parents. So there were hardly any lines waiting to get books signed! Woot!
Here’s 45 minutes of the Q&A panel – I couldn’t record the whole thing because my iPhone memory was full :( But in the video they answer the questions: what books they have upcoming, what made them start writing, where they got the inspirations for their books, which books they wrote were their favorite, who their favorite character was to write (my question – 29 minutes in! :D), and what their childhoods were like. We get to learn awesome things like what show Marissa was obsessed with (totally love that show!), which one of them liked to chop heads off teddy bears, and who grew up in a book store. I know it’s long, but if you’ve got 45 minutes to spare, it’s worth watching :)
*And please excuse the wobbly camera, it’s reeaally hard to hold a little phone still for such a long period of time (not to mention my butt was falling asleep and I couldn’t keep myself still)….
What’s in your mailbox, loverlies? Link me up!

EEK NOOOO! Your video is private D:
BUT YAY FOR THE ROAD TRIP! I’m so glad you got to go, I’m so jealous you got to meet all those fantastic authors!! Also, WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO BREAK THE NEWS OF YOUR BOYFRIEND?
Hinky must’ve known GRR I HAVE TO DO A BETTER JOB OF STALKING YOUR TWITTER CONVERSATIONS.
GRR.
BY THE WAY AWESOME HAUL!
Thank you! :D :D
Baha. Hinky knows everything…*all seeing eye*…
CRAP FAIL. I fixed it now!
Teheheee I haven’t said much publicly, maybe you should text me like Inky does ;D
Do I have to do some major stalking to find your phone number? BECAUSE I WILL IF I HAVE TO. *runs*
Haha all you have to do is ask! Do you have a phone or a way to text message??
DUDE I JUST SENT YOU THE CREEPIEST EMAILS EVER SO YES I HAVE UN PHONE BUT I WOULDN’T TRUST GIVING ME YOUR NUMBER
*runs away* I’m in a creepy mood today
Hahaha I LOVE YOUR CREEPY MOODS. [I think we established this :p]
WHAT AN AWESOME HAUL JESSI!!!!! I wish they had Harken in paperback! IT SOUNDS LIKE THE AWESOMEST BOOK EVER!
Enjoy reading your books <33
I need to get my hands on a copy! I hope I love it as much as everyone else has :)
That is most epic YOLO story eva!!!!!!!!!! Im so glad you got to go and meet the celebs themselves. Tehe. Anyways.. Epic books. im readung Scarlet an MD soon and i cant wait oh, and the archived. hehe. (excuse me for lame formatting. on the kindlenator) PRODIGY!!!! im kind jealous of that one. neeeeed PRODIGY. well im not dyingbut i weally weally want it.
oy my formatting stinks but im STILL your Nator twin
YOU. CANNOT ESCAPE ME.
<3333 Inky
Tehee! I have SO many sequel/sophomore books I need to read….*sigh*
Kindlenator, baha :D
<33
Series are amazing, while at the same time it’s nice to find a good standalone! :D BAHA yes.
I hate series, the commitment scares me ;p
Depends on how alluring the first on is. after that i go on a book by book basis. though im totally cool with ditching a series if i just don’t care anymore. So take THAT series.
Lucky you! I was hoping so much for a city near me to win YA2U, but no such luck (it ended up somewhere in the top ten). Isn’t Beth Revis awesome! When I met her at a signing back in September, she told me she liked my shirt and I could have died! (to be honest, it is pretty sweet with light sabre unicorns)
Congrats on going to such an awesome event! It’s crazy that it wasn’t that busy.
Haha that’s awesome! It’s amazing how the simplest things from an author’s mouth can make us bloggers fangirl ;)
Awesome! I would’ve loved to go to a YA2U event, but my city didn’t win. That’s okay, though, because it looks like you had a lot of fun!
Cookeville kinda cheated baha. The librarian got the whole school plus all the parents to vote, so no one else really stood a chance! But yes I had tons of fun :)
I SO wish I’d known you were going to be there. I really wanted to go to the event since Cookeville isn’t that far away from me, but it just didn’t work out. :( I’m SO glad you got to go and have fun. I’ve met Victoria, but I really wanted to meet Marissa.