Ah, YALC, it’s a dream event for most of us book lovers in the UK. A mini-convention dedicated to YA books where we can visit a ton of publishers, buy merch and just have fun at a bookish event. Due to when it is, I hadn’t been able to attend before now. The end of July is my brother’s birthday, so I’m usually busy. Fortunately, they moved it earlier in the month this time.
I’m going to split this post into two sections. I’m mostly going to talk about YALC, but I want to talk a little bit about LFACC. I also spent a good bit of time with my sister. I’ll add I’ve been to other conventions before this one – mostly the London MCM Comic-Con – so I do have an idea of what I like about them.
YALC
The reason why most of you will be here will be to hear what I thought about YALC. I had fun. I did. I didn’t do any signings or panels this time. I don’t tend to do things like that often, so that was fine. However, because it is so small…it meant I ran out of things to do there for a while.
I knew it would be small, but I didn’t really figure exactly how small.
I was done pretty quickly apart from the raffles I had to wait for the results. If I go again, I’ll probably leave the raffles and just go for books I can buy and samplers. I got around 3 ARCs – all of which I am very excited about – but obviously, I didn’t win the books I was desperate to win. Typical, but that’s fine.
It was definitely amazing being surrounded by all these books and bookish people. I wish I’d been a bit more open about talking to people. I’m just very awkward and, unless I know someone, I won’t speak to them. So I wish I’d done better there, but it was still pretty awesome to hear all this bookish talk.
So let’s get down to what books I got!
ARCS
- It Will End Like This – Kyra Leigh (out now)
- A Game Of Life Or Death – Triona Campbell (February 23)
- Monsters Born And Made – Tanvi Berwah (September 22)
I hadn’t heard of It Will End Like This before, but it’ll actually be going onto my current TBR. It apparently came out earlier this year, and it sounds like the perfect thriller for me. I’m very excited.
I hadn’t heard of A Game Of Life Or Death either, but that sounds fascinating. A mix of sci-fi and thriller possibly. It involves video games, and according to the marketing plan, they might be promoting it on Twitch too. I look forward to seeing what they’re going to do there. As a gamer, I’m excited to read this book and to see the promotion.
Finally, we have Monsters Born and Made, a book I definitely knew I wanted to read. I’d love to be on the Sourcebooks blogger list, but that’s unlikely. Fortunately, ED PR are doing some work on this one, so I was able to grab a copy. This is a YA fantasy that I’m so very excited about and will be getting to very soon.
Bought
I won’t go into detail about each of the books on this list as there are quite a few. With every stall I saw – apart from Waterstones – selling paperbacks for £5 and hardbacks for £10, I was obviously going to buy a lot. I didn’t get much fantasy which surprised me. I mostly got paperbacks too, but I’m very happy with my purchases.
- One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston
- Bright – Jessica Jung
- These Hollow Vows – Lexi Ryan
- Small Favors – Erin A. Craig
- The Honeys – Ryan La Sala
- This Is Not The Real World – Anna Carey
- The Dream Runners – Shveta Thakrar
If you’ve read any of these, then please let me know your thoughts! Especially whether you think I’ll live them or not. I already know I might regret buying These Hollow Vows, but the pretty cover finally got me.
London Film and Comic-Con
I’ve never wanted to go to LFACC by itself. There isn’t really much for me there – I do love Star Wars, but I don’t tend to buy stuff for it – as it isn’t really an anime con or anything. I love MCM because of all these anime merch stalls. I love going there, and I just buy so many pins and so much art and stuff. There was less stuff I’d like on that count at LFACC. It was also a lot smaller than I expected. Two halls for the majority of the stalls, with half of one of the gallery floors for artists.
Honestly, if my sister hadn’t had a photo session in the late afternoon… we would have left. There’s only so much time you can spend going through the same stalls.
I did buy a few bits and pieces. I got my best friend a pin for her birthday. I also bought a charm of a Genshin Impact character I like and a BNHA x Sailor Moon crossover print. The stuff I got was really cute, and I’m happy with it. It was just a little weird to head home from a con and still have money as there wasn’t much I wanted.
That said, I didn’t really expect to find much there. I was glad to find some things. But I guess this is only really a con you’ll get excited about if you want to meet the celebrity guests. If that’s not what you’re attending the con for….you’ll probably wind up leaving early.
Final Thoughts
I am glad that I went. It was so nice to finally go to YALC, and I’d love to go again. I’m definitely never going to go for a weekend though. I don’t think there’s enough that I’d want to do. Hopefully, in the future, I can meet up with some bookish friends, and we can hang out whilst surrounded by bookish goodness. Then leave to go around London, get good food and buy more books from shops, ha!
Lace and Dagger Books 