BEA 2015 Recap: Day Two

Kiersten's Highlights

Day two of BEA started out very early for the bloggers of WLABB... We decided to be really ambitious and take the 4:27 am train into New York, meaning I woke up at 3 am. Yikes! Was it really necessary? Not really, which is why I'm not doing it again for day 3. (Although we were first on line to get in, which was pretty cool. I mean, I like being first. I have a problem.)

The main thing that made the early commute worth it was getting to meet Alexandra Bracken and getting an ARC of Passenger! It was kind of a mad rush in (because everyone runs even when they tell us not to run). After grabbing Passenger, I was able to go to many other signings and drops that I really wanted to get! Some of my other favorite books I got yesterday are Dumplin' by Julie Murphy, Firewalker by Josephine Angelini, Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between by Jennifer E. Smith, and The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow! There were so many good books yesterday and there are going to be even more today. This is going to be interesting.

The saddest thing about yesterday was definitely that the wheel on my suitcase broke on the way to BEA. At 5 am. Sob. I could still sort of wheel it because it has four swivel wheels, but I couldn't drag it behind me like a traditional suitcase and it made the walk back to Penn Station a struggle.

Luckily, for all the trouble we had commuting home on day one, yesterday went so smoothly! We walked into the train station, then walked onto a train, and got seats. I was home before 6:30, a whole two hours earlier than day one!

To see more of the fun the bloggers of WLABB had at BEA today, and for pictures since words are sometimes boring, check out our BEA hashtag on Twitter: #WLABBtakesBEA!

If you're going to be at BEA, we'd love to see you! Today we'll all be wearing matching blue shirts with silver glitter letters on the back. I swear it looks better than it sounds.

Also, I know I'm going to say this in my day three recap, but I already can't believe how fast BEA 2015 has gone by. It has been so much fun. I mean, there's still BookCon though... :)

Marlon's Highlights

And on the second day,

The early commute was absolutely the worst. BUT. Was it worth it? I was able to snatch a copy of Zeroes and get in line for Alexandra Bracken's Passenger. Honestly, I would have just not slept at all if I had known she was signing! I love her. A lot. Meeting her in person was ostensibly retribution for the heinous train situations of the past two days. I will devote a full post to it, but suffice it to say that she is like a tree nymph, who blooms your heart if stand too close.

Unlike most people, I actually didn't run through many drops and I actually missed a couple of signings (I'll get you yet, Sara Raasch). Much of my time was spent fawning over Alexandra Bracken and being amazed that she did not hate me, discussing history (esp. historical misrecognition of gender and ethnic representation in Alexander the Great's lifetime) with Legacy of Kings author Eleanor Herman (she's beautiful! find some pictures on @SwordfishHorski and hashtag Kiersten mentioned of all of it!). I also spent some time creating a wonderful friendship with Downcast author Cait Reynolds, who dropped her book today! Find it on amazon! She's a genius! Go!

I think I saw David Levithan casually chilling but I had to run? It's fine I shall see his lovely face tomorrow for the Another Day signing.

Chatted with Brandon Mull and Lev Grossman, which was always fun! A couple of publicists and other exhibitors. A butt-ton of my time was spent with another blogger, Bayram, who NeverEndingBooks. You have probably heard of him, he's awesome and loves YA! We are a strong power duo.

Get on the twitter! That's where we're at!

Come to BEA! WE LOVE YOU.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to pass out for the five precious hours I have.

Amrutha's Highlights

Good news or bad news first? We'll do bad news:

We had to wake up at 3 and take a 4:27 train in order to keep up with the fact that we're crazy. It was the realest struggle and me and Noor are going to do it again for Day 3 so if you see someone collapse and die as the first in line people, just know that it was us and we tried our best.

The good news: WE WERE FIRST IN LINE TO GET INTO THE SHOWROOM!!! It literally sounds so stupid actually typing it out but when we were about to go in and the minutes were counting down, being first was actually pumping us up and giving us adrenaline that we really desperately needed because lol sleep and lol that train on Day 1 and just struggle overall.

I got SO many of the books I wanted, like Passenger, Legacy of Kings, and Never, Always, Sometimes, and I got to see Brandon Stanton (Humans of New York) for the second year in a row!!! Also #KillinTheGalleyDropGame -- last year I focused mainly on galleys and I got SO many books and so far I've been doing pretty well with the galleys (I might have scared the Simon & Schuster people but like whatever, I'm hardcore, deal with it.

I would show you guys some pictures right now but like my phone is dead and needs to be revived from all of the social media usage at BEA -- if you want to see some pictures and figure out what author tweeted me back (like it sounds like a not-big deal but rest assured, it is totally a huge deal (to me)), you should go check out my twitter (linked on the side but like anyway its @ruthlessram).

If you're at BEA please tweet us and meet up and come say hi, I'd love to meet any of you and trade info and hang out and take cute selfies while struggling in line together!

Also ps the train wasn't a struggle today but I had to go to a 3.5 hour class after BEA and like wow I had such an issue paying attention but whatever it was worth it today was hella rad and like Kiersten said, BEA is going so fast and its ridiculous how much happens within the span of like ten seconds in such a high stakes environment.

See you peeps later (I'll try to stay alive and persevere).

Noor's Highlights

Guess who got two hours of sleep the night before Day 2 while getting one hour (it was kindof like a half hour actually because my mental preparation alarms started going off but shh) the night before Day 1? You're right, it was me, I am trash. It's okay though because not only did I sleep on the train, but when we were waiting for Jennifer E. Smith and the line hadn't officially started so we weren't in the queue and there was lots of space around me, I took a nice nap right on the show floor and apparently people thought that was amusing because they sniped pics of me but I'm not even bitter (except the one Kiersten tweeted was so unflattering I'm actually kinda bitter).

Besides the sleep thing, the day went well. As opposed to Wednesday, which was spent mostly focusing on grabbing galley drops, I spent a lot of today at signings, which I was totally cool with. Jesse Eisenberg was signing his book today and that's the reason I chose to take a 4:27 train to get author signing tickets -- he's one of my favorite actors and The Social Network is my favorite movie and I absolutely melted when I got to meet him (and take a selfie holla). I also was freaking out internally over Jennifer E. Smith and her signing of Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between. Kiersten and I started the line like two hours ahead. We're committed. 

Marissa Meyer was also someone I was looking forward to -- I'm behind on The Lunar Chronicles, having only read Cinder, but I was still excited to meet her and I can't wait until I (finally) get to Fairest. She was one of the in-booth ticketed authors and there were concerns tickets would run out but we made it. Another one of these was Brandom Stanton -- Humans of New York -- signing posters for his new book (Humans of New York: Stories) and even though I met him last year I still fangirled pretty hard. Since last year, I took a selfie, this year I had someone take one of us standing, so if I ever meet him again I have to think of a new one. I also went to Josephine Angelini's signing of Firewalker, which I was interested in because I enjoyed Trial by Fire (review here). Also, she remembered our business cards, which was rad. The last signing I think was a fun one was Margaret Stohl's signing of Dangerous Deception (which was actually the first signing I went to). I still have to read her and Kami Garcia's books but they're both just so cute that the signing experience is still great. She complimented my necklace that I was wearing as a headband/headpiece and I complimented her glittery shirt and she was giving us buttons and TATTOOS and they were shimmery. 

Besides the books, my favorite part of today happened when I was standing in the Jesse Eisenberg line. So, if you're not familiar, before you actually get to the author someone comes around with sticky notes to write down the name you want the book made out to so it goes quicker and spelling mistakes don't happen and all that good stuff. And I looked over and a few queues to the left of me, guess who was handing out the sticky notes? David Levithan?!?!?! It was so surreal, and if I wasn't too far I would have asked him for a selfie (the people in line were asking for pictures and things and honestly were probably more excited about that than the line they were in) but alas, I'll have to wait for his signing.

Other than all that, I'm exhausted and running on not enough sleep. Peace out cub scouts.