Category: Books

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Young Adult Author Schedule

5 Comments

The official schedule for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books has been posted, and you can check that out here!

I’ve taken the liberty and fun job of compiling a list of the YA authors in attendance and what time they will be on panels. Keep in mind that most autograph sessions take place directly after the panel, try and will usually be about an hour after the panel.

Quite a few of these authors are also moderating other panels as well, and usually they’ll sign books at that time too. You’ll have to double check on those because I didn’t include which panels they were moderating below.

Also! Occasionally there will be booths, like indie bookstores and such, that will have other signings as well. The best for that is to keep up with certain authors you’d wish to see and check out their booths, because they’ll post schedules!

Lastly, check the authors’ websites! Sometimes they’ll do signings at local bookstores after the Festival is over for the day, or on the days before or after, because they are already in town. So if you can’t hit them at the Festival, you’ll still be able to see them!

Good luck! Hopefully I’ll see you all there!

Katie Alender

YA Stage: Young Adult Fiction: Putting the Story in History at 12:00 pm on Saturday

Laurie Halse Anderson

Norris Theater: In Conversation with Susan Carpenter at 3:00 pm on Sunday 

Carrie Arcos

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Outside Looking In at 1:30 pm on Sunday

Kelley Armstrong

YA Stage: Fantasy Worlds Beyond Imagination at 1:30 pm on Saturday

Leigh Bardugo

YA Stage: YA Sci-Fi: Fantastical Tales at 1:30 pm on Sunday

Robin Benway

YA Stage: YA Fic: A Little Help from My Friends at 12:00 pm on Sunday

Francesca Lia Block

Ya Stage: Young Adult Fiction: Haunted at 10:30 AM on Saturday 

Ann Brashares

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Somewhere in Time at 10:30 am on Sunday

Deb Caletti

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Outside Looking In at 1:30 pm on Sunday

Cecil Castellucci

 YA Stage: YA Sci-Fi: Fantastical Tales at 1:30 pm on Sunday

Stephen Chbosky 

Norris Theater: In Conversation with Stephen Chbosky at 12:00 pm on Sunday

Heather Cocks

YA Stage: YA Fic: A Little Help from My Friends at 12:00 pm on Sunday

Eoin Colfer

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Somewhere in Time at 10:30 am on Sunday 

Andrea Cremer

YA Stage: Young Adult Fiction: Putting the Story in HISTORY at 12:00 pm on Saturday 

Melissa de la Cruz

I’ve looked a million times. It says she’s there but I can’t find her panel. I’ll post with more details if I can find them. 

Ava Dellaira 

Norris Theater: In Conversation with Stephen Chbosky at 12:00 pm on Sunday

Maurene Goo

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Writing Culture and Identity at 3:00 pm on Saturday  

John Green

Bovard Auditorium: In Conversation with David L. Ulin at 12:30 pm on Saturday

Aaron Hartzler

YA Stage: Where the Truth Lies at 3:00 pm on Saturday 

Bill Konigsberg

YA Stage: Young Adult Fiction: Square Peg, Round Role at 10:30 am on Sunday

E. Lockhart 

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Testing the Boundaries at 12:30 pm on Saturday 

Sarah J. Maas

YA Stage: YA Sci-Fi: Fantastical Tales at 1:30 pm on Sunday

DJ MacHale

Salvatori Computer Science Center: Middle Grade Fiction: Stories in Series at 12:00 pm on Saturday

Tahereh Mafi

Salvatori Computer Science Center: YA Fic: It’s the End of the World as We Know It at 4:30 pm on Saturday 

Abby McDonald

YA Stage: Adrenaline Rush at 4:30 pm on Saturday

Marissa Meyer

YA Stage: YA Sci-Fi: Fantastical Tales at 1:30 pm on Sunday

Jessica Morgan

YA Stage: YA Fic: A Little Help from My Friends at 12:00 pm on Sunday

Lauren Myracle

YA Stage: YA Fic: A Little Help from My Friends at 12:00 pm on Sunday

Lauren Oliver

YA Stage: Adrenaline Rush at 4:30 pm on Saturday 

Ridley Pearson

Salvatori Computer Science Center: Middle Grade Fic: Stories in Series at 12:00 pm on Saturday

Stephanie Perkins

YA Stage: YA Fic: Told from the Heart at 3:00 pm on Sunday

Joanna Philbin 

YA Stage: YA Fic: Told from the Heart at 3:00 pm on Sunday

Ransom Riggs

YA Stage: Young Adult Fiction: Haunted at 10:30 am on Saturday 

Veronica Roth

Bovard Auditorium: In Conversation with Leigh Bardugo at 11:00 am on Sunday

Rainbow Rowell

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Testing the Boundaries at 12:30 pm on Saturday 

Rachel Shukert 

YA Stage: Putting the Story in History at 12:00 pm on Saturday

Neal Shusterman

YA Stage: Young Adult Fantasy Worlds Beyond Imagination at 1:30 pm on Saturday

Sarah Skilton

YA Stage: Adrenaline Rush at 4:30 pm on Saturday 

Andrew Smith

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Testing the Boundaries at 12:30 pm on Saturday 

Amy Spalding 

YA Stage: Young Adult Fiction: Square Peg, Round Hole at 10:30 am on Sunday

Ann Stampler

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Outside Looking In at 1:30 pm on Sunday 

Margaret Stohl

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Fantasy: The Real and the Unreal at 4:30 pm on Saturday 

Tamara Ireland Stone

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Somewhere in Time at 10:30 am on Sunday

Jonathan Stroud

Salvatori Computer Science Center: Middle Grade Fiction: Stories in Series at 12:00 pm on Saturday

Laini Taylor

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Fantasy: The Real and the Unreal at 4:30 pm on Saturday 

John Corey Whaley

Norris Theater: YA Fic: Testing the Boundaries at 12:30 pm on Saturday 

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Who are you most excited to see? Share in the comments!

Book Review: Reboot by Amy Tintera

4 Comments

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Continue reading →

Cress Book Review

4 Comments

Cress by Marissa Meyer

 

 

 

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard. 

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army. 

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. 

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

My Review:

Please take note that while there will be no spoilers for this novel, there will be spoilers for the previous books. You can read my review for Cinder here and my review for Scarlet here. 

It took me a thousand years it seems to finish reading this book but I finally did. This is not to say anything about the book though. That was all my doing. I bought this book the day after the release and I’m in SUCH a slump right now, reading wise, that I just couldn’t make myself read ANYTHING. But I pushed my way through because I was loving the book and I love these books, and the last 100 pages flew by because it just was so great.

I honestly think that Marissa Meyer is a genius, and she is able to weave fairy tales and science fiction and even a little dystopia so perfectly that everything about it is so genuine and so real to me. Its so easy to accept so much of what is going on in her novels and it just flows so beautifully. Her writing is beautiful, and her story telling is incredibly compelling. She is such a talent and I honestly can’t wait to meet her in April so I can tell her how unbelievably amazing and inspirational she is as a writer.

Moving on though, I loved how long the novel was and yet took place over such a small span of time. I thought that was beautiful. Marissa was able to introduce the character of Cress into the story, and creating her own path and her own journey and growth while sticking super close to the other characters and the story she had already created. I think that’s brilliant. She did that in introducing Scarlet in book two, and she does it so effortlessly in introducing Cress in this novel. She also (this gets a little spoiler-y, sorry), sort of matches characters up in the novel. Now, normally that sort of thing would bother me, like…really, there’s a person for everyone? Come on, now. But in the book…everything is so gradual and so realistic and she’s very good at building relationships between characters. I never really thought about the matchy-matchy of the people after the first initial thought of it.

Plus she just ROCKS at writing really great science fiction. Not even just young adult, but just good science fiction, and she blends the fairy tale stories in so well. One minute, I’m caught up in the story of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood, or, as in this novel, Rapunzel, and the next, I’m holding my breath, wondering what the alien queen Levana is going to do to the earth or laughing at the ridiculous and lovable android, Iko. She takes this incredible world of aliens, and space travel, and Lunars, and androids and cyborgs and weaves it with these familiar fairy tales, and it all feels so real and so smooth. I also love that she takes the stories that we know from the popular Disney version and mixes them with the classic stories, that can be a little more gruesome than what Disney shows us. She puts a lot of time and effort, obviously, into building incredible stories.

I can’t WAIT to read Winter next year and I’m not too fond of having to wait until it comes out haha. She’s left us in an incredible position with the Earth pitted against the Lunars, and its absolute chaos and I reached the end in shock, awe and excitement. I also love the beautiful way that she introduces Winter (I know, that’s a bit spoiler-y, sorry again!) and I already know that she’s going to be an incredible character because she’s already blown my mind. Can it be time for Winter already?

Rating:

5 out of 5 Stars