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Day 3: The Endurance Test (Friday)
We started Friday at the same time as Thursday, 6:30 for Christina and 6:37 for me. Though I was actually more awake that morning (I actually woke before my alarm), I was more scatterbrained, and kept forgetting things. My room key, my badge, my wallet. That combined with our brief breakfast pitstop to partake in the complementary muffins caused us to leave the hotel about twenty minutes later than the day before.
While 20 minutes might not seem like a long time, it made all the difference. When we arrived at the Javits Center and went to check our suitcase, we were informed that the bag check we'd used the previous day was already full, and were redirected to the baggage check at the far northeast corner of the facility. Armed with our muffins and our schedule, however, we were not deterred. After finally identifying what the side doors with shorter lines were that we'd read about in tips posts, we plopped down on the floor to wait the hour or so before they opened the exhibition floor.
The daily BEA newsletter, Show Daily, is really fascinating and has a lot of really interesting articles as well as ads featuring various booths' galley drops and author signings for the day. I perused that to pass the time and then filled the rest of the time taking selfies with Christina. Our schedule, while carefully plotted, with every moment basically accounted for was full, but surprisingly easy mostly because it involved a lot of sitting and waiting for things. So when they opened the exhibition floor, Christina and I beat a path to the Simon & Schuster booth to grab Scott Westerfeld's Afterworlds. Even though we reached the booth at approximately 9:01am for the 9am drop, there was only a small pile of books left. I'd estimate maybe 15. It was really shocking, honestly. After fighting our way through that chaos, we hoofed it to the Sarah Maas line, arriving at the Autograph Signing area at about 9:03.
And there was already a line.
Mind you, Sarah wasn't signing until 11. But Christina really wasn't surprised since, as she astutely pointed out, pretty much everyone we'd met the previous day had mentioned going to the Sarah Maas signing. I sat in line while Christina went to pick up galley drop sheets. In the maybe twenty or thirty minutes she was gone, the Sarah Maas signing line moved four times. Four. Honestly, it was a bit ridiculous, but it kept growing and it wasn't a BEA-sanctioned line yet (by which I mean, the BEA volunteers hadn't acknowledged us as an actual line) until they finally moved us into a queue. As I was waiting for Christina to come back, though, I met some other bloggers, namely ScottReadsIt's Jon, and his friend, Kelly, who evidently also has a blog, but since we did not talk about blogger things or exchange cards, I do not know what it is. We had a very delightful conversation that ended in Jon striking out to see if he could track down an Isla and the Happily Ever After ARC, though no one was really holding their breath (if only though!).
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| This is just the first part of the Sarah Maas signing line. It continues around the corner. |
Christina returned with CJ, Jon returned sans Isla, and we spent the rest of the time waiting. Sarah, whom Christina and I hosted at our college last year, remembered me, so we had a really great conversation where Sarah was stunning and hilarious and amazing as usual, and I was extremely unintelligent. It was fabulous to see her again though, and from there, CJ, Christina, and I headed out to eat lunch on the steps and take a bit of a rest before diving back into the fray for a 1:00 signing of A Little Something Different. (This was the book I didn't know there was going to be a signing for, and I was so freaking excited that it was here! It was delightful meeting Sandy Hall, the author too.) This afternoon, like Thursday's, was filled with drops, basically us running between Macmillan and all the other publishers.
I dropped in to grab a copy of The Doubt Factory prior to attending the Sandy Hall signing (which I had been told had been canceled, and the only reason we went was because I saw her name on the sheet on our way to Sarah Maas' line earlier, and I just wanted to see if maybe it was still a go), but we headed back over to Hachette's booth at 2, so I could grab a copy of Famous in Love, before rushing over to Macmillan for Sway. We started the line, this time legitimately. The rest of the day was spent running around trying to grab books. 3:00 at Hachette (Little, Brown) for Salt & Storm and The Darkest Part of the Forest. Alexis (from Alexis Adores Books) was kind enough to stay behind at Macmillan and grab me a copy of Trial by Fire, which was dropping at 3 as well (thank you so much, Alexis!!!). She also got to LB in time to grab her own ARCs of Salt & Storm and The Darkest Part of the Forest, though I was going to grab her one in exchange for her getting Trial by Fire for me. Then we headed to the 3:30 drop for The Vault of Dreamers, where I really embarrassed myself. (Ugh, I feel the need to apologize to the universe for that one. Sorry x1000 there.) Then we hopped over to Bloomsbury for the 4:00 drop of The Fire Artist.
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| The Vault of Dreamers ARCs |
After that, the day was over. Christina and I packed our books into the suitcase, dropped them off at the hotel and then headed out for a relaxing evening in Central Park, before grabbing dinner at an Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side. It started to rain on our way out of Central Park though, which put a bit of a damper on things (no pun intended), but it wasn't for very long, so after dinner we were able to walk around a bit. We got a shake from the Shake Shack for dessert (lines out the door as usual), and then hurried back to the hotel determined to watch Harry Potter. Again, our attempts failed, and we mostly ended up just reading before bed.
Day 2 Spoil:
Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist
Not in the Script by Amy Finnegan
The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi
A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall
Sway by Kat Spears
Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
The Fire Artist by Daisy Whitney
Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper
Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh O'Brien
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
(I actually got The Jewel by Amy Ewing on Day 1/Thursday, so oops. Picture taking fail.)
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Any books on this list that get your heart pumping?
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