Heartbeat Weekly (39): YALLfest 2014!

Posted by Jessi (Geo) on November 9, 2014 | 3 Comments


hbweekly

 

Books I got this week

YALLfest book haul

signings2014

From YALLfest (all signed):

I bought Heir of Fire and Opposition at the book table pre-signed.

Bought:

For review:

THANK YOU Hachette for the lovely finished copy!!

Funny story: Last week I got a slip from USPS saying I owed $5.95 shipping for an undelivered package. My fiancé and I had just ordered 2 things each from Amazon, so we didn’t know what it was. We were hoping it wasn’t some Prime seller screwing us. I waited a couple of days, and all of our packages were delivered. So what the heck was it? We figured the PO made a mistake (again). I brought it in and was like, “Uhh, we got this and we haven’t ordered anything?” and the lady went to check. She brought out this big package that was clearly a book, so then I had the dilemma of whether or not to pay the money for it. While she was scanning the package out, I Google searched the address and found out it was Hachette, who pretty much never sends me anything, which solidified my decision to take the chance. Obviously I’m glad I did!

 

Weekly Recap

Posts on the blog:

Random rant

So I just needed to talk about this somewhere, and it was too much to post on Twitter, and not something I felt inclined to do a full blog post about. I was perusing Goodreads yesterday, and saw that one of the people I follow commented “what the fuck kind of question is that” on someone’s question about Red Rising. Out of curiosity, I clicked on it. And saw this:

Red Rising question

 

Are you fucking kidding me? I couldn’t help myself, I had to comment.

Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 6.33.08 PM

 

Seriously, though. What the hell kind of a question is that? I told my fiancé about it and he said (only slightly sarcastically *sarcasm*), “Well see, you’re wrong. The only kind of book my woman should be reading is a cookbook.” Bahahaa I love him ;)

YALLfest

I wasn’t even planning on going this year, but last week I looked at the website and realized Laini Taylor was going to be there and I knew I just HAD to go. There were also lots of others I really wanted to see, especially Alexandra Bracken because I was almost done with Darkest Minds and loving it. I made spur of the moment plans with Octavia @ Read.Sleep.Repeat. to drive down Friday night after work!

After work Friday I showered real quick (and packed at the last minute lmao) and got ready. Octavia drove her car down to pick me up and we headed out. We took turns driving, continuing straight through the night. We weren’t able to book the hotel early because they were weird about early check-in, so at 6 we starting calling around. I kid you not, I called about TWENTY different hotels just trying to find one that wasn’t booked. It was very frustrating!! Finally we found one a little farther away, and checked in at 7. After getting ready, we headed over to the festival (about 8 or 8:30). We bought the books we needed, then we split up and headed for our first lines!

9 am

I headed for the line forming outside of the Train Museum, where Jennifer Armentrout and Marie Lu were. There was already quite a few people there! Octavia joined me eventually.

10 am

At about 10:15, they announced that we could start forming lines for specific authors and told us where the line would be. It was like a stampede! I thought that because Jennifer had so many books out, her line would be crazy long, so I made a beeline to hers and managed to get pretty close to the beginning of the line, while Octavia went to the Susan Ee line. I looked over at the Marie Lu line and saw how freaking long it was, and realized that I should have gone there first. It was crazy! Octavia said the same thing. At 10:30, they started taking Marie’s line early, and they were moving pretty fast. Octavia and I grumped via text over how we should have gone to that line first. Jessica @ a GREAT Read was at the very front of the Armentrout line, so we stepped out far enough to wave at each other. We had mentioned meeting up, but I honestly forgot to find her again! So girl, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I missed you but it was nice to see you and wave at you at least :D

11 am

The Jennifer line finally went in. Because I was so close, I only had to wait for about 15 minutes or so. Jennifer was super nice! She made a comment about me having the old covers of the Lux series, and I said that I had the very first cover for Obsidian (which I had in my bag because the website said there was a 3 book limit), and she said, “Oh, you don’t want me to sign that one too?” When I mentioned the book limit she was like, “Nah, hand it over and I’ll sign it for you!” I found out later that they don’t actually enforce the 3 book limit. I saw quite a few people with 4 or more books in some lines! After hers, I hopped right into the Lu line. It was my third time meeting Marie, and she was just as sweet as the last two times! She was rocking an awesome metal earpiece and fingerpiece:

Marie Lu

After hers, I left to get in line for Alexandra Bracken. I had the idea to sneak in to see Kiera Cass and get a bookplate signed, but her line was super long so I skipped it!

12 pm

Alexandra’s line was CRAZY long. Even getting there a half hour early, it was down the street and wrapped around the corner. It got even longer before 12 – it was kind of funny to see the reactions on people’s faces when they came around the corner and realized how far down the line went. Once the line started moving, we got around the corner and about halfway to the next corner (where it went into the courtyard) the line stopped. FOR 45 MINUTES. Seriously. We didn’t move for 45 minutes. The line was at a standstill, and after a half hour I started to wonder what the heck was going on. I left my book suitcase with a girl in line I’d been talking to and wandered up to the gate of the courtyard and asked if they knew what the holdup was. The girl said she thought Alexandra was talking. Um, talking? For a solid half hour?! What the hell, man! I waited until 12:50, and we had finally gotten to the gate of the courtyard (still quite a distance to the table). Laini Taylor was supposed to be at 1, and I knew there was no way I was getting to the table in under 20 minutes, so I had to make the very tough decision to bail out. It KILLED me to do so, but Laini was my top priority, so I had to. I had to miss Becca Fitzpatrick, too, who was signing at noon as well.

1 pm

Thankfully Octavia saved me a spot in the Laini line, and after all but running to get over there I made it with plenty of time to spare. I met Maura @ The Whimsical Mama too. Laini was in a panel at noon, so she came a bit late. I kind of was kicking myself for not running past the Reichs booth to get Virals and Seizure signed. I ended up having PLENTY of time. I probably could have seen Alex London, too. Definitely still kicking myself for that one! Around 1:15 or so Laini arrived. We weren’t standing in line for very long thankfully. Laini was AWESOME!! The first thing she said when I walked up to the table was, “I like your hair!” (I have pink in my hair so we matched!) I told her I loooove hers and asked how she keeps it so bright. She said she gets it done at a salon, and it lasts 14 WEEKS! AHH! Mine last about 6 days before it’s not bright anymore! She told me the name of the product, but I forget sadly. Meeting Laini was the highlight of my day!

Laini Taylor

On the way back toward the tent, I passed a girl with awesome purple hair. I was kind of staring because it looked cool, and thought about telling her so, but then thought that it might be kind of weird haha. So I just kept going.

2 pm

After Laini, I swung back by and caught the end of the Becca Fitzpatrick line. I heard one of the girls behind me talking about how long the Bracken line was, and I told them that I had waited almost an hour and a half only to have to leave. The woman told me that Alexandra had just passed them on the street, heading toward the Train Museum (where I had just been) with A GIRL WITH PURPLE HAIR. Oh. My. God. I was SO fucking mad, you guys! I had literally JUST passed her on the street and didn’t even know she was there!!! I was so focused on the girl’s awesome hair that I didn’t even notice. And honestly, I’m not sure I’d have been able to recognize her, anyway. Sad face.

3 pm

We finally, FINALLY got a break. There was nobody at 3 that I was really interested in seeing, so we had downtime until 4. I took the giant suitcase of books back to the car and switched to my tote bag, and we went to Moe’s to grab some food. We hadn’t eaten since 7 am!

4 pm

I decided to skip Sarah Maas. I’ve already met her before, and I knew the line was going to be insane; after a day of ridiculous lines and dragging 26 books around, I wasn’t feeling up to standing in line for so long. We went to Sarah Fine instead – we were the first in line, and there was only like 6 people in line when it started! (Honestly, we probably could have still gone to Sarah Maas. Oh well. I was able to find a signed copy of Heir of Fire, I just didn’t get Assassin’s Blade signed.) Anyway, Sarah Fine was SO nice!! And it was totally adorable to see Octavia fangirling over her haha.

Octavia Sarah Fine and Jessi

After that, Octavia and I went back to the hotel and crashed! After 31 hours without sleep I was feeling a bit like a zombie. We slept until 2 am and headed home!

Recap

I had SO much fun this year, and it was amazing to finally meet Octavia. She was just as awesome in person as she is on the internet! She’s totally sweet and was easy to talk to and get along with. Her easygoing and fun attitude toward everything really helped whenever I started to stress! We laughed about the things that sucked instead of being upset about them.

Octavia and Jessi

I also think this year was much less stressful because I knew what to expect. I knew I wouldn’t get to all the authors I hoped to see (I just didn’t think it’d be my second priority author…), so I tried not to be upset over missing any.

Authors I met this year:

  • Jennifer Armentrout
  • Marie Lu (third time seeing her!)
  • Laini Taylor
  • Becca Fitzpatrick
  • Sarah Fine

Authors I missed that I wanted to see (or just wanted books signed):

  • Alexandra Bracken
  • Kathy Reichs
  • Sarah Maas
  • Gayle Forman (again – missed her last year, too)
  • Alex London (again)
  • Keira Cass
  • Morgan Rhodes
  • Ellen Hopkins (again)

Yep, that’s right. I only saw five. Out of that many authors. That’s how long the lines were! And that was with Octavia saving my spot at Laini’s line. The lines were way longer this year…I don’t know if it’s because more people came, or if it’s because there were a ton of super popular authors. But last year, I got through most of my lines within 15-20 minutes!

Hey, on the bright side, maybe next year I’ll finally get to the authors that I keep missing…

 

Giveaway

 

 

Sorry I couldn’t do more, but a real giveaway just wasn’t in the budget this year :(

What’s in your mailbox, loverlies? Link me up!

Jessi (Geo)

Posted in: Features | Tags: , ,

Subscribe to Novel Heartbeat to get more posts like this!

3 responses to “Heartbeat Weekly (39): YALLfest 2014!

  1. OMG that comment about Red Rising! WTF?!?! Your Fiancée cracks me up though! Get a cookbook :P

    Yall fest sounds like a great time, even if it was insane and you didn’t get to as many authors as you would have liked. Meeting other bloggers is a definite plus!

Leave a Reply to Melanie (YA Midnight Reads) Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.