It was merely an hour's train ride to get to the city, but since I had school earlier that day, I caught a 4:15 train and got into the city at 5:20ish. By the time I grabbed a bite to eat and got to Books of Wonder, it was 5:45 and it was PACKED.
Let me backtrack a bit to right before I entered Books of Wonder though because SARAH J. MAAS WAS LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME BEFORE I WALKED IN AND I SQUEALED IN FRONT OF MY DAD AND HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON BUT LUCKILY IT WAS DARK AND SARAH DIDN'T SEE/HEAR ME FLAILING BUT OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG YOU GUYS. *takes deep breath*
Once I was inside, I finally had a minute to set down my giant bag of seven books from home and picked up the copy of Truthwitch I ordered for my dear friend. Apparently everyone came way in advance though, because I received my ticket for the signing and I found out I was 89th in line.
I then rushed over to the Q&A area right before the Q&A started to meet up with my twitter/blog friend Mariam (from Flying Through Fiction), and ended up meeting her co-blogger Ashley, as well as Raisa (from Wonderland Novels) and Brittany (from Book Rambles).
The Q&A started, with Erin Bowman as moderator. The questions started off mostly with book/writing-related questions, such as inspiration and research, and later questions from the crowd were thrown in (BB8 or R2D2? Which Hogwarts Houses would your characters be sorted into? If your character could choose any companion to help them from another story/movie/etc. who would it be?) The Q&A lasted about 45 minutes before they started setting up for the signing. The event cleared out significantly after the questions were over, but there were still at least one hundred people waiting to meet Susan, Alex, and Erin. Around 7ish, the signing began, starting with the first 20 people.
I proceeded to hang out with Mariam, Raisa, Ashley and Brittany for a while before spotting Danielle from Simply Thoughtful Books (on BookTube). I had spotted her as well as some other BookTubers, bloggers, and people I recognized from BookCon and Twitter during the Q&A, and knew I had to say hello. She was surprised that I recognized her, but she was just as sweet in person as she is in her videos.
I returned to my blog friends for a while before Mariam introduced me to some people on our PassTruth NYC group chat on Twitter: Kelly and Heather, mainly, and then sort of Melissa and Jana (I apologize for not actually properly introducing myself!) I ran into Danielle again and asked for a picture with her since she's one of my favorite BookTubers and afterwards we proceeded to talk about BookTube, Something Strange and Deadly, Illuminae, and various other things. Anyway, I highly highly recommend you check her videos out since she's so genuinely nice and funny and is such a sweet person.
Most of my friends/acquaintances/I-don't-know-what-to-call-them-because-I-knew-them-online-for-several-months-but-not-in-person-until-this-event got their books signed way before me because they all somehow managed to get one of the first fifty tickets, but I was never alone without anyone to talk to.
And then basically every one of them left since they had places to be. I totally understand since they all have pretty long commutes back home, but it was uncomfortable for a while since I was starting to get really tired (it had been a long day) and I was pretty drained from talking to so many people. I'M AN INTROVERT, I'M SORRY.
Eventually, around 9ish, they finally called the numbers in the 80s. I COULD FINALLY JOIN THE LINE! After a few more minutes, I finally met Susan (my favorite author ever) and kind of internally flailed the whole time. I dropped my five books off at the table for her to sign, and gave her my Truthwitch fan art (if you missed it, I shared it in this post). I was so nervous the whole time, but she is honestly one of the sweetest people I've ever met and I'm so grateful that she didn't act like I was a total spaz (even though I definitely was one).
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I then got to meet Erin Bowman, and she was also super sweet! I felt a bit awkward because I hadn't read Vengeance Road (or the Taken trilogy) yet, but she was really friendly and I really hope I get to meet her again one day (after I've read her books!) Unfortunately Alex had a huge line so I couldn't meet her (since I had to head home because it was a weeknight and I had school the next day), but overall the experience was amazing (and also exhausting). It was so worth it because I finally got to meet my favorite author (yay!) and got to meet some of my amazing online friends in person.
