Wrap Up || BookCon 2016

Ohmigosh, a post! What is that??? Sorry about going dark for a few days guys. In case you haven’t seen or heard, BookCon was last weekend. I went down to the city with my friend, and we decided to stay Fri-Sun just so we didn’t need to worry about getting there and home on Saturday. I opted not to bring my laptop because I had a feeling that I was going to be lacking on space. I am so glad that I made that decision because I had quite the haul of books to bring home.

I really don’t have much of a swag haul because I wasn’t grabbing too much in the way of bookmarks and posters. Most/all of my energy was focused on talking with authors and scoping out free books and arcs. For it being my first one, I’d say that it went really well and there isn’t a whole lot that I’d change. Going in, I had somewhat of a plan, but nothing too set in stone because I didn’t want to stress myself out if things weren’t going my way.

My morning started out rough and it involved missing the L by seconds, it was one of those where the train left just as we reached the platform, and I had to tell myself that it was OK we weren’t there right at opening. We had decided ahead of time not to bother with even attempting to get there for “first in line” because I had figured we’d need to be there at 6AM. Yeah no. I wasn’t awake until 7AM and even then we were running late. When we finally got there, we headed straight to coat check to have them store my rolling duffle bag.

Walking up the stairs, we were met with a small hoard of people just standing around. No one was really explaining what was going on, and I still don’t know why they weren’t letting people in at this point.. Once we finally got into the convention, it was exciting but incredibly overwhelming. We didn’t know where to go first, so we just kind of wandered. I knew that I wanted to go to a couple booths because they were giving away books.

We basically did this the rest of the day; we wandered and stopped to talk to authors and people at booths, while we alternated between looking through the book they gave us when walking in and the BookCon app. The place we found to hang out was in front of the PRH booth because they had arc giveaways and author signings that weren’t necessarily in the program-like-thing we had. I had seen on the screen in the PRH booth that Pierce Brown was going to be doing an in-booth signing of Red Rising. I haven’t read the books, but I’ve heard great things about it, so I figured, ‘Why not get a free copy of the book, signed, and meet the author?’

At this time my friend and I went and sat down to kill time before they gave out tickets for the signing. This became the unofficial line, and I met some nice people in line that unfortunately I didn’t see the rest of the day but they took our picture with Pierce Brown and it turned out really well. Anyway, actually meeting Pierce was really cool. He has the prettiest eyes I have ever seen, and he’s really really nice. Plus, let’s be real, he’s kinda cute (though that was minor in the grand scheme of things).

Long story short, we continued to get more free books and went to the one panel that I was dying to see with SJM, Victoria Aveyard, and Laini Taylor. After the convention though, was my favorite part of the day.  My friend Jess and I met up with fellow blogger and Chicago area native, Emily! She’s just as sweet and nice in person as she is online, and seriously if you’re not already following and reading her blog, you should. She also wrote a guest post for me that‘s awesome and you should definitely check out because I’m know of obsessed with the idea of literary tourism. We ended up going to a Mexican restaurant close to the McCormick Place, and found out that we have a lot in common and basically became best friends. 😉 (Correct me if I’m wrong here? jkjk) It was a lot of fun because it was like, “Oh my god, you’re real!” I wish I could meet more of you guys because like I’ve said, interacting with you is my favorite part about this blog.

Honestly the only I really wish I would’ve done and didn’t was had the patience to wait and get a literary tattoo from the Litographs booth. They were giving them out and then handing you a number. All you had to do was take a picture of it and post it with the number. They’re going to put them all in order, and it’s the entire text of Alice in Wonderland, I believe. So. Cool. That’s it though. I also wish that I had taken more pictures (my phone was quickly dying and the charging pack I brought decided not to work. Nevermind the fact that  had a cord and an adapter with me. Oops.).

I came home with just over 40 books (if you count the samples I also grabbed). I didn’t pay a dime for any of them. I was one of those jerks that saw you had to pay for a book and walked away, but still grabbed a card for future reference. As far as books went, any books that were on my to-buy list I already had in my possession.

I had an incredible time and I’m so ready to go back, but they’re bringing it back to NYC next year. Boooo. How can you do that to me? That’s ok. I’m seriously considering going to NYC next year to attend BookCon. I’ve never been to New York, so  think it’ be fun. If anyone wants to join me, you’re more than welcome to! (Blogger field trip!)

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