Starstruck: LA Times Festival of Books!

On Saturday, I got the chance to go to the LA Times Festival of Books!!  Yeah!!  I was so excited in the morning (even though I was kind of sleep deprived).  But overall, I'm glad that I got to go because there were some fantastic authors out there on Saturday and I got to get 6 of my books signed :)

First, I went to the "YA Stage" for a panel called "To Be Continued..." which was basically about the authors and their series.  DJ MacHale was there (he's the author of the Pendragon series and Morpheous Road), as well as Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia of the Beautiful Creatures series.  Lauren Kate, who wrote the Fallen series was also there as well.  So, I got a ton of books signed (which really means I only got four books signed).  I would have brought my whole entire Pendragon series if I could, but that's a total of 10 books. 10 BOOKS!

Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl posing with my copy of
Beautiful Chaos :D

*sigh* Me smiling awkwardly with Lauren Kate :)

Next, I got to see Stephanie Perkins, who wrote Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door, which are absolutely amazing books.  I was so excited to meet her and she was super duper nice.  I'm kind of socially awkward when it comes to meeting new people, especially authors, I tend to freeze up and just say, "Hi!" and "Thank you!" because I really never know what to say, but she was able to get a couple more words out of me :)  Gayle Forman and Nina LaCour were also there with her, but I already had If I Stay and Where She Went signed at last year's Festival of Books, so instead I got a "Team Adam" pin and a couple posters for The Disenchantments :)  Ahhh, I'm such a happy child right now :D

Stephanie Perkins (signing another person's book;
my mom took the picture ahead of me in line)

The posters.  Aren't they awesome??

My last signing was the John Green signing.  That one was kind of hectic in a way.  And definitely confusing.  At the booth, I guess if you wanted the "priority pass" you had to buy one of his books from their booth, but I had already read all of his books and didn't really want to buy them, so I was stuck in the "non priority line."  But, my friend Victoria, a Nerdfighter who came with her "Keep Calm and DFTBA" shirt and FTL (French the Llama) poster, came with me to that signing and we talked about what her reaction would be because she was nervous but definitely excited to get to meet John Green.

John Green! Signing another person's books (again).

Overall, it was SO fun, even though a majority of it was spent in lines and walking through hoards of people.  I've always enjoyed it and have been going to them since 2010, when I got back from China.  I never really go on both days because of homework and stuff, but it's always fun if you can go for at least one day.

The book festival definitely made up for missing Lauren Oliver and & Tahereh Mafi when they visited a bookstore literally like 5 miles away from my house.  

Ahhh!  Next year will be my last year unless I decide to stay in the LA area for college.  I'll definitely have to go next year and make it an all day event!  I'm already excited for next year.  I don't even know why.  

Cleo :)