IT WAS EPIC: My Experience at Epic Reads Day

July 23, 2018July 21, 2018 fangirlfury14 Comments

On Friday, I attended a pretty epic (the epic jokes will should stop eventually) book event, the first ever Epic Reads Day. Epic Reads, HarperCollin’s YA community, opened up their offices for us readers for a day filled with panels, authors, and books. As I’m sure you’ll discover as I continue, I’m so thankful I got to attend this event, especially since it sold out not even a day after I bought my ticket.

Registration started at 10 AM, where you were welcomed with your very own *book shimmy* t-shirt and you could sign up to participate in one of Epic Read’s video. After, you were directed into their conference room, where most of the day’s events would take place, with a bag filled with books and bookish goodies at your seat. The books inside the bag (or at least mine) were: Seawitch by Sarah Henning (a finished copy which didn’t even come out yet), American Street and Pride (ARC) by Ibi Zoboi Three Dark Crowns and Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake, The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli, They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, and AN ARC OF BECKY AND ADAM’S WHAT IF IT’S US! I didn’t manage to get What If It’s Us at Book Expo and Book Con, so I thanked all the book shimmy gods once I saw it in my bag. The bag also included an Epic Reads pop socket, book nerd question cards, and pins for Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and On the Come Up.

The day kicked off with a welcome session from Team Epic Reads. They talked about some of their most anticipated releases, including one of my own, When We Caught Fire by Anna Godbersen. The Luxe and the Bright Young Things series were some of my first YA books and I loved them so much, so you better believe I am more than ready for When We Caught Fire. After some bookish questions from the audience (I said that Second Chance Summer was an ugly-cry worthy read) , the first author discussion began between Ibi Zoboi and her editor, Alessandra Balzer. While I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice, I am so excited to jump into Pride, and it was fun hearing Ibi talk about her writing process and the book itself. We then moved on to lunch, but before I ate, I participated in an Epic Reads video. I chose to do a book talk, where I was asked to talk about my favorite book and why I love reading YA. While waiting to film, Jane, the Team Epic Reads member who talked about When We Caught Fire, showed me a copy of The Luxe with its new cover design. I’ll give you some insider info and say that I talked about To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in my video. Did anyone really expect anything else?

After lunch, two members of Team Epic Reads who work in the design department walked us through their cover-making process. We got a behind-the-scenes look of the covers of Pride and Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’. It was cool to see how much 3D-design work went into Pride and how MANY (amazing) cover designs there were for Dumplin’. We then moved on to our next author discussion with Kendare Blake and BookTuber Emma Giordano. All three authors discussions were filled with laughter, but Kendare Blake is easily one of the most funny, sassy authors I’ve ever met. She often referred to her morbid sense of things, but it was so funny to hear the stories behind her research and honestly daily happenings! One of my best bookish friends IRL has begged me to read Three Dark Crowns and after hearing Kendare speak, I need to immediately! During the Q&A, I asked her about her favorite YA fantasies, which included The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke and Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer. Emma and Kendare then moved on to a game of Rip It or Ship It.

Rip It or Ship it was followed by a quick break featuring Dō cookie dough and a panel from Team Epic Reads about their experiences in publishing. It was really awesome to hear how they each got their start, and they gave out great advice about how to get into the publishing industry. Their panel then led to the last author discussion of the day featuring Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera. Like Kendare Blake, Becky and Adam’s discussion was filled with humor and it was really fun to hear about their process of writing a book together. Everyone was cracking up throughout, from Becky talking about stepping on Nick Robinson’s toe when she first met him to Adam saying that Becky has written 3.5 books during their BFF Challenge.

The day ended with a signing from all four authors, and after the signing, it was time to book shimmy home. Overall, Epic Reads Day was such a great day and it was one of the smoothest book events I’ve ever attended. I hope Epic Reads continues to hold this event.

Did you attend Epic Reads Day? What are some of your favorite Epic Reads books? Share in the comments!

My Experience Seeing Dear Evan Hansen ft. the Amazon Bookstore

February 5, 2018April 6, 2018 fangirlfury7 Comments

Dear Fangirl Fury,

Today is going to be a good day because you saw the Broadway show you thought you’d never see a week ago. And that show was the INCREDIBLY DESERVING OF THE HYPE, Dear Evan Hansen.

My parents completely surprised me with tickets to Dear Evan Hansen for Christmas. I had only mentioned the show once or twice to my mom, and with how popular DEH is right now, I would have never guessed that’d I get to see the show. I even bought the book back in May because I thought reading would be the only way I could experience the show itself!

So on a warm Saturday morning (please tell me this means that zero degree weather is over), my mom and I went into New York City and we grabbed lunch at our favorite Irish pub before the 2 PM matinee. Like when we saw Hamilton last January, we had a leisurely lunch and it was nice catching up, since I’m now back at school. We’ve already decided that if we don’t see a show next year, we’re still going to go have lunch at the same place.

I rarely take photos of my food, but this pretzel bun was too precious

As you may have expected, I absolutely loved Dear Evan Hansen. Even though I was a tiny bit disappointed that I just missed Ben Platt’s run, I really enjoyed seeing Michael Lee Brown play Evan. He adopted the character so well (all of the actors in the show, including him, actually felt like high schoolers playing high schoolers) and his voice was amazing. I was totally impressed with everyone’s singing, and I highly recommend listening to the original cast recording even if you have no plans of seeing the show. I’d list all of my favorite songs, but then I’d be giving you the entire album! With the exception of Ben Platt and Kristolyn Lloyd, I saw the entire original cast, including Laura Dreyfuss, who I was really excited to see because I loved her on Glee. I think my mom especially loved Will Roland as Jared, who brought a lot of humor to this sad and deep show, and while I admit that I didn’t cry, I did feel some tears welling up during “Requiem”.

Outside of the singing, my favorite part of the show was the incorporation of technology and social media into the set. I loved the use of physical screens, which adding some more dimension to “on the outside always looking in”. The social media and phone projections, along with the lighting, were all really cool, and I’m curious to know if some of the video footage was prerecorded or if it was part of the live performance.

After the show, my mom and I made a pit stop at the M & M store because my mom wanted to pick something up for my siblings (self-reminder for me to never step in that tourist trap again). A half hour later, with the belief that I could never look at a pack of M&Ms again, we made our way to Amazon Books on 34^th Street. I’ve been really interested to see how the Amazon bookstores work and my mom wanted to see if they had a book that my dad was interested in; whenever my dad wants to read, we make sure if happens! While I like the idea of the prices matching the prices on the Amazon website, having to repeatedly scan the barcodes with the Amazon got old pretty quick. I ended up not picking anything up—I also agree with the general opinion that most of the books are bestsellers—but it was still a pretty cool experience. After that, we made our way home, planning out our next Broadway trip.

Screen Shot 2018-02-02 at 8.24.05 PM.png — As expected, I was too distracted by the books to take bookstagram-worthy photos

I’m now obsessed with the DEH original cast recording (I guess it’s time to give Waitress a break). I had listened to a lot of the album before I saw the show, but I stayed away from the last few songs, but why didn’t I listen to ‘Good For You’ & ‘Words Fail’ sooner??

Have you listened to Dear Evan Hansen? What are you favorite Broadway shows? Have you been to an Amazon bookstore? Share in the comments!

My Experience Seeing Hamilton

March 28, 2017April 6, 2018 fangirlfury6 Comments

Since February 2016, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with Hamilton. And when one is obsessed with this musical about Alexander Hamilton, one knows that there’s a 0.00000001% chance of ever being able to see it due to its high demand and extremely expensive tickets. That being said, you can imagine my shock when I found two tickets underneath my Christmas tree. My parents first played the tickets off as a joke gift, as they were wrapped in a bunch of The Children’s Place bags. I’m just five feet tall (or so they tell me) so I’m used to my height being the source of most ha-ha moments. What I thought would be a pair of kids’ pajamas turned into an envelope with two tickets to the room where it happens.

So on January 8th, 2017, my mom and I set off on our experience seeing Hamilton. Beforehand, my mom had never listened to the show besides listening to my constant renditions of “My Shot”. We went the day after a huge snowstorm and it was still really cold out. So naturally at the train station, I stepped into a huge pile of slush while getting out of the car, my feet freezing and my once-black boots taking on whatever what was in that pile. Once we got into the city, the weather and my feet warmed up, the latter thanks to a pair of fuzzy socks from Duane Reade.

Since we already had our tickets, my mom and I weren’t in a rush to get to the theatre, and we had a great lunch at The Pig N Whistle (next way to my heart: food from an Irish pub). We arrived at the Richard Rodgers Theatre around 2:30 and there were just people on people on people in line. Even with the crowds, we went into the theatre quickly and had time to splurge $60 on the classic Hamilton tee and mug.

While we sat in the second row of the rear mezzanine, I could see the stage with no problem. Before the show even started, I was completely mesmerized by the lights. The lights hit the stage so that it looked like there were “Alex”s spelt all over the stage. As soon as “Alexander Hamilton” started, I began judging how this cast sounded compared to the album. Unfortunately, by the time I saw the show, the original cast had left for other projects (even though there was a small part of me that hoped that Lin would make an appearance).I quickly stopped because the singing and acting were amazing. Jordan Fisher played John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, and I was in love with the character he brought to each role . While Javier Muñoz, aka ‘Sexy Hamilton’ didn’t perform as the title character, Michael Luwoye bought a lot of emotion and humor to Hamilton himself.

Hands-down, my favorite part of the show was the humor. Between Laurens drunkenly slumping over Burr during “The Story of Tonight (Reprise)” to King George III stomping his foot for his spotlight to turn blue, I couldn’t stop laughing. My mom loved every scene that King George III was in, both of us agreeing that Rory O’Malley completely stole the show as the monarch. Overall, I couldn’t stop smiling throughout the entire show and I’m so lucky to have had this experience seeing Hamilton. I ordered the Alexander Hamilton biography, the book that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the show, right when I got home because I needed more! The author, Ron Chernow, is coming to my school in a week to give a talk about his book so my Hamilton experience will most definitely continue throughout 2017.