Event: YA Panel with Holly Bourne, C.J Daugherty and Alexia Casale

My sneaky pic of the advertising poster

at Blackwell's. Hehe.

Holly Bourne - Soulmates
C.J Daugherty - Night School Series
Alexia Casale - The Bone Dragon

What an amazing event! This is my first YA panel and I am really baffled by how much fun it was!!! I arrived at Blackwell's a whole hour early on the 4th September and I never realised how deep the book store is. I was fully ready: having read all 5 books before the event and had questions for each individual author. All I had to do was wait...

My excitement got to me a bit when it was half an hour until the event and I saw a small pack of females walk through the door and one of them was C.J Daugherty. I was totally filled with excitement and all I could do was stand and stare.

Anyway, closer to the time I decided to take a seat, I chose a seat 2nd to the front. I had no clue how everything was going to pan out for the evening, would the authors talk themselves through questions? would we have a host? What is the topic? But it was like a proper panel!

There was a topic. A discussion about YA as a genre. Why? And should there be a separation between them? We also had a lovely host Ben Falk.

Where I was sitting :D
(No pic of them seated, didn't want to take
my Ipod out to take a pic...too embarrassing
cause I was so close!)

The most interesting point that I remember is how we have a young adult section and if those books should only be placed there. All authors agreed that a compromise is the best way to tackle it. C.J suggested that with maybe bigger bookshops, which have more shelving units, should place books both in the normal fiction section as well as the YA section. Holly also pointing out how adults are missing out if they don't pick up some YA books to read.

After the talk we got to get our books signed as the authors were squished onto a small little table. Struggling to hold all five books, my camera and my bag, I waited my turn.

I first spoke to Holly, who was super nice saying how I was her first fan to take a photo with her. I obviously in turn gave her back complements and was even more shocked to find out that she had read my review! Holly explained during the talk that her original ending had to be altered because of skip to the future was too large. So I asked if we maybe would get a glimpse of this "too large an age jump" epilogue, which she replied saying she doesn't know. She continued by saying that it would be difficult because the epilogue would be a massive spoiler for those who have not read it. I also asked about whether or not we would get a Noah narrative because after reading the book I felt that we knew Poppy was is a good place but we have no clue about Noah. She said it would be interesting because we do see everything through Poppy's view and that she...get ready for it....would consider it!!! Yay!! :D I also found it so funny cause she brought up the fact that someone told her they thought Noah was killed off at the end and that was me! Haha...but I guess if we get an extra few pages of Noah's POV we know he's not dead!

CJ next and what can I say. Already happy from talking to Holly, I'm pretty sure my smile grew. I asked about the same ending in book 1 and 2 and I was curious why book 3 didn't have the same ending. Why? Allie doesn't believe in the 'always' anymore. But should we be looking out for it in the other books? CJ said that it isn't the last of an 'always', we'll have to wait and see!! Hear that everyone? Lay down your theories everyone!!! Does this mean she ends up with Carter St Clair in the end end?? Oh, I hope so, I side with Carter that's for sure. Always ;)

Alexia was also super nice and I loved her explanations for everything. But her responses were very lengthy and so I'm gunna have to cut it down quite a bit. As in a lot. I asked her a question about the layout of her book The Bone Dragon. If you've flicked through the book you'd have noticed how there aren't slit into chapters as a typical fiction book is. She said that it was all really down to the flow of the book and because it is in first person it works best with the format it is.

Then after packing everything away and saying thank you to the authors one final time, I left Blackwell's.

I am definitely going to go to another panel!