After sleeping for a solid 2 days, I think I’m finally able to talk about all of the amazing things that happened at BookExpo and BookCon this past year!!!

As I mentioned in my last BookExpo/BookCon post, this year was my third or fourth BookCon, and my second BookExpo. While I have some experience with the events, they really do change every year, and I think this year was one of my favorites.

Note: I’ll be posting my haul very soon!!! This just would have been a little too long if I added it here.

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[Related: BookExpo and BookCon Survival Guide]

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BookExpo (Thursday and Friday)

Okay so the first thing you might have noticed is that I didn’t go to BookExpo on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I couldn’t work it out with my work schedule, but Thursday and Friday were so successful that I don’t really mind missing day one.

Laia (my Service Dog in Training) and I drove to BookExpo each day from the east end of Long Island, which is a bit of a hike. I ended up having to wake up around 4:30 am both days to get there on time, but it was so worth it because of all of the 9am drops.

Things got a little crazy at BookExpo (I held a copy of The Starless Sea for half a second before it was ripped from my hand, but it was a nice half a second), but it was overall an amazing and fun two days. And to clarify– “crazy” for BookExpo is pretty calm by BookCon standards.

Highlights:

• Getting to meet and hang out with so many blogger friends!
• Meeting some of my favorite authors (hopefully not scaring them away by fangirling too much)
• Oh my god the fudge place. Chocolate Moonshine Co. had perhaps my favorite booth in the world
• So many people loved Laia, and she was doing so well with her training! I was such a proud trainer/dog mom
• The books! I got a lot of my most highly anticipated ARCs at BookExpo and I’m so excited to start reading them!

BookCon (Saturday & Sunday)

BookCon is a very different animal than BookExpo. Because of the crowds and safety concerns, I couldn’t take Laia with me (she’s a small breed medical alert dog- she could get trampled way too easily), but I was lucky to have friends from home come with me.

On Saturday, my friend Kim and I cosplayed as Belle and Cinderella, and on Sunday, we did Feyre and Mor from A Court of Thorns and Roses.

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[Related: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas Review]

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BookCon this year was absolutely insane. I’m not a crowd person, so that definitely didn’t help, but oh my god were the mobs bad this year. At the 4pm Saturday Epic Reads ARC drop, the wall almost fell down (that drop was absolute madness). There were a couple of other in-booth drops I went to during the weekend that were definite safety concerns, but that’s a whole post of its own I’m thinking of making (discussing BookCon mobs, and safety concerns for attendees with disabilities, because it’s gotten a little too out of hand).

Highlights:

• Meeting even more blogger/bookternet friends (plus seeing ones I met before)
• All of the amazing cosplayers! Seriously, there were so many beautiful cosplays around
• The Prom ARC drop was so fun. They played the soundtrack and had cast members from the Broadway show hand it out. It was just so happy (and no stampede!)
• I made myself responsible for my friend’s personal happiness and literally right after I said that we kept running into secret ARC drops and she got the two ARCs she wanted from the Simon & Schuster lollipop wall (I failed at that, but I’m convinced it’s because I gave her all of my luck)

Did you go to BookCon or BookExpo this year? What were some of your highlights? What was the craziest ARC drop you witnessed/survived?

If you didn’t go, what did you read this weekend? I got absolutely no reading done and I’m a little ashamed.