LA Times Bookfest

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books 2015!

        My second year coming to LA Times. This festival is supposedly the biggest in the country and I definitely believed it when comparing to YALL West. However; I think that YALL was more fun because all the YA authors just went to that one and not this one! All the authors that lived out of state, and could only come for one weekend decided to go to the last one, so all I saw was Leigh Bardugo, Gayle Forman, Tahereh Mafi and Ransom Riggs, (They are the cutest thing by the way!) I hear Marie Lu was there too but I didn't see her.

        

             I had hoped to get more details about the movie for Miss Peregrine's House for Peculiar Children, since one panel was about turning books to movies and Ransom was there along with Janet Fitch, Don Winslow, and Richard Rayner. But he had said that he hadn't played a very big part in the movie making process. "I didn't adapt the screenplay [For Miss Peregrine] It would be like a surgeon operation on someone they loved. I don't think it's a very good idea." - RR 

          

             A main part of the conversation was about how people will always say the book is so much better than the movie. As authors, they thought that movies had to be different than the book because they are different types of media. They also said it's an accepted fact that things need to get cut from books in the movie making process. "Turning a book into a movie is like turning a cow into a beef bouillon cube. You want to capture the essence without taking the whole thing" -J Fitch.  I guess all of this is true, but whenever I see a movie from a book I love, I always get the slightest bit upset if a sweet little detail is cut out. Example, Dauntless Cake. 

       Another panel, with Tahereh Mafi, Leigh Bardugo, EK Johnston, and Peter Hautman had the topic of Fantasy. The authors discussed the concept of world building and their method of how they add detail to the world within the book. Tahereh admitted that the Shatter Me world revolved mostly around the character of Juliette and how she came into her head first. In the case of Leigh Bardugo she thought of the dark Shadow Fold full of monsters when she was at home one day. The lights were off, she heard a sound in the dark and decided to make a whole story around that. 

         My favorite part of this panel was when the writers started giving advice to aspiring writes in the crowd. Peter Hautman didn't start writing until he was 20, and Leigh Bardugo waited a long time before she actually finished a story, and didn't think she could do it! That baffles me! She has oodles of talent and she wrote this amazing trilogy that almost never was. It makes me sad to think that there are so many awesome writers out there that don't know how good they are. Just think of all the books that never got published! 

            

       Honestly, I would love to be one of those famous writers one day but that kind of involves... allowing others to read your writing. Which is just a little horrifying! (Not very many people know this but i've written 2 books of my own but they have never been seen by eyes other than mine) 

       

          

        Finally, my last panel that I went to! It was called 'Love, Death, and the Lives in Between' It had Aaron Hartzler, Andrew Smith, Gayle Forman, Martha Brockenbrough, and Lance Rubin. It was actually Lance Rubin's first panel ever. He said that his first book came out last month or somthing and I kinda want to check him out he seemed like a cool guy with an interesting book idea. 

         

           I'm not entirely sure how the title of the panel related to the topic. Because all of the books had death and love in them but they couldn't actually talk about it because of spoilers. But I think the most interesting part was where the authors were talking about how real teenagers influenced their work. Martha was talking to a teenage girl who read her book about pregnancy (I think it was fiction, but I haven't read it) Originally they talked about writing but then it turned out the girl really was pregnant and she talked about her boyfriend... and I guess their love story led to another love story in one of her next books. I think that's such a crazy thing to have such a close relationship to an author that you like. I've met authors more than once (Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Roth, Lauren Oliver) but unfortunately while fangirling I'm not capable of forming complete sentences. 

        I actually really liked the idea of Martha Brockenbrough's book. It's about two teenagers of different races who fall in love. Which in today's time a biracial couple isn't that big of a deal but the story is set in 1937 Seattle. I always tell people that I don't like historical fiction but just the other day I kinda discovered that almost every book I've read labeled 'historical fiction' I've really loved! Plus my class learned about the Harlem Renaissance a while back in history class and just the image of smokey clubs and jazz music in the background seemed really cool. So I figured, hey why not? I bought her book and got it signed (It's not coming out officially until the 28th) But I felt so bad because Gayle Forman had this massive line of fans and I was literally the only person who came to get the other author's signature. 

      

         But hey! She may have made a new fan today and that's what the even was all about. Appreciating books, finding new things to read, doing cool stuff. So I think today was a great success!

(In order) Lance Rubin, Gayle Forman, Aaron Hartzler, Andrew Smith, Martha Brockenbrough

Thanks for Reading! -R