Yesterday, Nicole and I attended the North Texas Teen Book Festival (NTTBF) in Irving, Texas. This was our second year going. There were over 50 authors attending, as well as many booktubers. The place was packed, mostly with schoolchildren in field trips, though not all of them looked so thrilled to be there. Anyway, the event was an all-day thing, and it was as much fun as it was exhausting.
Since there were multiple panels happening at the same time, Nicole and I split up. Some of my favorite panels were the “Reading the Rainbow” one, where authors discussed their lgbtqia books. It was a much larger panel than the one from last year, which we also attended (I really missed David Levithan this year). I also enjoyed the “All the Feels” one, which was all about books with emotions. My favorite type of books.
I was very excited to meet Gayle Forman, but unfortunately her line was closed by the time I went in to get my signature, so I didn’t get to meet her. The same thing happened with E. Lockhart. Nicole missed out on meeting Libba Bray.
But not everything went wrong. I got the chance to meet one of my favorite new authors, Adam Silvera. He was so sweet and interesting, and he wrote me a very lovely message in my copy of More Happy Than Not. I seriously recommend this book, since I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I read it last year. Adam has a new book coming out soon called History Is All You Left Me, and trust me, you’re going to want to get your hands on it. He’s one of my few auto-buy authors.
I also met Alex Gino who is quite a gem. We talked about the lgbt panel, which was both of our favorites, and I got my copy of George signed. I also met Faith Erin Hicks who took the time to doodle something amazing on my copy of Friends With Boys. Nicole met Jonathan Maberry and he signed Rot & Ruin. And she also met Ruta Sepetys who signed Between Shades of Gray for her.
Another highlight was the booktube panel. I was really excited because Whitney from Whittynovels and Alberto from AbriendoLibros were there, and I love both of their channels. I got a chance to say hi to them, and I got a really cute bookmark from Whitney and a picture with Alberto.
After the event, Nicole and I were completely drained. It was such a long day, but worth the lines and waiting and my horrible cold that kept getting in the way. I know I’ll definitely keep going back because, come on, books are the best thing in the world.
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