LA's Festival of Books 2014

What a wonderful weekend! The Festival of Books was happening and for the first time, I was able to attend BOTH days!!! And boy! Were they wonderful!
 
I was able to meet many authors, add more books to my collection, get ALL of my books signed, got to see all kinds of people attending, got to drag my baby sister and two girlfriends across the USC campus as I ran after authors, and met the blogger from BookHounds! It was amazing!
 
Now bare with me as I describe to you the two days I attended.  :)

SATURDAY:
 
Saturday was the busiest day since I got to meet the most authors.
 
Below is the first panel that I saw while waiting in line to have Ransom Riggs sign my books. Before this panel, I have never heard of these ladies (I know...sad). They all sounded wonderful. If I had a lot of money, I would have bought all of their books. Instead, I ended up with Katie Alender's Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer. It sounded funny.

 

From left to right: Cecil Castellucci, Andrea Kremer, Rachel Shukert, Katie Alender.

 

With Ransom Riggs
 

After getting Mr. Rigg's signature, I began to wonder around the YA section to see all the stands. All of a sudden, I saw this:



8: The Untold Story signed by author
 

Wait a minute! I reviewed TaleSpins before! Sure enough, Michael Mullin was there with his book, his comic, and his new book. It was very exciting to actually meet an author whom I reviewed for. He too seemed thrilled to have met me in person. The best part about this was he actually recognized who I was.

Next, I got in line to meet John Green but oh my goodness! The line was soooo long!!! It was estimated that I'll be waiting for 2 hours to get his signature. So, I left my sister behind to hold my spot while I rushed to see my next panel (shown below):


From left to right: Denise Hamilton, Rachel Hawkins, Neal Shusterman, Kelley Armstrong, Tony DiTerlizzi

This panel was fun and I was surprised to have encountered the author of the Spiderwick Chronicles. However, I was super psyched to have met Neal Shusterman. He was kind enough to sign one of the few posters he had for me.


Neal Shusterman

I then quickly rushed back to John Green's line in hopes to catch him. Luckily I did. It only took 2.5 hours to finally meet him.


John Green

My last stop of the day was to see Margaret Stohl, Laini Taylor, and Soman Chainani (didn't get the chance to get his picture):


Margaret Stohl

Laini Taylor

After six hours at the festival, we then decided to head to Little Tokyo to refuel ourselves and head home. But that took a while since it took us about an hour to exit out of the USC area due to all the crazy events happening in LA.


SUNDAY:

I went with another friend (a different victim lol) and decided to take the Metro train in hopes of avoiding the traffic from the previous day.

This day was more relaxing since I didn't plan to visit many authors. I was able to enjoy the ambiance of the festival more.

The only panel I saw was over at the YA stage below:

From left to right: Marissa Meyer, Cecil Castellucci, Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo.

I have to say, these ladies were hilarious! I especially loved Leigh Bardugo and Sarah J. Maas' personalities. They were very quirky and fun. The other two ladies (Castellucci and Meyer) were awesome as well and I was kicking myself because I left their books at home.


With Leigh Bardugo

Below, Maas got distracted when she saw a very special guest...


Sarah J Maas

The special guest was the hound belonging to the book blogger of BookHounds! I too was excited!


Andrew Smith, Leigh Bardugo, Sarah J. Maas with BookHounds' dog

Cecile Castellucci and Marissa Meyer

 The last author I went to see was the talented Sandra Cisneros. She's big here in Southern California. Her books are a required reading in schools and I have greatly enjoyed reading them. It was a great honor to have finally met her.



Sandra Cisneros

And here's all the books that I ended up getting signed this weekend:

I say...it was not fun lugging all of these around the festival. I'm just glad that I was able to make it to both days. I had an amazing time!


How about you: did you go to the Festival of Books?