Recap: Shelly’s NYC Trip!

So, be prepared for a long and RAMBLY recap of a weekend! Let’s split this up day by day, shall we? Friday My flight was on Friday at 12 p.m. and our plane took off a little earlier than that so me and my dad (my dad was kind enough to take me on this trip because he’s awesome!) actually checked into our hotel at 3 p.m. So, it’s 3 p.m. and we know that the blogger picnic starts at 6 so we decide to register for BookCon early so that we can avoid the long lines on Saturday. So we walk to the Javtis Centre. And we get lost. It took us HALF AN HOUR to find the convention centre so we just decided to take a taxi on Saturday. And we are tired, but we decide to walk back to the hotel because “why not?!”. And thus, we learned the hard way that we are utter suburbanites and the big city is definitely not for us.

At around 4:30, we headed to the NBC store to get some things for the twin sister. And then, we headed to Central Park for the big Book Blogger Picnic! Long story short: my dad and I arrived crazy early, got lost and at around 7, I had to call Octavia (which will definitely hijack our phone bills-sorry!) to get help! We ended up making it to the picnic with the help of Octavia (who was freakin’ awesome BTW)! At the picnic, there was cake! I didn’t have any because I was too excited to eat because OCTAVIA PROMISED ME TONS OF BOOKS! The first three books I got from Octavia were all of the books by Jennifer E. Smith, I won a giveaway by Kelly for them and she had Octavia give them to me!  Also, Octavia gave me Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld (!!!) , The Walled City by Ryan Graudin, Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick and The Young World by Chris Weitz. All the books were awesome and EEEEEP! I will say this and I will often repeat it: OCTAVIA IS AWESOME! I got to meet so many bloggers at the picnic including Jamie at The Perpetual Page-Turner and Nikki at There Were Books Involved! Jamie was so nice and she basically tackled me when she hugged me! She also complimented my hair and said that I was having a good hair day which pretty much made my week. Nikki was SO KIND and awesome and I want to hug her like 70 times! The picnic got rained down so we headed off to some food carts for a quick dinner with Nikki and Octavia.  After that, the dad and I headed over to our hotel to get some sleep and attempt to pack the books into our suitcases!

Saturday

The dad woke up at 6 A.M. even though our alarm was set for 6:45 and boy, am I glad that he did. I immediately texted Octavia as the dad was getting us breakfast and she told me that HER AND NIKKI WERE ALREADY THERE! I literally texted ‘WHAT’ because HOLY CRAP I AM SUBURBAN I WAS NOT USED TO THIS (#sorrynotsorry about the caps). So it is now 7 A.M. and dad and I are at the Javtis Center, YAY! We were waiting in line with Octavia and Nikki to enter through the BEA side but another blogger informed us that BookCon attendees had to go to another line. My dad and I ran to the other line and we got a pretty good spot. While I was in the line (at around 8:15), Octavia came up and basically told me (quite loudly) to spread my business card and people were staring but it was pretty entertaining in retrospect. We then headed to the washroom where there was a long line! When we were re-entering the BookCon line, we say Holly Black and Maggie Stiefvater walk in! Octavia (who is awesome) walks up to them and asks for a picture! We ended up getting a picture with them which was AWESOME! I was and still am, in shock that it actually happened!

And before we knew it, the doors to BookCon were opening and WE WERE INSIDE! The first twenty minutes of the event, I just walked around the exhibit super confused because, I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. Eventually, I got tired of walking in circles so I figured out where the general direction of places are and then I headed over to the Little Brown Books for Young Readers booth to wait for the 10 a.m. book drop! My dad and I waited there until Octavia showed up and joined us! While we waited, Octavia handed me The Jewel and Messenger of Fear! I swear, I would not get as many books as I did without Octavia! I also saw a Little Brown booth worker (if that’s what you call them…) put four titles of The Doubt Factory on the table (I guess they had too many) so I grabbed one! After the bookdrop, the dad and I decided to walk around until 11:45 when we were going to go back to the Little Brown booth to wait for the 12 p.m. book drop. Until around 11, the dad and I walked around and picked up books everywhere! There were literal stacks and stacks of books and tote bags being given out, it was madness! We stopped by Disney Hyperion booth as well and there was a HUGE pile of MG titles and I didn’t recognize the titles except Hook’s Revenge by Heidi Schulz so I got someone to give me a copy!

After walking around for a while &  getting MORE books, I headed over to the Corey Ann Haydu signing! In fifteen minutes, I was on my way back to the Little Brown booth with a signed hardcover copy of Life by Committee! Corey was so lovely and she asked me about how I was enjoying New York (I mentioned that I’m from Canada-I did that a lot–I am nationalistic,ok?!). Back at the Little Brown booth, Octavia made a kinda-sorta line for the 12 p.m. book drop and it was pretty awesome! I got a copy of Salt & Storm and The Darkest Part of the Forest! I’m getting SO TIRED of writing so I will know write the next key points of the event: -I got a bunch of awesome books & tote bags! -Epic Reads had an awesome “Spin to Win” wheel for some ARCs and I got two ARCs I wanted! -I got to meet Rachel and IT WAS AWESOME! She literally tackled me and she was so sweet!

After BookCon,

I went to The Strand and ended up getting SIX more books! The prices were much cheaper than in Canada and the taxes were pretty low. Somehow, my dad and I managed to fit all of our books in our suitcases and our suitcases were still small enough to be carry-ons, score! On Sunday, we headed home and OH CANADA, HOW I MISSED IT!

My trip was awesome, exciting and short but all in all, I LOVED IT! If you have ANY questions (this recap is vague because I am so exhausted), please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments. And now… what you’ve all been waiting for:

THE BOOKS!

ARCS/BookCon

(there are A LOT of books pictured above that I will be giving away so anything that is not mentioned below is probably part of a giveaway that will be coming up!)

We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarassingly, True Story by Josh Sundquist
Hook’s Revenge by Heidi Schulz
Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant
The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Young World by Chris Weitz
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle
Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick
The Jewel by Amy Ewing
The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard
Skink–No Surrender by Carl Hiaason
Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper
The Walled City by Ryan Guadin
Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios
Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

Other Books

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith (won from Kelly!)
This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith (won from Kelly!)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Lesyle Walton
Talker 25 by Joshua McCune
Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend by Katie Finn
End Games by T. Michael Martin
Split Second by Kasie West
The Falconer by Elizabeth May