Book Events, Book Events, Book Events! Recap with Andrew Smith, Aaron Hartzler, Nicole Yoon, Cecil Castellucci, Leigh Bardugo and Stephenie Meyer!

I throw myself at your mercy, prostate my friends! I have attended so many events lately and I’ve sadly been so terrible at recapping them!

So I’ve decided to do a quick update of who I’ve met the past few months, and share some photos and some quick things about it!

September 8th – Andrew Smith at The Grove

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It’s always an awesome time seeing Andrew. I had been dying to get my hands on Stand-Off and I knew I had to get to this signing, no matter what happened. He read a bit of the book, which was absolutely hilarious, and signed books. He was such a sweetheart, and made sure to give me a big hug, which was awesome. I loved the way he signed my book…to be counted as his friend is honestly a huge honor. Aaron Hartzler was also there, and I figured it would be an awesome picture to get one of the two of them, because they’re just both so so awesome!

September 13th – Cecil Castellucci at the Long Beach Comic Con

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It is always awesome to see Miss Cecil! Sadly, I had missed her release party as well, which had made me so insanely sad since it was a new Princess Leia book! I got it on release date though, and when I heard she was going to be at LBCC, I knew I had to swing by her table and get her autograph, of course. I adore Cecil and if you haven’t read her Princess Leia book, you definitely should!

I also was able to meet Amy Mebberson, the fan artist who is AWESOME, and does one of my favorite series, Pocket Princesses. I also met Lindsey McKeon, who played Tessa the Reaper in Supernatural.

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September 24th – Aaron Hartzler at the Grove

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Then a few weeks later, I made my way back to the Grove to celebrate the release of Aaron Hartzler’s What We Saw. I read this book back in April as an ARC and just fell madly in love with it. I knew I had to get my hands on a copy, especially since Aaron is such a great friend. He gave me the BIGGEST hug when he found out my news about being published and it was just fabulous seeing him again. He read such a great part from the book too.

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It was fabulous too! Aaron pointed out the awesome Nicola Yoon during his event, and I was so sad that I had missed her own release party the week before that I practically sprinted to the YA section to grab a copy of her book to get it signed. She was SO sweet about it and signed it, and was just so so awesome.

October 7th – Leigh Bardugo at The Grove

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Leigh always is SUCH a fun time. She’s so funny and articulate and she always has the best events because she’s just such an awesome person. She makes me laugh like no other, and she’s so passionate about what she does. I LOVE going to see her and her new book is just fabulous! She had just found out that day that Six of Crows had debuted at #1 on the NYT best seller list too, so it was a great celebration!

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Me and Leigh’s mom! We’ve taken a picture together the last three years at Leigh’s release parties so it felt like tradition to do it once more! She’s just so awesome :)

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Its always so so great to see Leigh, but this time was even more awesome. She congratulated me on being published and wrote just the best thing in the world in my book, that made me smile so big and nearly drove me to tears. I’m so lucky to have such a great author as a friend, and that we were able to celebrate the awesomeness of being published (and soon to be published) together!

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My dad even went to the event with me! He’s been reading Six of Crows, which is awesome because he’s not a reader at all, and he decided to come with me, and meet Leigh!

October 12th – Stephenie Meyer at The Grove with Jake Abel

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I was actually really excited when I heard that Stephenie Meyer would be signing at The Grove for the tenth anniversary of Twilight. I’ve been reading it for ten years haha and its my biggest guilty pleasure for sure. I’ve also never met her, which is pretty crazy so I was excited to finally meet her! My dear friend, Lita, helped me get a good spot for the event and I was second row and perfectly set for the Q and A and the signing.

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It was also REALLY cool to see that she had brought along Jake Abel for the signing, to help with the Q and A. It was super simple, everyone wrote down questions on index cards, they selected a few backstage and then answered some during the event. They picked mine too, which was awesome and I made sure to record it too! If you don’t know Jake Abel, he played Ian in Stephenie Meyer’s The Host, and he also was Luke in Percy Jackson and Adam in Supernatural.

It was a SUPER great event. It was organized perfectly, it went smoothly and they even had a professional photographer to take your picture with Stephenie so that you got a picture but didn’t hold up the line with your phone or camera. It was absolutely seamless.

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This picture came out SO good. I love this professional photographer thing. It worked out so well and I truly love my picture so much.

Afterwards, Jake Abel had sort of disappeared, and I was kind of sad because I wanted to get a picture with him. I saw a friend of mine, who looked all happy, and asked if she knew where he was, so I totally tracked him down. He was with his wife, shopping for books, but he was insanely sweet about posing for a picture with me!

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And then I finally had a signed Twilight book in my collection!

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I hope you enjoyed this random recap of events! Hopefully from now on, I’ll be MUCH MUCH better at recapping!

Ontario Teen Book Fest Blog Tour: Spotlight on Mary Elizabeth Summer

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I am so pleased to be bringing you the Ontario Teen Book Fest blog tour once again! This is one of my absolute favorite events of the year and I’m honored to help promote it as much as I possibly can. There are a ton of wonderful authors this year and an equally wonderful batch of bloggers to help me spotlight them.

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When: March 21st, advice 9 am to 5 pm

Where: Colony High School
3850 E. Riverside Drive
Ontario, CA 91761

This event is a completely free and un-ticketed event! Priority seating WILL be given to teens, but come one, come all! There will also be giveaways and raffles at the Fest, also free! Also, keep scrolling to find a giveaway held by us bloggers!

You can visit the website, to see the full schedule of the day by visiting the official Ontario Teen Book Fest website.

Books WILL be available for purchase at the event, available from Once Upon a Time Bookstore :) They are an amazing company so definitely bring your books from home, but try and support Once Upon a Time by purchasing a book!

Its going to be an incredible event and I’m honestly counting down the days! I hope you can come along for the ride, in the days leading up to the event.  Check out the full blog tour here!

Official Blog Tour Schedule

February 28th: Spotlight on Kasie West — Adventures of a Book Junkie

March 1st: Spotlight on Melissa Landers — What A Nerd Girl Says

March 2nd: Spotlight on Brad Gottfred — Recently Acquired Obsessions

March 3rd: Spotlight on Catherine Linka — Read Now Sleep Later

March 4th: Spotlight on Debra Driza — Read Now Sleep Later

March 5th: Spotlight on Katie Finn — Fearless Kurt Reads YA

March 6th: Spotlight on Claudia Gray — A Bookish Escape

March 7th: Spotlight on Shannon Messenger — People Like Books

March 8th: Spotlight on Lauren Miller — The Thousand Lives

March 9th: Spotlight on Mary Elizabeth Summer — What A Nerd Girl Says

March 10th: Spotlight on Anna Carey — The Reader’s Antidote

March 11th: Spotlight on Sherri Smith — Movies, Shows and Books

March 12th: Spotlight on Elizabeth Ross — Kid Lit Frenzy

March 13th: Spotlight on Jessica Khoury — The Consummate Reader

March 14th: Spotlight on Maurene Goo — The Windy Pages

March 15th: Spotlight on Cecil Castellucci — Nite Lite Book Reviews

March 16th: Spotlight on Jessica Brody — The Romance Bookie

March 17th: Spotlight on Gretchen McNeil — Movies, Shows and Books

March 18th: Spotlight on Aaron Hartzler — Fangirl Feeels

March 19th: Spotlight on Michelle Levy — The Consummate Reader

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Today’s spotlight is on:

Mary Elizabeth Summer

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Taken from her Website:

Mary Elizabeth Summer contributes to the delinquency of minors by writing books about unruly teenagers with criminal leanings. She has a BA in creative writing from Wells College, and her philosophy on life is “you can never go wrong with sriracha sauce.” She lives in Portland Oregon with her wife, their daughter, and their evil overlor—er, cat.

Her Website / Her Facebook / Her GoodReads / Her Twitter / Her Instagram / Her Tumblr

Her Book

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Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.

But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal.

Find Her Books at Your Local Bookstore of the Following Links:

Amazon / Barnes and Noble / iBooks / Book Depository

The Interview

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Nerd Girl: Trust Me, I’m Lying is your debut novel. Talk about what it was like to find out your novel was going to be published? 

Mary: I believe the first words I said when my agent called to tell me about my first offer were: “I think I’m going to puke”. She very calmly told me to not do that until after we finished discussing the details. As it turned out, I had a couple additional offers after that initial one, so there was a whirlwind of editor calls and figuring things out. When the dust finally settled, and I had officially accepted an offer, I walked around with wings on my feet for weeks. The only thing that gave me an equivalent feeling was seeing the finished book on a shelf in my favorite bookstore. Its euphoric. And slightly frightening. But mostly euphoric.

Nerd Girl: Where did the idea for Trust Me, I’m Lying come from? 

Mary: I got the idea for the Trust Me series one night while watching back-to-back episodes of White Collar and Leverage. I thought, “Man, I’d love to read a book about a teenage con artist, but I don’t think there are any.” (It turns out there are several, I just didn’t know about any of them.) Then I didn’t think any more about it till I woke up the next morning with Julep’s snarky voice in my head, demanding to be written. As you’ll discover reading the book, Julep doesn’t take no for an answer. So I spent the next year with her poking me until I finished.

Nerd Girl: Julep is a unique character in her own, a little more anti-hero than straight up hero. Is there a reason(s) that you created a character like this and can we expect more characters like this in your future?

Mary: Oh, yes. I have always loved the villains-turned-sort-of-heroes trope. There was a storyline in the original animated Voltron where the son of the Big Bad had a thing for the Princess, and he would often mess up his father’s plans (against his own best interest) to save her. And in He-Man, my favorite episodes were always the ones where Skeletor and He-Man had to team up to defeat a common foe. And then Firefly happened, which just had my villain/hero-loving heart all in a pile of mush for every episode. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for a tender-hearted villain. So the answer to your second question is a resounding YES — all of my protagonists in every book I write will be at least half evil.

Nerd Girl: What are some of your own favorite books to read? 

Mary: I love sci-fi. I could read sci-fi every day of the week. My favorite sci-fis I’ve read recently are Alienated by Melissa Landers, Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones, Run to You by Clara Kensie and Beyond Our Stars by Marie Langager. I also like paranormal and fantasy — Cracked by Eliza Crewe was one of my favorite books I read last year. And of course, myster: Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano, Far From You by Tess Sharpe, The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie E. Hall and Tabula Rasa by Kristsen Lippert-Martin are all amazing.

Nerd Girl: What made you want to write for teens as opposed for adults? 

Mary: I like writing for teens, because I like writing about teens. I like how cagey they have to be, how observant and opportunistic, just to get a ride to the mall. I like how vulnerable they have to stay in order to keep their lives in order and their loved ones happy. They’re the ultimate martyrs, really, and oh, how I love to sacrifice them on the alter of…er, *cough*, I mean, bring to light the inner depths they’re capable of when their lives get turned upside down.

All joking aside, YA is a powerful genre. It challenges us to grow up before our time and yet be strong enough to hold onto our innocence and belief in magic. No other genre can say that.

Nerd Girl: Have you ever had a fangirl moment and who was it with?

Mary: I’ve had a lot of fangirl moments at book signings (because authors! :-D) But my favorite story is when I had Margaret Stohl sign my copy of Beautiful Creatures. I told her how my wife read it to me aloud while I was in labor with our daughter, and she jumped out of her seat and asked one of the other authors there to take our picture with her camera, as if were the celebrity. LOL I loved it.

Nerd Girl: Because this is for the Ontario Teen Book Fest, all about the teens, what is one of your favorite memories from when you were a teen? 

Mary: Several good moments come to mind — musical solos, murder mystery parties, a popular senior guy (who didn’t know me) asking me if I went to the Starfleet Academy because I had the sticker on my car (there was much laughter and an ‘I wish’ on my part). But if I’m being honest, my favorite memories all happened in books. I was a book addict, and every story was another set of best friends and another opportunity to save the world.

Nerd Girl: Last question, who is your fictional crush? 

Mary: This is a tough one for me because I like girls, but not the kind of girls that usually get written about. So I’m going to plead lack of options to choose from here. If I were into boys, though, I’d say my fictional crush would be Chuck from Chuck. He’s such a woobie. Or maybe Seth from The O.C. (for the same reason). I prefer smart, sensitive dudes.

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The Giveaway 

Two Prizes, Two Winners!

Each winner will receive an official Ontario Teen Book Fest poster signed by ALL attending authors!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Event Recap: The DUFF Screening Presented by Tumblr with Mae Whitman and Robbie Amell!

Last week, prescription I was all gearing up to go on a date (yes, viagra a date AGH) when I got an email from a super cool lady named Christina from Tumblr, order inviting me to an exclusive screening of The DUFF, with some of the cast in attendance.

And I freaked out a little. I had already seen the movie and some of the cast but you guys know me, I was NOT going to turn down another chance at meeting my number one celebrity crush (besides Mike Trout), Robbie Amell. What a conundrum and confusion on what to do!

Luckily, it all worked. My date decided to hang out with me at the screening for the day, so I got to hang out with a super cool guy AND see The DUFF and Robbie Amell again.

This was possibly the coolest screening I have ever been to, and I’m not just saying that. I’ve been to a ton of screenings and this one just took the cake.

First off, it was put on by Tumblr, who gave us a TON of swag. I got a tumblr bag, all these buttons and stickers, a DUFF shirt (which I proudly wore this past weekend at Gallifrey One) and a Tumblr sweater that I literally keep wearing because its so massively comfortable.

We then were escorted into the theater, where my jaw basically dropped. This theater was BEAUTIFUL. Super large, reclining seats with pillows and blankets and these little tables and personal tablets to order food on. I was like, I seriously can’t see a movie at any other theater ever again. Ever again.

Then came MORE free stuff. We got free drinks, either strawberry lemonade or watermelon lemonade. I got the watermelon lemonade and it was something new and absolutely delicious. They also had a candy bar (mmm, gummy bears) and handed out free popcorn before the movie. I also ordered a pizza because I just couldn’t resist ordering something from the super fancy tablet thing. Seriously, this theater blew my mind.

Then it was movie time :) I loved the movie just as much as I did the first time, if not more. I know they changed a lot about the movie but the fact that they really kept the core message, that meant a lot to me. The DUFF is all about realizing that there are always going to be people that you think are prettier or smarter or whatever than you, but you have to be confident and happy with the person that you are and things will be okay and I’m glad they kept that part in. If you’d like to read my recap of the last screening AND a spoiler free review of the movie, check it out.

After the movie, they brought out Robbie Amell and Mae Whitman who play the two main characters in the movie to do a short Q and A. It was fun to see them talk about the movies, focusing on the self-confidence part of the story. I also liked hearing them talk about other projects, and about teens and all of that. This is a YA book so it meant a lot that the questions stayed geared toward YA themes and issues. It was awesome. Plus, I spent most of the time drooling over Robbie, much to the amusement of my wonderful date haha.

Then they lined us up and we were able to get our professional photo op with Robbie and Mae. I absolutely LOVE when they do this. They did this with Vampire Academy too and I think that’s great when they do. They know this is an experience for the fans and they do what they can to make it a great experience and I seriously appreciate that. I’m more likely to write about an event with high praise when it feels like I matter and I definitely felt like I matter.

I’m especially happy with the way the picture turned out, because these are two of my favorite people and they were SO nice. I was going to stand in between them but it was like my body had a mind of its own and I just went straight for Robbie haha, and Mae just laughed and was like  “its all good, I know he’s hotter than me.” Which made me laugh. Then I was able to say that I loved them in Arrested Development and The Tomorrow People, which is SO very true, and I squealed a bit, again, to the amusement of my date.

All in all, great night. I would seriously do another screening through them again, easily. It was a ton of fun, I enjoyed the movie, enjoyed meeting part of the cast, and the whole movie experience was just fantastic.

And I have the most comfortable Tumblr sweater ever so there’s that too ;)

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Make sure to go see The DUFF in theaters this Friday! Remember, every single YA adaptation needs YOUR support so that more movies with our favorite characters get made so head to the theater this weekend and watch the movie! Even if its only just see Robbie Amell’s beautiful abs ;)

Ontario Teen Book Fest 2015 Authors Revealed!

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My favorite event is JUST around the corner and I am bursting with excitement to finally release the list of authors that will attending.

The Ontario Teen Book Fest will be taking place Saturday, viagra March 21st from 9:30 am to 5 pm at Colony High School. More details of events, information pills and all of that will come in February as I host the Ontario TBF blog tour! Yay!

Check out their official website here.

For now, viagra its time to announce all the AMAZING authors that will be in attendance this year. Brace yourselves!

Make sure to click their names to head to their website, to find out more about the authors and their books!

Jessica Brody

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Anna Carey

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Cecil Castellucci 

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Debra Driza

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Katie Finn (Morgan Matson)

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Maurene Goo

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Claudia Gray 

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Aaron Hartzler 

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Jessica Khoury

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Melissa Landers

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Shannon Messenger

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Lauren Miller

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Elizabeth Ross

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Sherri Smith 

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Mary Elizabeth Summer

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Kasie West

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Also included in this WONDERFUL list of attending authors are the three moderator/authors that will be in attendance as well:

Gretchen McNeil

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Catherine Linka

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Brad Gottfred 

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I’m SO excited about this year’s list of authors and I canNOT wait for this event. I hope you all can join me in March! Stay tuned for more as the blog tour, and giveaways and all sorts of fun stuff comes in the future!

Weekly Fangirl Round-Up!

Nerd Girl News

Doctor Who, look Series 8 has a premiere date AND a teasing teasing teasing teaser trailer!

The first chapter of Marie Lu’s new book, The Young Elites, has been revealed!

Debut novel, Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira, has been optioned for film!

Stephanie Leigh Schlund, Cashmere in Catching Fire, confirmed that she joined the cast of Insurgent, as a yet to be revealed member of Amity.

Alfonso Cuaron has been confirmed as NOT directing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

More promotional images for The Maze Runner have been shared!

Mockingjay Filming continues in Berlin, check out some photos!

Two More People have Been Cast for Insurgent!

More Dragons are coming our way! Netflix confirms a How to Train your Dragon spin-off TV series!

Watch the new trailer for Daniel Radcliffe’s rom com, What If!

Pixar’s 2015 film “Inside Out” has an official synopsis.

Some news of True Detective, season 2, has been revealed: it will have THREE main characters.

Emma Watson, queen bee, and our Hermione Granger, has graduated from Brown University!

One Direction fan fiction “After” has officially gotten a publishing deal.

Robbie Amell, my future boyfriend, has been cast in a role in the movie adaptation of The DUFF.

Secrets about the could-have-been season 2 of Starcrossed were revealed.

Posts and Vlogs

Happy 2nd Blog Birthday What A Nerd Girl Says and HUGE HUGE Giveaway! (One more week to enter!)

Monday Missions Vlog

City of Heavenly Fire Vlog Review (Spoilers!)

Book Review: City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare (No Spoilers!)

Book Review: All Lined Up by Cora Carmack

Ontario Teen Book Fest Recap!

Why The Mortal Instruments is Important to Me!

Book Review: Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend by Katie Finn

Vlog: Ontario Teen Book Fest Authors!

So as some of you may have known, view this past weekend was the Ontario Teen Book Fest. You probably know because I promoted it like crazy and it was an event that I was SO highly looking forward to!

Sylvia from Fangirl Feeels and I were the official bloggers for the event which meant that we did a lot of promotion and really got to spend some awesome time with the authors.

We asked all fifteen awesome YA authors two questions and got it all on video for you guys. The answers were all super awesome, generic and we are so glad to share this vlog with you!

A recap video of the actual event is coming VERY soon, but for now, enjoy learning about all the authors from the Fest!