This week, I had the pleasure of attending Book Expo America (BEA)! The expo took place June 4 – 7, 2012 at the Javits Center in the city and I attended Monday – Wednesday’s events. Next year, I won’t miss the last day, but even missing the last day, I had a wonderful time! So much so that I decided to make a video of my book haul! You can watch the video below. I was especially excited about getting Prodigy by Marie Lu, Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner, and Change Your Words, Change Your Life by Joyce Meyer signed. My first book review on YouTube is going to be one of the following that I picked up: Dare Me by Megan Abbott, Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti, or Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. Which should it be?

So on Monday, I started off the morning a bit off track. I found my train leaving me just as I pulled up into the station. So once at the Javits Center, I found myself sitting at a table where there were no authors rotating to talk to the bloggers during the breakfast. That was very sad. Add more authors, YA authors in particular to the breakfast. Do they not know how many YA bloggers attend this thing? But Jennifer Weiner (seen in the photo above) made up for it. In fact, she made my day. Weiner gave a wonderful keynote speech (though it didn’t have a whole lot do to with us bloggers) to start off the BEA Book Blogger’s Conference. You can watch the entire speech here. I also had a fantastic time meeting fellow bloggers including Jamie from Broke and Bookish as well as Sash and Em. These girls are lovely! Be sure to check them out!

The two panels that I attended after the speech and blogger/author breakfast were somewhat helpful aka not as insightful as I thought they would be… so it was Weiner who really made this trip into the city. And that was just the beginning. Tuesday came and I was very hesitant about the taking of books, essentially new to BEA even though I attended before years ago. I took my time with signings and such, not aware how smoothly signings overlapped. I had a good haul but I held back, observed, and could have easily snagged 3-4 more books on my want list. It didn’t take long for me to understand the opportunity at hand here so I was on a mission come Wednesday. I had a fantastic time heading back and forth between the booths and the autograph area and meeting so many authors, including a handful of debut authors (Mark it as to-read: Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans and Crewel by Gennifer Albin) that I cannot wait to get into. John Green, Andrea Cremer, R.L. Stine, Jerry Spinelli, and Lauren Oliver were also great highlights for me among others that I listed. What a fantastic time! I am so exhausted but already, I cannot wait to see what next year brings!

Mark your calendars for next year’s BEA! The dates are June 3 – 6, 2012. See you there!