It was the last day of YALC today and honestly, I AM SO SAD! I’ve met so many amazing people from Twitter and made some great friends that I can’t wait to see again. I know that YALC is a celebration of Young Adult literature, but it’s the people there and the friends that you make that really make the weekend what it is: BRILLIANT.

This morning started out with me waking up at 6:30am… I WAS SO TIRED, but, I had to finish packing as the checkout time of my hotel was 11am and I would be in the convention centre by then. I knew I should have bought a bigger suitcase! All of the books, samplers, bookmarks, and tote bags were very difficult to try and fit in the suitcase, as well as the rest of my clothes and also the books that I had bought with me to get signed. Kirsty over at kirstyreadsblog  had such an amazing idea when it came to getting books signed: SHE DIDN’T! She bought along a notepad, and got the authors to put their message and sign on each of the pages so that she could rip out the page out of the notepad and stick it in her books. At least that way, she didn’t have to carry loads of books around. This is an idea that I’m definitely going to steal for next year!

Once I had packed everything, I headed down to YALC and IT WAS SO QUIET! There was hardly anyone there at 9am so I took a couple of photos to show how quiet it was. I had a nice wander round on my own, and took everything in whilst there wasn’t that many people. Whilst on my journey round the stalls, I managed to get a free copy of Witchsign from the Harper stall! I didn’t even know that they were giving them away, but when I approached to just brows the stall, the woman asked if I wanted a copy and I was like YES PLEASE!! It sounds like such an amazing book.

After about half an hour, I met up with Kate and Hollie and we went to get our YALC tote bags (it made no sense that they were being given away on the Sunday… but I’ll talk more about this is my YALC opinions post). Upon arriving at the stall where we could get the totes, we found out that they were only available for the first 500 people who purchased a 3 day ticket. We decided to try our luck. Kate and Hollie were in the 300th place, so they got one, and then I was number 138 which is crazy! So I got one as well. All that was inside was a schedule… Which we had been given on the Friday… Yay.

By about 10am, I felt like I had seen everything, so Jemma and I wandered down to Comic Con to have a quick look around. We had to be back upstairs by 11am because there was a giveaway of Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa. I REALLY WANTED THAT ARC, and it was the ARC that I had wanted the most out of all of them that were available. Whilst down in the Comic Con section, I bought a couple of Studio Ghibli art prints that I absolutely love.

11am quickly came around and we went back upstairs and we were given our raffle tickets for the giveaway. AND…

I lost.

Yupp… It’s ok, guys. I’m not crying. BUT! Jemma did win and even though I was slightly jealous (and I do fully admit this), I was so happy for her to have won it!! SO WELL DONE JEMMA!

At 12pm, I headed over to the panel area to watch the ‘Bring a Torch – It’s Dark in Here’ panel with Anna Day, Kerry Drewery, Nicky Singer, Vic James, and William Sutcliffe. The panel was discussing the thriller/dystopian elements of YA. I love a good dystopian, and I found this panel so interesting. I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard of Nicky Singer or William Sutcliffe before, but when they talked about their books, I became so intrigued, and I’m actually currently saving up to purchase them!

Straight after the dystopian panel was the ‘Real World, Real Me’ panel with Akemi Dawn Bowman, Eve Ainsworth, Holly Bourne, Lisa Williamson, and Lydia Ruffles. This panel was focused on contemporary and how mental health is portrayed in YA contemporary novels. Contemporary is one of my favourite genres, and I love reading YA books that tackle mental health.

After the two panels, me, Hollie, and Kate went down to Comic Con because Hollie wanted to see if she could spot David Tennent (we didn’t). But I did end up seeing Aiden Turner, Zachary Levi, and Rahul Kohli. I was actually so happy to see Rahul, as I love him on iZombie and his Twitter is just hilarious. Whilst we were down in the Comic Con section, I bought a Stranger Things art print, and then we had a wander round the main bit of Comic Con. I didn’t get to see everything, which I’m a bit disappointed about, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR!

It was about 5pm when I headed back up to YALC and I felt like I had seen and done everything that I could possibly do. I had a train to catch at 6:10pm, so I thought that I should head back to the hotel and get my suitcase so that I could get back to Marylebone. I said goodbye to everyone (which was super sad), and walked back to the hotel, got my stuff, called an Uber to take me to Marylebone (there was no way that I was going to even TRY and attempt to cary my suitcase down the stairs of the tube station), got the train back to Stourbridge, and here I am, lying in my own bed writing this post.

I actually shouldn’t even be writing this post because I need to pack for my holiday to Malta, which I’m actually going to tonight… We need to leave the house at 1am, and I didn’t get back from London til 8:30pm…

Overall, I had such a brilliant time at YALC. I loved every single person that I met whilst I was there, and I’ve made so many amazing friends. I think that one of the best memories that I actually have from YALC is when we all went to Pizza Hut and Lauren (over at Fiction Tea) was just making me laugh so much. Lauren… You know what I’m on about. Bloody velociraptor noises!

I will definitely be going again to YALC next year as I had such a brilliant time. I will be posting more YALC posts over the next few days, such as my YALC opinions piece, and also my YALC haul so keep you eyes peeled for those.

I hope you guys have enjoyed my (long) diary-like entries whilst I was at YALC!

Thank you for being on this journey with me.