Title: The Enemy

Author: Charlie Higson

Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Speculative Fiction

Publisher: Hyperion (US) / Puffin (UK)
Publication Date: May 2010 (US) / September 2009 (UK)
Hardcover: 448 Pages (US)

In the wake of a devastating disease, everyone older than sixteen is either dead or a decomposing, brainless creature with a ravenous appetite for flesh. Teens have barricaded themselves in buildings throughout London and venture outside only when they need to scavenge for food. The group of kids living at Waitrose supermarket is beginning to run out of options. When a mysterious traveler arrives and offers them safe haven at Buckingham Palace, they begin a harrowing journey across London. But their fight is far from over — the threat from within the palace is as real as the one outside it.

Full of unexpected twists and quick-thinking heroes, The Enemy is a fast-paced, whiteknuckle tale of survival in the face of unimaginable horror.

Stand alone or series: Ostensibly the first in a series (I hope!), but can be read as a stand alone novel.

How did I get this book: Review Copy from BEA (signed, too!)

Why did I read this book: Let’s do a brief breakdown, shall we? Post-Apocalypse – check. Young Adult – check. ZOMBIE ADULTS – check.

Seriously, this book has “Thea” written aaaaaall over its gorgeous black sided pages.

Review:

Following the outbreak of a deadly virus, anyone above the age of sixteen has either died, or turned into a maurading, flesh-hungry, mindless creature – that is, a zombie. These adults aren’t truly zombies as they aren’t technically dead, but like 28 Days Later or the recent film adaptation of I Am Legend, they share the same sort of…joie de le vivre. The children left behind, terrified and untouched by the strange affliction that has turned their parents, older siblings, teachers and neighbors into ravenous beasts, have banded together. Gravitating to the supermarkets that their parents shopped at, the kids group and fortify the stores, and The Enemy opens with one of these groups, the Waitrose kids. Even with the walls they have rigged up, the grownups remain a constant threat and the first chapter opens with a breach and the loss of Small Sam, taken by the “moms” and “dads.” Maxie, the second in command of the Waitrose kids, mourns the loss of the young Sam and anxiously awaits the return of leader Arran and his scavenging party. All is not well with Arran, however, as he and his crew come into a skirmish with adults, and Arran is bitten. Reunited at Waitrose, they children regroup and rest, but then fate comes calling.

An unknown teenage boy in a patchwork coat calls for help outside their walls, and when they let him in, he has quite a story to tell. Jester, as the boy says his name is, comes from a group of children fortified in – no joke – Buckingham Palace. He claims that they have supplies, established order, and have even begun to grow food. Jester’s role is to seek out new recruits to join the palace, and he implores the Waitrose kids to set out with him. And, after a brief debate, the group decides to strike out for the city center, leaving the stagnant halls of the supermarket behind. Following Jester’s lead, the Waitrose kids team up with the neighboring Morrisons kids (the other grocery in the area) and make their way to Buckingham Palace. But what they find along the way, and at the palace itself isn’t all sunshine and ponies. As the kids’ numbers dwindle and tensions between the Buckingham Palace kids and the newcomers grow, it becomes clear that even though the zombie-like adults are the enemy, there are far worse dangers and evils among supposed allies.

I immensely enjoyed The Enemy, from dramatic opening sequence to its gritty conclusion. The plotting is deft, alternating between two separate main storylines – one following Small Sam as he bravely flees his captors, the other following Maxie and the Waitrose/Morrisons kids as they journey to (and ultimately reach) Buckingham Palace. In many ways, Mr. Higson’s novel is similar to Michael Grant’s Gone books – there’s the same fast plotting and tight action, the same large cast of young characters (though focusing on a central few), the same unspeakable horror – both supernatural and very sadly human. The Enemy manages to be action-centric (with no shortage of gore and gristle) as well as driven by strong, sympathetic characters, and surprisingly thought-provoking all at the same time. As this is a “zombie” novel (well, sort of), there is a copious amount of gore and violence, as is the genre’s prerequisite, but like the best works in the zombie canon, Mr. Higson manages to go beyond simple shock factor and poses some intriguing questions about human nature. One of the things I love the most about the aforementioned Gone books and holds true for The Enemy too is the explication of human nature each book holds – which is even more resonating as these stories are told through the perspective of children. Fear, cruelty power hunger, and violence know no age limits after all, and it’s very interesting to see how these children behave in a world without parents. Well, with parents that are intent on eating them alive.

It also bodes mentioning that Charlie Higson has created a very well conceived world with his version of the apocalypse. Starting a book post-apocalypse (as The Enemy opens long after the initial outbreak) is an interesting choice, but also means that instead of focusing on the initial chaos, The Enemy can focus on the equally interesting aftermath. I loved the idea that these children would naturally gravitate to the stores at which their parents shopped, and how they all banded together along those dividing lines. The images of a decayed London, the diseased adults overwhelming the Underground, sleeping in Wembley Stadium, and children taking over Buckingham Palace, it’s all deliciously evocative stuff.

But the most impressive thing about The Enemy is the strength of its characters. Mr. Higson casts a wide net with his protagonists – and in true ensemble cast fashion (ahem, Lost), he’s not afraid to kill his characters. This is both awesomely realistic, but also heartbreaking at the same time. Many a character falls in this book, and after getting to know these children, it’s a hard thing to say goodbye to them so suddenly. But, that’s the zombie apocalypse (well, sort of) for you, right? There’s nothing more infuriating in a disaster movie than to see every single one of the hero characters survive – and I’m very impressed with Mr. Higson’s resolve in this book. As for the characters themselves, Maxie and Small Sam are the clear favorites – the former for her strong yet sympathetic nature as a leader, the latter for his six-year-old innocence and bravery. That’s not to say that all the characters are sweet, angelic heroes, however – just as with any large group, each character has their positives and negatives. There’s the ruthless fighter Achilleus, the slippery wily Jester, the calculatingly intelligent Ollie, juvenile delinquent Freak…it’s a good mix.

And best of all? The Enemy ends with hope – for the kids, and for us readers, as there is a ton of room for a sequel. I can only hope that Mr. Higson has book 2 underway.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the official excerpt:

The glass doors of the swimming pool were cracked and so covered with dust on the inside that it was impossible to see anything through them. Deke hefted his sledgehammer and took a swing, aiming for a spot next to the handles. The glass exploded with a bang and fell out of the frame in sparkling nuggets.

‘Cool,’ said Freak.

‘Yes it is,’ said Deke, who loved destroying things. In the early days, just after the disaster had happened, and before he understood the dangers, Deke had wandered the streets in delight – breaking, burning, smashing – hardly able to believe that there was nobody around to stop him and that he could do whatever he wanted.

That crazy, joyous freedom had been cut short when he’d discovered that not all the adults had died. And those who had survived would treat you far worse than any parent, teacher or policeman if they ever caught you. A parent might have grounded you, a teacher might have kept you in after school and the police might have arrested you, but none of them would have tried to eat you, like the grown-ups who wandered the streets these days.

He still got a kick out of destroying things, though, when he got the chance, which was why he often volunteered to join a scavenging party.

He stood back from the shattered door to let Achilleus see inside.

Achilleus leant in and looked around.

‘We’ll need the torches.’

They all carried hand-powered LED dynamo torches that didn’t need batteries. They quickly fired them up by pumping the triggers that spun the flywheels inside. After thirty seconds the torches were charged enough to give a good three minutes of light.

They stepped into the entrance lobby and shone their beams across the dirty floor and walls. Ahead of them was the reception desk. To the right, past a turnstile and low barrier was a small seating area that opened out on to the pool.

A wide passage led the other way to the changing rooms.

The reception desk was covered with cobwebs and the faded, peeling posters on the walls were from a different world. They showed smiling, happy children and talked of health and fitness and community activities. There were a few animal trails in the dust and debris on the floor, but no sign of any recent human activity.

‘Vending machines used to be through there,’ said Freak, nodding towards the fixed tables and chairs in the seating area.

‘We’ll take a quick look,’ said Arran, and, without having to be told, Achilleus led the way. He climbed over the turnstile and dropped into a crouch on the other side, spear at the ready.

‘All clear.’

One by one the others followed, Ollie bringing up the rear, torch in one hand, slingshot in the other.

They walked cautiously forward. As they moved closer to the pool they noticed a smell. The choking, rotten stink of stagnant water.

‘Aw, who’s farted?’ said Deke, holding his nose. Freak sniggered, but nobody else laughed. The pair of them liked to joke around to keep the fear away, but the others had their own ways of dealing with their nerves.

Achilleus was tensed and alert, ready for action, almost willing a grown-up to jump out at him. Arran tried to stand tall and appear unafraid, imagining he was casting a protective shield around his little group. Ollie kept glancing back over his shoulder. He was so used to watching their rear that he almost found it easier walking backwards.

‘That is an evil smell,’ said Freak.

‘Keep it down,’ said Achilleus.

‘Come off it, Akkie,’ said Deke. ‘If there was anyone here I think they just might have heard that bloody big bang as I took out the door.’

‘Shut up so’s we can listen, Deke.’

‘OK, OK.’

They shone their torches around the seating area where the vending machines had once stood.

Nothing. Empty.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: As I mentioned earlier, fans of The Enemy will certainly love the Gone books by Michael Grant – so far, comprised of Gone, Hunger, and Lies.

For more information about The Enemy, I highly recommend you check out the book’s website – loaded with goodies, including a zombie gallery and a way to zombify your own pictures. And of course, there’s the book trailer:

Verdict: Highly enjoyable, thought-provoking, and delightfully action (and guts) filled novel, The Enemy seizes you by the jugular and doesn’t ever let up. I hope there is more in the future for the kids of Waitrose – I’ll be first in line for the sequel.

Rating: 7 – Very Good, narrowly missing an 8 only because I *know* there is more to come from this series.

Reading Next: Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle

Title: Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto

Author: Eric Luper

Genre: Contemporary YA

Publisher Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: June 8, 2010
Hardcover: 304 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Seth Baumgartner just had the worst day of his life.

His girlfriend dumped him (at Applebee’s), he spied his father on a date with a woman who is not his mother (also at Applebee’s!), and he lost his fourth job of the year. It’s like every relationship he cares about is imploding, and he can’t figure out what’s going on.

To find answers, Seth decides to start an anonymous podcast called The Love Manifesto, exploring “what love is, why love is, and why we’re stupid enough to keep going back for more.” Things start looking up when Seth gets a job at a golf club with his hilarious and smut-minded best friend, Dimitri, and Dimitri’s sister, Audrey. With their help, Seth tracks down his father’s mystery date, hits the most infamous bogey in the history of golf, and discovers that sometimes love means eating the worst chicken-salad sandwich you can ever imagine.

Why did I read the book: This book was on my radar for a few months. I liked the cover, the blurb and since I am on a contemporary YA kick, it was a no brainer.

How did I get the book: This was one of the books I most wanted to get when at BEA. I got a signed copy.

Review:

Seth Baumgartner is not having a good day. It starts with his girlfriend Veronica breaking up with him at Applebee’s, where he also sees his father having lunch and being too close to a woman-who-is-not-his-mother and it ends with him being fired from yet another job this summer – which doesn’t sit well with his very successful parents, especially his father. Seth then finds a new job at his Golf Club, where he is also training, alongside his best friend Dimitri, for the upcoming father-son competition. Meanwhile, Seth nurtures a broken heart and the horrible responsibility of knowing about his father which could lead to a broken home and that’s what makes him start a Love Manifesto podcast – where he anonymously, talks about the reasons why he loves Veronica and the steps he takes to investigate his father’s affair.

On the surface, Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto has some really interesting ideas and themes: young love (losing it and finding it again), how to deal with a cheating father, golf (have I ever read a YA book where the kid plays golf? No.), podcasting. In reality, the book just left me cold ad I am struggling right now to even remember parts of it even though I finished reading it three days ago. However, I do remember critical parts that did not sit well with me.

For example, Seth lies to Dimitri about why they are running around town following his father. The reason why he doesn’t tell his best friend is that he thinks that 30 years from now:

“Regardless of what happens between now and then – what schools I’ve gone to, what degrees I’ve gotten, or how many millions of dollars I’ve made – all that Dimitri will think about is how I’m that guy whose father cheated on his mother”

Really? That’s the reasoning? The guy is your best friend in the world and that is how you see his friendship? This is only one of the reasons why I couldn’t connect with Seth (and ultimately with the story). The themes of the book present a great opportunity to explore heartbreak, sadness, angst over parent’s marriage and to some extent this is done moderately well but right when things seemed to take a turn for the Great, something would happen to pull me out of the story. The example above is one of them; but there’s more: Seth started podcasting reasons why he loved Veronica and there were more than 100 and you know what? They are pretty cool, sweet reasons too including how she “got” him and or he “got” her. But then Veronica becomes a bitch and soon (way too soon) Seth is over her and falling for someone else. I do understand that we are talking about teenagers and love can be ephemeral – but the build up, the heartbreak, the reasons for loving her just become moot points.

Seth running around following his father and sleuthing sounded pretty silly too and what is the point of having an “anonymous” podcast if you will talk about things that will make it way too easy for people to know who you are? Those are only small things but to me, they don’t make a lot sense and bothered me. Plus, the book is supposed to be funny. I can tell the author really tries to, and Dimitri is supposed to be THE funny sidekick. But I did not laugh once and admittedly it is generally pretty easy to make me laugh.

Bottom line: it is not that the book is bad, but it is only…adequate. Harsh? Probably, but with so many good, awesome books out there, with so many waiting for me in my TBR, “adequate” is not going to cut it.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I earmarked this quote because I think it is a clear mark of the disengagement between the book and I. I am pretty sure this is supposed to be funny:

“Dimitri is not what I’d call fat, but he’s definitely carrying around some spare pounds. Let’s just say that if there were a sudden famine, he wouldn’t be the first to go – that is, unless all the skinny people got together and ate him”

Additional Thoughts: Two of the main themes of the book have been better explored (in my opinion) in two other books I read (and loved) this year. Mind you, these are not more “of the same”. Quite the contrary, each of these books could not be more different, but they are similar enough to make me think of them whilst reading Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto.

One is Delia Ephron’s wonderful The Girl With The Mermaid Hair

in which the protagonist’s father is also caught cheating. However, the way it is done, how the protagonist found out, the repercussions were truly, really heartbreaking. Also, there was no coup out or “explanation” for cheating (or presumed cheating) here – the father was indeed, a total sleazeball.

The other is An Abundance of Katherines by John Green,

in which the protagonist is ditched by his girlfriend and has an overweight, best friend who is in this case, TRULY hilarious. This book made me laugh so freaking much, plus it is a John Green novel so it comes with many layers of UTTER AWESOME.

Verdict: Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto has an interesting premise and universal themes that could have been fodder for a great book but its uninspired writing, unrelatable main character make for a merely adequate novel.

Rating: 5. Meh – Take it or leave it

Reading Next:Friend Is Not A Verb by Daniel Ehrenhaft

Title: Sapphique

Author: Catherine Fisher

Genre: Dystopia,Young Adult, Fantasy

Publisher: Dial (US) / Hodder Children’s Books (UK)
Publication Date: December 2010 (US) / September 2008 (UK)
Hardcover: 450 Pages (US)

Finn has escaped from the terrible living Prison of Incarceron, but its memory torments him, because his brother Keiro is still inside. Outside, Claudia insists he must be king, but Finn doubts even his own identity. Is he the lost prince Giles? Or are his memories no more than another construct of his imprisonment? And can you be free if your friends are still captive? Can you be free if your world is frozen in time? Can you be free if you don’t even know who you are? Inside Incarceron, has the crazy sorcerer Rix really found the Glove of Sapphique, the only man the Prison ever loved. Sapphique, whose image fires Incarceron with the desire to escape its own nature. If Keiro steals the glove, will he bring destruction to the world? Inside. Outside. All seeking freedom. Like Sapphique.

How did I get this book: Review Copy from BEA

Why did I read this book: I read Incarceron earlier this year and loved it – so it goes without saying that I was thrilled to grab a copy of Sapphique at BEA this year. And when Ana and I decided to run a BEA Appreciation Week, I could not resist picking this book up first (even if its official publication date is in December!).

WARNING: This review contains necessary SPOILERS for book 1 in the Incarceron series. If you have not read INCARCERON and do not wish to be spoiled, I suggest you stop reading immediately! YOU. HAVE. BEEN. WARNED.

Review:

It has been four months since Finn – that is, the long lost Prince Giles – has been rescued from the clutches of Incarceron by Claudia, leaving Keiro and Attia behind. All is not happy in the Realm outside, however, as Finn struggles with his guilt at leaving his bond brother behind, and with his newly assumed role as the Prince Heir. Those at court grudgingly accept him as Prince Giles, but Finn’s ineptitude at politics, manners, and overall lack of charm makes him a vulnerable target for the conniving queen and her lackeys. Finn will not rest until he’s able to save his friends from Incarceron, but with Claudia’s father made his last trip to Incarceron, he made sure to damage the portal to the prison – they fear, irreparably. While saving everyone in Incarceron seems like more of an unattainable dream each day, Claudia and her master Jared tire of trying to protect the blundering Finn, with his lack of courtly finesse. When another young man shows up, claiming to be the true Prince Giles, all of their tenuous plans to take back the Realm are in shambles.

Meanwhile, back in Incarceron, Keiro is furious with his escaped brother, and determined to find a way out at any cost. Attia, desperate to believe the best in Finn tags along with Keiro – but she’s scared of what Keiro might do to achieve his dream of freedom. Their travels cross paths with a (most likely insane) illusionist named Rix, who claims to have the fabled Glove of Sapphique – and a way out of Incarceron.

And Incarceron itself is awake and hungry, crazed and determined to escape itself, with Sapphique’s glove as the key.

This second book, rounding out the Incarceron duology, is…well, bizarre. In a good way. Sapphique is a fantasy novel, a dystopian novel nd, strangely enough, a science fiction novel all at the same time. By its end, Sapphique is a bizarrely surreal and strange sort of book, defying simple answers or conclusions – which makes it that much more rewarding a read. In fact, what I love the most about this book is how complicated – and very genuine – everything in the book is, from characters to plotting. In the realm of character, protagonist Finn faces numerous hurdles beyond Incarceron, and with his own supposed friends and allies. At court, Finn finds himself out of his depth with court intrigues and the Queen’s machinations; when the pretender shows up, he seems to be more Giles than prison-hardened Finn could ever be. Finn’s impotence when dealing with the court and his disinterest in the throne are frustrating, but utterly genuine and understandable given the hell he has been trapped in for the past few years, and his own missing memories. More frustrating than Finn, however, are Claudia and Jared. Claudia REALLY got on my nerves throughout Sapphique – she’s undoubtedly had a rough time of it as the daughter of Incarceron warden John Arlex, but her shortness with Finn, her doubts and her frankly idiotic behavior with the Giles impostor, well, it’s not very flattering. Regardless of my own distaste of her character, i cannot deny that the reason she is so infuriating is because she’s written so well – instead of idealizing her characters, Ms. Fisher does not shy away from the selfishness inherent in everyone, and that goes doubly for Claudia. After all, she is the adopted daughter of a ruthless warden, and has learned to look out for her own interests first. There’s also the terminally ill Sapient Jared, Claudia’s teacher (and maybe more? They have an…interesting relationship), who, despite his blandness, plays his own special role in the book.

Keiro and Attia are my favorite characters of the bunch, behind Finn – probably for the reason that they’re the most forthright. Poor Attia never really gets her due; for her devotion to Finn and her determination to set things right in Incarceron, she’s poorly treated by all those around her. While that sucks, again, I give props to Catherine Fisher for writing this unflinching realness. Keiro is a charming rogue who only cares about himself, but unlike Claudia, has no pretenses or delusions otherwise. I love the complicated relationship he has with Finn and his own moral ambiguity – it makes for a varied read, and seeing these less than perfect, less than beautiful, at times flat out ugly characters makes Sapphique the beautifully brutal novel that it is.

Even more important than the characters, however, are the intricacies of Incarceron and the mystery of Sapphique. In Incarceron, Ms. Fisher intertwines her story with the legend of Sapphique, the only man to ever escape the prison’s clutches. In Sapphique, the mythology of the titled character is expanded on – convoluted and confusing at times, yes, but also rather lovely. The same can be said for the story and world at large. I loved the blend of mysticism with technology both inside Incarceron and in the realm beyond. One rather effective theme that Ms. Fisher plays with is that of illusion versus reality – how free can someone really be from an all seeing prison? Is the Realm any better of a world than Incarceron? The juxtaposition of the crumbling of the outside world with its decayed technology and the cold cruelty of Incarceron is sobering and thought-provoking. And, by the novel’s end, I loved how everything ties together in a very strange, bittersweet kind of way. Though it has its lapses with infuriating characters, some confusing elements in terms of the mythology of Incareron and Sapphique, I finished the novel feeling satisfied and impressed. This is not your traditional YA conclusion, make no mistake of that – there is no real “love story,” no black and white heroes and villains…but i think that’s what i loved about the book the most. Nothing is glorified, and even the book’s resolution is discordant. In a good way. Perhaps Sapphique isn’t for everyone, but it certainly worked for me.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Though there’s no official excerpt for Sapphique online yet, you can read more about the book including Catherine Fisher’s inspiration for the duology HERE.

Additionally, you can read an excerpt for Incarceron (book 1) HERE.

Verdict: I initially gave the book a 7 but on further reflection, this is some original, risk taking stuff, and i have to upgrade to an 8. Sapphique is a fitting conclusion to the duology, taking huge chances with its somewhat untraditional approach to YA fantasy. Catherine Fisher has a gift for storytelling, and the writerly guts to back it up. Absolutely recommended to those looking for something a little different than the norm.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: The Enemy by Charlie Higson

Howdy folks, and welcome to another edition of the Smugglers’ Stash.

First, a few announcements…

Giveaway Winners:

We have a few winners to announce!

The winner of The Iron King by Julie Kagawa is…

Jacqueline C. (Comment #30)

The winner of The Prince of Mist is:

Tricia Scott (Comment #43)

You all know the drill. Email us (contact AT thebooksmugglers DOT com) with your snail mail address and we will get your winnings out to you as soon as possible. NOTE: due to the increasing number of unclaimed prizes, winners have one week to contact us/reply to our email. After one week, we pick a new winner. Thanks again to everyone that entered, and congratulations to all of the winners!

You can still enter our Paper Towns by John Green contest. We are giving away 15 copies here.

News from the Interwebs:

Author Celine Kiernan has a giveaway going on her blog, with the complete Moorehawke Trilogy up for grabs! That’s right – the giveaway includes the yet-to-be released final book, The Rebel Prince so if you’re a fan, you might wanna get over to her site and enter. You have until June 22 and the contest is open to EVERYONE. Check out the countdown widget below to read about the rules, and to see how much time you have left to enter:

This week on The Book Smugglers:

In honor of BEA, we’ve decided to throw a virtual party – that is, this week wll be known henceforth as “BookExpo America Appreciation Week”! In which we review books we received at BEA.

On Monday, Thea reviews (at long last!!!) Sapphique, dystopian YA novel sequel to the awesome Incarceron.

Tuesday, Ana reviews Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto by Eric Luper, a Contemporary YA novel.

On Wednesday, Thea reviews The Enemy by Charles Higson – another YA post-apocalyptic novel, in which everyone over the age of 16 has turned into insatiable zombies.

Thursday, Ana reviews yet another Contemporary YA Friend Is Not A Verb by Daniel Ehrenhaft.

And on Friday, we close out the week with a joint review of Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle.

Until Monday, we remain…

Ana’s BEA Loot, waiting to be shelved…

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers

This is our final report for Book Expo America 2010, go HERE for Days 0/1 and HERE for Day 2

DAY THREE: Book Blogger Convention, Tour of Hachette, and AWESOME Japanese food

Ana: I have always wanted to attend BEA but what really made me take the plunge was the Book Blogger Convention and the fact that Thea was invited to be in one of the panels. For those who not know, the Book Blogger Convention (henceforth “BBC”) is the first, organised Book Blogger er, Convention which became a part of BEA when the organisers actually got a room at the Javits for it. I don’t know how they managed that and I don’t know what I was expecting but oh boy: I was mighty impressed by it all. For starters it was extremely well organised, the panels were really interesting and none of them ran overtime and hey, all the equipment worked; there were both breakfast and lunch included and even they weren’t the best food in the planet, it was all included in the fee and abundant; there was a pretty awesome tote bag as well, full of goodies like:

What I mean to say is: this was not a last-minute, thrown together deal. We could see that the organisers put a lot of work and effort into it and what can I say? It was a huge success, 250 people attended, amongst bloggers, authors and publishers (when we visited the good people at Tor, they all KNEW about it!) and since this is only the first year, I think the BBC has a bright future ahead.

We got there at around 8am for registration and breakfast:

Thea attacking the bagels

The Keynote Speaker: Maureen Johnson rules

After breakfast we moved on to the room to hear the Keynote Speaker, who happened to be Maureen Johnson, one of my favourite contemporary YA authors. I am not the first to say this, but this speech? It was MADE OF WIN. Not only Ms Johnson is articulate and interesting, she is also incredibly funny. Her session lasted for 1h30m including a Q&A and it was a great event all the way through. Amongst the points she made, I think the ones I liked the most were:

- The Internet is a natural extension of writing and therefore an organic phenomenon;
- There is still a lot to learn about the Internet and blogging as there are no real experts and a lot can be learnt on the go;
- Book Bloggers are Activists for Books (how cool is that?) and we can make a difference; I like the phrase “bring back books from the abyss” referring to banned books and older books;
- She likes Twitter so much (and seriously, you need to follow her, her tweets are so funny) her goal is to be the first person to Tweet from the grave;
- We are in the “Golden Age of Screw-Ups”.

After her session ended, I had to dash out to meet Miriam Parker, our contact at the Hachette Group for a tour of their offices. The building itself is amazing and I had a few problems with the elevator (you have to pick your floor BEFORE getting inside, which by the way, I DID NOT KNOW) but made it safely to their floor. Miriam then showed me around all departments (including the Art and Publicity) and we ended up at the Orbit’s floor where we chatted to several editors, one of them was actually petting a book we simply can’t wait to read:

Then they made the mistake of not only introducing me to the storage room but also uttering the words: you can get anything you want. BIG MISTAKE, ORBIT DUDES! With another 5 books in tow, I said goodbye to Miriam and dashed back to the Javits for lunch. Because I am the luckiest biatch in the world, Maureen Johnson was leaving as I arrived and I basically jumped in front of her (sorry if I scared you, Maureen) and squeed like the fangirl that I am.

I got in line for lunch and that was when I finally was able to actually chat a little bit with Amy from My Friend Amy who updated me on the upcoming BBAW. I can’t wait. Then, we sat with Thea and Kenda for lunch and they told me all about the talk I missed while I was at Hachette:

Ron Hogan on Professionalism and Ethics

Thea: While Ana took off to meet with the awesome folks at Hachette, I stuck around to listen to Ron Hogan’s piece on “Professionalism and Ethics.” Ron Hogan’s speech started out strong, highlighting that there is a big difference between print journalism and bloggers – and thus, different standards and definitions of “professionalism” and “ethics” apply. He then proceeded to apply seven qualities from Seth Godin’s Linchpin (how to make oneself “indispensable”) to bloggers…most of which felt a bit dry, repetitive, and had little to do with the theme of “professionalism.” Rather, these seven qualities seemed to have more to do with developing a focus and creating a successful book blog. The “ethics” segment also was loose and fast, focusing on the idea that blogging ethics are of a different set than professional journalism.

What I took away from Mr. Hogan’s presentation, riddled with that awful company team-building stock art, was the vague notion that bloggers should be trustworthy and conduct themselves with “moral intentions.” While I agree that the FTC Revised Guidelines aren’t necessarily applicable to book bloggers, his second “example” – comparing the myriad unpaid bloggers for the Huffington Post to a blogger asking someone to do a guest post – felt a tad disingenuous. We are dealing with massive differences of scale and frequency, after all. And, for the most part, book blogs receive little to no income from posts – so the monetary compensation angle doesn’t quite fit.

I suppose it doesn’t help that all throughout the presentation, all I could think of was Billy Madison. You know, the Academic Decathlon “Business Ethics” part.

After that, it was time for lunch!

Writing and Building Content:

Thea: This next panel featured some very, very smart bloggers – the lovely moderator Rebecca (The Book Lady’s Blog), and panelists Amanda (The Zen Leaf), Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness), Betsy (A Fuse 8 Production), and Christina (Stacked). Each of these women talked about their own methods of writing and creating content for their blogs – a rather extensive process, if I may say! After listening to how many outlines, detailed notes, schedules, etc these ladies create to keep their blogs running, I felt like a bit of a slacker! All in all, a very informative session – although I do wish that there was some variety on the panel. Everyone seemed to generally agree with each other, and also seem to write the same lengthy style of reviews. I wish there could have been a brief review writer, or an ebook reviewer, for example, to change things up a bit.

That said, very informative, eloquent, intelligent women with some great advice.

Ana:

Marketing: This panel featured Heather of Age 30+ Books who was the moderator, Gayle of Everyday I Write the Book, Yen of The Book Publicity Blog, Ann of Books on the Nightstand, and our own Thea

Next was the Marketing panel – the one Thea was part of – and I have to say I was so anxious for Thea , I had butterflies in my belly. The panel went well and they talked about issues such as how to put your name out there like, comment on other people’s blogs, always reply to comments on your own, join social media sites like Twitter/Facebook – but don’t overdo it so that you don’t stretch yourself too thin. I thought all panellists had interesting things to say and for the most part they were all in agreement expect when it came to stats and what they mean to publishers or whether to disclose them or not. The majority of panellists agreed that people shouldn’t obsess over stats—and that publicists might not care too much about the number of followers or readers as much as they care about a sense of community. Thea was the sole dissenting voice saying that we do think stats are important not only to us and she outed me as the stats “whore” –in those exact words – of the duo and I was so embarrassed but hey, I OWN it, I check our stats all the time and I LIKE to see them grow. We also have our stats counter open in our webpage to everyone to see – just click on the sitemeter logo- and it has been like that since day one when we had the grand total of zero visits; but to publicists as well, and that they have all the right to ask for a blog’s stats before agreeing to send books – numbers are important in our opinion, but obviously only as a RESULT of good content and good reviews and of building community. It is possible to have good content, to have a good community and rapport with readers who leave comments and linkage love AND good stats and we don’t see anything wrong with that. We completely understand that to some bloggers the issue is NOT important though, which is totally fine, but we sort of feel that sometimes the mere use of the words “Marketing” and “Stats” is a no-no and vilified and we don’t think that is fair at all.

Thea had to dash out after the panel to go to the post office to ship her books back home, which is a shame because LOADS of people came looking for her (including a couple of publicists) to say that they actually agreed with her opinion. In the few minutes before the next panel, I also had the chance to chat briefly with the awesome Alex Lencicki, marketing and publicity director for Orbit books, to geekout over Sarah Rees Brennan’s books with Aja Romano of Bookshop and to form the Alliance for World Domination via Book Blogging (AfWDvBB) with the wonderful and totally cool ladies, Rebecca (The Book Lady’s Blog) and Christina (Stacked) .

Blogging with Social Responsibility: This panel was moderated by Maria of The Boston Bibliophile and the panellists were Zetta Elliott at Fledgling, Stephen at Band of Thebes, Wendy at Caribousmom, and Terry at The Reading Tub

This was a fascinating and educative panel. Each of the panellists had interesting things to say about their experience with blogging –they all touch on important issues like LGBT reading, addressing racism in publishing, blogging for a cause. The main point is that bloggers can make a difference and you never know who is listening in the background and even a small post about an important issue can touch someone and make a difference. The Q&A was pretty good on this one as well. After the panel, I made sure to introduce myself to Zetta Elliott which is an author I totally respect and admire (and on a shallow note: she is freaking gorgeous!).

Impact of the Relationship Between Author and Blogger: This one was moderated by Nicole of Linus’s Blanket and with
Amy of My Friend Amy, Bethanne of The Book Studio, Kristi of The Story Siren, author Beth Kephart of Beth Kephart Books and author
Caridad Pineiro of Caridad Pineiro’s Blog as panellists.

I have to say, this was my least favourite panel. Most of what was said was useful and to the point such as authors can contact bloggers directly but most bloggers seem to prefer to deal directly with publicists; or how having a relationship with an author outside the confines of the blog (email, twitter, etc) does not imply a biased review, in fact both authors and bloggers were very clear on this (and the authors present even said they don’t mind negative reviews if they are written carefully and tastefully) but ultimately I thought that the authors had more to say and contribute than the bloggers in this panel.

All in all though, a VERY good day and the BBC has a lot of potential for growth. I have to give MAJOR kudos to the organisers and wish them all the best for next year:

* Amy at My Friend Amy
* Michelle at Galleysmith
* Natasha at Maw Books
* Nicole at Linus’s Blanket
* Pam at MotherReader
* Rebecca at The Book Lady’s Blog
* Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?

After this panel, some of us decided to have dinner together: Janice, Kristen, Angie, Thea and I went to this fabulous Japanese restaurant, Ippudo. For some reason, we decided it was a good idea to walk from the Javits, and after about half an hour, we quit (FAIL!) and took a taxi. We had the wrong address by the way, but we found the place. We “only” had to wait about 1h30m for our table but this was definitely the best meal Thea and I had in NY.

From L. to R.: Janice, Kristen, Angie, Thea and Ana

The BEA People:

Thea: BEA was also invaluable because of all the incredible people we got to meet. Waiting for a cab, standing in line (I saw the same wonderful librarian in almost EVERY LINE I queued up for!), randomly walking through Javits…BEA was a gold mine for connection building. Here are a few of the bloggers we got to meet:

- Alea Adou of Pop Culture Junkie
- Amy of Amy Reads
- April of Good Books and Wine
- Cindy Smith of Cindy’s Love of Books
- Eleni of La Femme Readers
- Gayle of Everyday I Write The Book
- Linda Nguyen of Better With Books
- Taschima of Bloody Bookaholic
- The lovely JL (and her sister) of An Avid Reader’s Musings (for some reason, we kept bumping into each other by the bathroom!)
- The Story Siren

And this is in addition to all the other lovely ladies we’ve already mentioned – Angie of Angieville, Janice of Janicu’s Book Blog, Kristen of Fantasy Cafe, Kenda of Lurv ala Mode, Amy of My Friend Amy, Michelle of Galleysmith, Trish of Hey Lady!, Charlotte of Lusty Reader, Heather of Age 30+ Books, Lenore of Presenting Lenore, Rebecca of The Book Lady’s Blog, Christina of Stacked, Mandi of Smexy Books, Christine of The Happily Ever After, and so many more…it was AWESOME. Pure awesome. We loved meeting everyone and cannot wait to see everyone again, once our bank accounts have recovered!

Visiting The Strand Bookstore – an Exposé

We stayed in NY over the weekend to do some touristy things and naturally our path led us to The Strand which was rumoured to be Book Store To Rule Them All. The reports were right. With shelf after shelf of all possible genres and a YA section to die for with most books (new, recently released) for around 8 bucks, The Strand proved to be one of those awesome…mistakes. Because even though we got more books we could possible carry (or read) at BEA we still ended up buying loads more and had to painfully rule out several books we really, really wanted.

And now for the expose part: when we were at The Strand we overheard a conversation between a patron and bookseller where the attendant said something along these lines:

Have you looked at the galleys section?

Thea and I literally jumped. A galleys section??? For reals? We looked for it and right there, next to the Children’s section; there were a couple of shelves LABELED “Galleys and Proofs” where the same were being SOLD. For those who do not know: every single galley or Advanced Reading Copy comes with a sign, right there on the cover and it says: NOT FOR SALE.

And yet, The Strand, this NY hallmark sells them! We even saw one who still had the publicist’s contact details on the cover. We were completely horrified by it.

We wonder: How is this possible, world? Does The Strand have a special deal with publishers where they are the exception to the rule? Or are they breaking the taboo? Does anyone know? …Bueller? Bueller?

*An Aside*: We woke up on Sunday morning, our last day in NY and the first thing Thea says to me, in a very serious voice is: “Dude. I think I have a serious problem. I am sitting here thinking about how we could go back to The Strand to get MORE books. Help.” I was tempted, Internets. REALLY tempted. But I simply did not have any room left for more books in my suitcase.

We forgot!

Also, following up on a few comments left in the previous reports, we wanted to add a couple of things we didn’t mention (there is so much to talk about!)

- The BEA is open to EVERYBODY. You don’t have to be part of the publishing industry, an author or a blogger. The convention is open to the public and you can just buy your ticket for one day, if you want. The BEA has a website where they post all (or at least, the majority of) the authors and publishers attending so that you can organise yourself accordingly;

-Bags: someone asked about how we carried the books we picked up. A lot of the booths were distributing tote bags. For example, as soon as we arrived, we picked up a Little,Brown one with loads of ARCs inside and then just added on top of it. By far, our favourite tote bag was this one:

- With regards to BEA more specifically: we were very surprised that Scholastic had no booth and that Macmillan’s was so small. We also thought that genre representation was not all-inclusive. We hardly saw any Sci-fi, Fantasy and Romance books and authors but we understand that since these genres have their own conventions (like Comic Con, RWA and RT) it would make more sense for publishers to invest in those. Otherwise, the show is a gold mine for YA, Literary and Historical Fiction and non-fiction.

To Conclude:

All in all, this was a tremendous experience that we highly recommend to anyone who can afford it. Yes, NY is MUCHO expensive – you don’t have to tell us that, our bank accounts are bleeding as we speak – but it is well worth the investment at least once.

I mean, fantastic free books? Loads of signings with awesome authors? Meeting all these people we love in person? It’s PRICELESS.

This is our report for Day 2 of Book Expo America 2010, go HERE for Days 0/1

DAY TWO: The Lack of Will Power, Alchoholic Pasta, Geeking Out and a Smugglerific Party

Ana: Armed with the strong resolve of not getting as many books as the day before, on Thursday morning we decided to arrive at the Javits earlier in order to be prepared for the Block of Doom – Part 2 (between 9am and 11am) and so that we could check some of the publishers we hadn’t seen the day before (like Disney Hyperion and Flux). We met up with Kenda to share a taxi at around 8am but our plan was twarped by the evil BEA organisers who decided not to open the hall before 9am. I immediately started whining at how “We could have slept another hour!” and then we sat down to wait. As members of the press (yeah, bloggers can get their BEA passes as members of the press – for FREE) we were allowed to enter the Press Room just before 9am and I attempted to drink their godawful coffee but couldn’t drink more than a couple of sips. We met Janice at the room and I took a picture of the group being all press-y:

At 9, the rush began and people were running (myself included – any attempts of playing cool and just strolling away were crushed by my own cursed competitiveness) to the Simon & Schuster booth in order to get an ARC of Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Angel. I am pleased to report we all got copies. We then ran to see Deanna Raybourn who was signing The Dead Travels Fast. We had a pretty cool moment here when she recognised our blog’s name and told Thea how much she loved her extremely well-written review of Silent in the Grave. Thea was delighted and I was mucho proud.

Carrying on with the Block of Doom – Part 2, we got in line to signed copies Adam Rex’s Fat Vampire, Larry Doyle’s Go, Mutants!, Gena Showalter’s Unraveled, Eric Luper’s Seth Baumgartners Love Manifesto and since most of these lines were short, we ended up getting into other lines and as you can see we completely failed to keep our resolve – we ended up collecting 30 books each, especially after doing impromptu visits to the Harper Collins’, Penguin’s and Flux’s booth (where I basically begged the nice lady for a copy of A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler and since I do begging so well, she actually gave me one of the display copies) which means that by 11am, we were already carrying way too much weight and dead tired on our feet.

That was when we collapsed (I had a horrible headache at this point) and decided to take a REAL break. We went back to the hotel to drop the bags off (making resolve number 2 of NOT GETTING MORE BOOKS but guess what, we didn’t keep it) and then have our first real meal since Monday night. We went to an Italian restaurant close to the hotel and had the most …. interesting pasta ever. It was supposed to be a regular tomato pasta but we are 100% convinced that someone must have dropped a bottle of pure, undiluted alchohol in it. It had the weirdest alcoholic taste but we were so hungry that we just ate the whole thing anyway.

Making our way back to the Javits (this time braving the subway system) , we made it back just in time to see the YA Authors of YA Editor’s Buzz panel with Ally Condie (MATCHED); Rebecca Maizel (INFINITE DAYS); Kody Keplinger (THE DUFF); Sophie Jordan (FIRELIGHT); Erin Bow (PLAIN KATE). The authors talked about their upcoming novels, about writing them and then read excerpts from the novels. This was actually a surprising panel because the two books we most wanted to read before we attented it (FIRELIGHT AND INFINITE DAYS) seemed to be the least interesting and we came out really interested in MATCHED and THE DUFF and positively salivating over PLAIN KATE. They didn’t have any copies to giveaway there but I ended up getting a copy of FIRELIGHT (see? no will power).

We then went back to get a copy of more signed books – Thea really wanted Pariah by Bob Fingerman and wouldn’t you know, Erin Bow was signing Plain Kate just there so we whooped and squeed and got ourselves copies.

At 4pm, we made our way to The Book Bloggler Convention Reception and that was another surprise. Extremely well organised, with food and drinks, the room was absolutely packed not only with bloggers but also industry professionals from major publishing houses and imprints such as Tor, Little,Brown, Harper Collins and Big Honcho Media. The best part of it though was meeting two authors we are friendly with: historical fiction writer Susan Holloway Scott and YA writer Diana Peterfreund whom we spent a good hour chatting to and geeking over Halloween, books and blogging.

You can’t see in the picture but I am wearing the BEST T-SHIRT EVER CREATED which Angie (thank you Angie!) presented me with and it reads:

What Would Eugenides Do. (if you don’t know who Eugenides is and why would anyone be interested in knowing what he would do, go here.)

We were one of the last ones at the reception and we had to madly dash back because we were throwing our own BEA party: A Smugglerific Party at a bar called the Volstead. Unfortunately, NY conspired against us and it was raining buckets when we left the hotel and we were finally able to observe and experience the phenomenon of NOT BEING ABLE TO GET A TAXI. Up until that point we thought all the TV Shows and Movies lied to us because we had no problems getting taxis till then.

We were the last ones to arrive at the party (bad, bad hostesses) but once we settled down, it was an absolute blast. On top of some of the bloggers we had already met like Angie, Kenda (with her husband in tow), Kristen, Janice and Heather, we finally got to meet two of our favorite bloggers in the world. The wonderful Christine of The Happily Ever After, someone we had been exchaging emails with since the start of our book smuggling careers and the lovely LR of Lusty Reader.

The bar was a little bit too loud and we did have to shout our conversations a little bit but the food was delicious (thanks Heather, for letting me share the most awesome steak sub) and very affordable (key word here, people). The party ended at around half past ten and we made our wobbly way back to the hotel, where we once more collapsed in exhaustion.

Thus, Day 2 endeth. Report of The Book Blogger Convention and the conclusion of our NY adventure including “The Strand – An Exposee” will be up on Wednesday! We promise.

For the past few weeks, there has been only one thing on our minds. Three tiny little initials, that encompassed the pinnacle (thus far) of our Book Smuggling careers:

In the two years that we have been running The Book Smugglers, we had yet to attend a United States-side formal book event in the Smuggler capacity. Sure, we’d been to other book festivals (such as the LA Times Festival of Books), but we’d been to those events basically as mere spectators/book lovers. This year, we decided to take the plunge (literally – just look at our poor bank statements!), and made the trek out to New York City for the single biggest publishing event of the year.

And wouldn’t you know it? BookExpo America was everything we had dreamed of, and then some. We knew it would be BIG (and believe us, Javits is a huge, cavernous – and fittingly, frigidly air conditioned – building), and we knew that every major publisher under the sun would be there – but never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that we’d be making off with some of the awesome galleys/ARCs/final copies of books that we received. We never thought that we’d actually get to spend time chatting/geeking/fangirling-out with some of the coolest authors (Diana Peterfreund!) and publisher contacts EVER.

We do have to admit that after the first day at BEA (approximately 50 pounds of books in tow) we were a bit worried about the logistics of the thing. How on earth would we get all of these books home, especially given stringent airline policies regarding overweight bags? We decided that we needed to exercise restraint for Day 2, making a solemn vow NOT to repeat the madness of Day 1…but as you can see, “restraint” isn’t exactly one of our strong suits:

Hence, the title of this piece. As the Borg would say, Resistance Is Futile, so we abandoned our fears and in true Doctor Strangelove style, embraced the full, book-greed-fueled madness that is BEA.

Of course, now looking at how our TBR piles have grown exponentially over the course of a single week, we may be in over our heads…but, hold, we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Allow us to present our Day-by-Day report of the coolest freakin’ book event of 2010.

Day One

Actually, we are still getting ahead of ourselves, because our BEA fun began even before we set foot in the Javits Center. Let’s try this again.

Day One Day Zero: Tor, Jackie Kessler & DC Comics

Thea: By some harmonious universal resonance, Ana and I had somehow managed to arrange our arrivals in JFK at the SAME TIME – both of us were about 45 minutes early – and after lugging my already massive luggage to Ana’s terminal and meeting up (for only the second time!), we got ourselves into a taxi and headed out to our Midtown hotel. If our smooth, serendipitously early flight arrivals weren’t enough of a good omen for the days to come at BEA, our cab driver certainly was. As you may or may not know, Ana and I are enormous LOST Geeks – I’m talking hours on forums and message boards, fifty-plus page long theories, screencap trailer-freezing, spoiler-whoring LOST Geeks – and we spent the cab ride talking about the series finale (rest in peace, dear losties). And then, Awesome Cab Driver (forthwith “ACD”) joins in the conversation. Not only was he a fellow LOST watcher, but a full-on LOST geek (he knew his episode titles, mythology minutiae, etc). When we finally finished arguing the merits and fallbacks of the finale and got around to the reason we were in New York, explaining that we are genre fiction book reviewers, ACD whips out his worn copy of Robert Jordan’s The Dragon Reborn. Coolest. Cabbie. EVER.

After our experience with ACD, we made our way to the historic Flatiron Building to meet up with the good folks at Tor Books- Dot Linn, Cassie Ammerman, Justin Golenbock, and Amber Hopkins. We got the grand tour of the floor, meeting editors (including the editor of the highly anticipated Passion Play), the awesome art department, the new head of Tor.com (for which we are also bloggers), and the pièce de résistance – we got to meet and chat with Tom Doherty himself, Founder of Tor (President and Publisher of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, publishing under the Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen imprints).

Afterwards, we got to grab a drink with a few of the publicists, and got to chatting about upcoming Tor/Forge titles, cover art, speculative fiction fandom, more LOST (of course), and other assorted topics of geeky goodness. Justin Golenbock got us even more excited for the release of Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings – apparently, it is the best thing Sanderson has ever written. We cannot wait. It was wonderful meeting these rad people face-to-face, and even cooler to learn that they are just as passionate about their books as we are about reading them.

Following our meeting with Tor, we met up with the lovely, exuberant Jackie Kessler, author of dark paranormal/Urban Fantasy series Hell on Earth, the superhero/villain series The Icarus Project co-authored with Caitlin Kitteredge, and highly anticipated Young Adult novel Hunger (the first book in the new Riders series). With Jackie in tow, we made our way to the Foundation Room to hobnob with folks at the DC Entertainment/Image Comics BEA Party (in conjunction with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund).

Needless to say, it was a night full of pure, unfiltered, unadulterated AWESOME.

**Note: I still say it was full of awesome, even after Jackie Kessler made us walk the long walk back to where she thought our hotel was – wrong address – and after a certain “earring incident” – in which my flats were run through by a rogue fishhook earring. We blame Jackie Kessler for it all.**

After a long night, Ana and I made our way back to our hotel room to rest up for the *official* start to our trip – BEA, Day 1. Well, actually, that’s not all – in addition to all the books we would pick up at BEA, Ana and I had the “genius” idea to bring with us a haul of books that we had been meaning to send to each other, i.e. we went into BEA ALREADY weighed down by thirty or so books per person. What seemed like a good, fast, cheap way to get our books to each other in person turned out to be one of the worst ideas we have ever had. Seriously. These were the books we had for each other, before even setting foot in the Javits Center:

Ay.

DAY ONE: The Myth of the BEA Shuttle, Press Passes, The Madness (and Block of Doom)

Thea: We began Wednesday a little tired after our marathon walking session from the night before (damn you, Jackie Kessler!), but otherwise well-rested and ready to see what this BEA thing was all about. We awoke early (to an alarm that seriously sounded like the Swan hatch’s 108 minute warning alarm from LOST – which caused me to awake in a cold sweat every morning), got our coffee and tried to figure out where the hell the shuttle bus to Javits was supposed to pick us up. After waiting an hour for the damn shuttle, we shared a cab with an author we met whilst waiting for the imaginary shuttle bus, got to Javits, and began the arduous task of registering/checking in. And then…it was all officially underway. With dear iPhone, itemized calendar and signing map in hand, we made our way around the floor – meeting up with some truly cool folks along the way (Kristen of Fantasy Cafe, Angie of Angieville, and Kenda of Lurve ala Mode).

And here’s exactly what we did:

- 9:30 AM: Met with Alice Morley of Little, Brown (and picked up a heap of books in the process, including but not limited to: Room, I am J, Bloodthirsty & The Candymakers)

- 10:30 AM: Felix Gilman signing of The Half-Made World, after meeting up with Kristen of Fantasy Cafe

- 10:35 AM: Dystopian Fiction Author Panel, with Ally Condie, MATCHED (Dutton); Adam Dunn, RIVERS OF GOLD (Bloomsbury); Lesley Hague, NOMANSLAND (Macmillan); Sigrid Nunez, SALVATION CITY (Riverhead) – this was actually a fascinating panel, in which interesting questions were posed. What makes a dystopia? Must a dystopian novel have a glimmer of hope in order to work (Ms. Condie, Hague and Nunez said yes, while Mr. Dunn thought otherwise). Interesting stuff, truly.

- 11:30 AM: Cherie Priest signing of Dreadnought – Cherie’s hair was awesome in true Steampunk style, and the ARC cover of Dreadnought is wicked cool in its Calamity Jane sort of feel. Bonus, Cherie’s publicist was the lovely Amber, whom we had met the night before!

- 12:00 PM: We attempted to get in line at the Harlequin Booth for YA Hour with Gena Showalter, Rachel Vincent and Maria Snyder…but were too late, and the line too long. Sadly, I missed out on meeting Maria and getting a copy of Inside Out (Dammit! *shakes fist dramatically*)

- 1:30 PM – 5:00PM, aka, THE BLOCK OF DOOM #1 After a brief (overpriced!) lunch of coffee and crisps and sitdown break, we made our way to two signings. While Ana picked up Maryrose Wood’s signing of The Poison Diaries and The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, I greedily scooped up Charlie Higson’s YA post-apocalyptic zombie novel, The Enemy (which I have started and am already loving)

- 2:30 PM: Waited in line for about an hour to meet Lauren Oliver and scooped up a copy of Delirium AND Before I Fall (sweeeeet!), meanwhile Ana got in the formidable line for…

- 3:00 PM: Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier, signing coveted ARCs for their anthology Zombies versus Unicorns. Naturally, Ana was team Unicorn (Holly Black) while I was firmly Team Zombie (Justine Larbalestier). To make this signing EVEN COOLER, Scott freakin’ Westerfeld was there (Ana had a moment and cried out, “Barking Spiders!” to which Scott Westerfeld laughed and said, “Great accent!”), and to the right of this signing line? None other than the beautiful, wicked-smart, killer unicorn novelist Diana Peterfreund. I believe my exact words at this gathering of authors was something along the lines of “OHMIGOD AWESOMENESS-HEAD-EXPLOSION!”

- 4:00 PM: We ran over to get in line for Diana Peterfreund’s signing of Ascendant, book 2 in her superb Killer Unicorn series. There was squee-ing.

Keep in mind, this list is just for the author signings and doesn’t cover the books that we picked up along the way at various publisher booths. After the Diana signing and doing a quick once over of the booths, we made our way – exhausted, weighed down by about 50 pounds of books apiece – back to the hotel to grab a beer (one of the best beers I have ever had, if I may say), a quick bite to eat, and then it was get ready for the Harper Collins Celebration of Book Bloggers event at the Algonquin Hotel.

To get to the venue, Ana and I decided that instead of walking, we’d take one of those rickshaw guys – I mean, why not? It had to be cheaper than a taxi, and even though it was a sweltering 90 degrees out, it was only a few blocks away. So, we climbed on this rickety bike with this sweaty dude at the helm and had something of a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride to the historic Algonquin Hotel. It was awesome…except when it came time to pay, the sweaty bike dude informed us that it would cost us $15. PER PERSON.

Our wallets lighter, and now wise to the ways of those wiley bike taxis, Ana and I made our way up to the event and had an awesome time with fellow bloggers:

Free wine, good people, fun times all around. Afterwards, we decided we weren’t quite tired enough to go back to the hotel, so we decided to grab a whiskey at the bar downstairs (it’s the Algonquin! We had to have a whiskey in true writerly fashion!)…and ended up making friends with Christian (the Romanian bartender), and fellow blogger Carey Anderson of The Tome Traveller’s Weblog, and her husband.

And, that brings Day 1 (and Day 0) to a close. Phew. Report of Day 2 will be up, from Ana’s perspective, shortly.

Howdy, howdy, howdy! It has been a long, exhausting, incredible week, but we are finally done with BEA and headed home. And on that note, here’s what we have planned for the week. (And because we are in full recovery mode, this post will be brief!)

Giveaway Winners:

…PSYCH! As we have quite a few winners to announce, we will be announcing them later today. So stick around.

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

On Monday, we will have our official Book Expo America (& Book Blogger Convention) Report – complete with our book hauls, bloggers and publishers we met, trends and upcoming titles, authors to watch, and other assorted tidbits.

Tuesday, we have an interview with Carlos Ruiz Zafon in conjunction with his UK Tour for The Prince of Mist – we’ll also be giving away a copy to a lucky reader.

On Wednesday, Thea reviews YA fantasy novel Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon…

And on Thursday and Friday, we have a John Green spotlight! Ana reviews Looking for Alaska on Thursday, and on Friday John Green himself stops by with a guest post on his inspirations and influences for Paper Towns. PLUS we will be giving away FIFTEEN copies of Paper Towns.

It’s a less busy week, but we hope you enjoy (and don’t mind too much while we catch our breath – we’ll be back full force with a BEA Appreciation week…so stick around)!

“On The Smugglers’ Radar” is a new feature for books that have caught our eye: books we heard of via other bloggers, directly from publishers, and/or from our regular incursions into the Amazon jungle. This is how the Smugglers’ Radar was born, and because there are far too many books that we want than we can possibly buy or review (what else is new?) we thought we could make it into a weekly feature – so YOU can tell us which books you have on your radar as well!

This week, we’re doing something a little bit different. In honor of Book Expo America, which we both attended this week, we’d like to share the books that both of us picked up at the show that we haven’t posted about before.

On Ana & Thea’s Radar: The BEA Edition

The author of I Love You, Beth Cooper returns with an ingenious contemporary satire set in an alternate universe populated by the aliens, mutants, and atomic monsters of B-movie legend.

It came to Earth . . . and now its spawn goes to high school.

Earth has survived repeated alien invasions, attacks by hordes of mutants, and the ravages of ancient beasts brought back to life. Now we’re in the blissful future…for most.

J!m, the son of the alien who nearly destroyed the planet, is a brooding, megacephalic rebel with a big forehead and exceptionally oily skin. Along with Johnny, a radioactive biker ape, and Jelly, a gelatinous mass passing as a fat kid, J!m navigates a particularly unpleasant adolescence in which he really is as alienated as he feels, the world might actu-ally be out to get him, and true love is complicated by mis-understanding and incompatible parts. As harmless school antics escalate into explosive events with tragic consequences, J!m makes a discovery that will alter the course of civilization, though it may help his dating life.

Replete with all the rock ‘n’ roll, hot-rod racing, and heavy petting of classic teen cinema—and packed with famous film-monster cameos—Go, Mutants! is fun strapped to an atomic rocket, and Doyle’s deadpan delivery and razor-sharp wit will have you laughing out loud before he even starts the ignition sequence.

The book sounds fantastic, we LOVE the cover, and it has an awesome website with killer nostalgia content. We will be reviewing this one very, very soon.

Ilse Zhalina is the daughter of one of Melnek’s more prominent merchants. She has lived most of her life surrounded by the trappings of wealth and privilege. Many would consider hers a happy lot; but there are dark secrets, especially in the best of families. Ilse has learned that the way for a young woman of her beauty and social station to survive is to be passive and silent.

When Ilse finally meets the older man she is to marry, she realizes that he is far crueler and more deadly than her father could ever be. Ilse chooses to run. This choice will change her life forever.

And it will lead her to Raul Kosenmark, master of one of the land’s most notorious pleasure houses…who is, as Ilse learns, a puppet master of a different sort altogether. Ilse discovers a world where every pleasure has a price and where there are levels of magic and intrigue she once thought unimaginable. She also finds the other half of her heart.

Lush fantasy. Wild magic. Intrigue, seduction, and treachery, with a kingdom at stake. Passion Play is the journey of a woman who must master her passions in order to win all that she desires.

This book (questionable title aside) has everything going for it – an awesome cover, a huge push from Tor, not to mention that the editor is the same wonderful lady that discovered Jacqueline Carey. Um…SOLD.

John Smith seems like an ordinary teenager, living an ordinary life in Paradise,
Ohio.

But John is not ordinary. He’s one of nine aliens from the planet Lorien. John’s in danger and he’s always on the run, but this time he has more at stake than ever before—his girlfriend, Sarah, the only person he’s ever allowed to get close to him, is also at risk.

The evil beings who are hunting him have killed Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya. John Smith is Number Four. And he is next.

As John struggles to outrun his past, discover his future, and live a normal life on Earth, he must choose between the legacy he was destined for and the love he never thought he would have.

This is another book whose buzz has preceded its release, and just like other BEA darling Justin Cronin with The Passage, I Am Number Four has already been optioned (and casted) for film. Aaaaand you can read more about it (including an excerpt) on the book’s official site, HERE.

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one . . . until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic.

To be honest, when we first heard the synopsis, we weren’t super thrilled. BUT, after hearing the lovely, intelligent, funny Ally Condie talk about her book (on both the Dystopian and YA Buzz panels), we couldn’t be more thrilled to read this book.

Four children have been chosen to compete in a national competition to find the tastiest confection in the country. Who will invent a candy more delicious than the Oozing Crunchorama or the Neon Lightning Chew? Logan, the Candymaker’s son, who can detect the color of chocolate by touch alone? Miles, the boy who is allergic to merry-go-rounds and the color pink? Daisy, the cheerful girl who can lift a fifty-pound lump of taffy like it’s a feather? Or Philip, the suit-and-tie wearing boy who’s always scribbling in a secret notebook? This sweet, charming, and cleverly crafted story, told from each contestant’s perspective, is filled with mystery, friendship, and juicy revelations.

Awesome Willy Wonka-style goodness. Hell yes. (Plus, they were giving away candy at the Little, Brown booth. Genius.)

In a dangerous world, Deep Salt strikes terror into the heart of everyone. Hari lives in Blood Burrow, deep in the ruined city of Belong, where he survives by courage and savagery. He is scarred from fighting, he is dangerous and cruel, but he has a secret gift: he can speak with animals. When his father, Tarl, is taken as a slave and sent to the mine known as Deep Salt, from where no worker ever returns, Hari vows to save him. Pearl is from the ruling families, known as Company, which has conquered and enslaved Hari’s people. Her destiny involves marriage that will unite her family with that of the powerful and ambitious Ottmar. It soon becomes clear that the survival of their people depends entirely upon the success of Pearl and Hari’s mission.

This book, originally published in New Zealand, has already won a heap of awesome awards, earned various starred reviews, and is otherwise made of awesome. Cannot wait to finally dig into this one!

From the author of the Edgar Award–winning The Wessex Papers comes a hilariously offbeat novel about Henry “Hen” Birnbaum, a teenage boy who dreams of becoming a rock star despite a minor setback, namely: his girlfriend just dumped him and kicked him out of their band. Now his social life consists of night after night of VH1 marathons with his best friend and next-door neighbor, the neurotic Emma Wood.

Then there’s the matter of Sarah, his sister, who mysteriously disappeared for a whole year and just as mysteriously returned. As the story unfolds, the reasons for her disappearance seem more unbelievable than Henry ever could have imagined. Maybe rock god status isn’t too farfetched for Henry. After all, crazier things have happened.

We were standing in line for another book and saw this one in the table next to where we were and we looked at the line and the book looked really cool so we decided to get it. This is one of those last minute decisions that we hope will pay off.

Dylan Flack never wanted to leave New York City for Florida, but his mother’s death changed everything. Drifting further away from his father and losing sight of his future. Dylan stumbles through a hot summer as a caddy. But a sighting of the Blessed Virgin Mary brings hundreds of worshippers to town, including the beautiful and mysterious Angela, who leads Dylan to the life-changing realization that faith requires wanting something badly enough to take a risk.

When we were perusing the list of signings prior to BEA, we saw this one and wrote it down as an “Ana Book” and we got in line to get this one as well.

Riley has crossed the bridge into the afterlife—a place called Here, where time is always Now. She has picked up life where she left off when she was alive, living with her parents and dog in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. When she’s summoned before The Council, she learns that the afterlife isn’t just an eternity of leisure. She’s been assigned a job, Soul Catcher, and a teacher, Bodhi, a possibly cute, seemingly nerdy boy who’s definitely hiding something. They return to earth together for Riley’s first assignment, a Radiant Boy who’s been haunting a castle in England for centuries. Many Soul Catchers have tried to get him to cross the bridge and failed. But all of that was before he met Riley . . .

We didn’t know about this book before BEA but we were walking past the Macmillan’s booth and saw Alyson Noel signing Radiance which is the first in a Immortals’ spin-off series. It looks pretty sweet so we got it!

Kerry thinks life has finally begun when she is noticed by the three coolest girls in the school. For once she’s in on the jokes and sitting at the right table, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to be part of their clique.

But how much will it take? And after her life with the popular crows starts to feel as cruel as death, what will she decide to do about it?

Exhilarating, nail-bitting suspense is crossed with a thought-provoking examination of peer pressure in Richard Peck’s return to his contemporary teen – and ghost-story roots – a master author’s smart, stylish, and fun take on paranormal.

First, there was the cover – the girls look at first, the usual Trio of Popular Girls until you look really closely and then they just look really scary, dead perhaps? Then there was the fact that this was written by a very prolific YA author, who is now in his 70s. We can’t wait to see how this goes.

Awkward and allergic to the sun, sixteen-year-old Finbar Frame is the sensitive guy who never gets the girl. But when he notices that all the female students at his new school are obsessed with the vampire book Bloodthirsty, Finbar decides to exploit his lack of pigmentation and become a vampire. Or at least fake it…to get a date.

This one was part of a swag bag from Little,Brown and what can we say? The quote on the cover makes us want to read it RIGHT NOW: “Some vampires are good. Some are evil. Some are totally faking it to get girls”. SOLD.

Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden talismans are so fine that some even call her “witch-blade”: a dangerous nickname in a country where witches are hunted and burned in the square.

For Kate and her village have fallen on hard times. Kate’s father has died, leaving her alone in the world. And a mysterious fog now covers the countryside, ruining crops and spreading fear of hunger and sickness. The townspeople are looking for someone to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate.

Enter Linay, a stranger with a proposition: In exchange for her shadow, he’ll give Kate the means to escape the angry town, and what’s more, he’ll grant her heart’s wish. It’s a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a family, a place to belong. But Kate soon realizes she can’t live shadowless forever — and that Linay’s designs are darker than she ever dreamed.

Now, this one is special. Another one we didn’t hear anything about before the convention but then we say the author at the YA Editors Buzz Panel and OH MY GOD. Not only does the author sounds like totally awesome (one of her favorite authors is Shannon Hale, for example) but the excerpt she read was very good and enticing. Then the way she talked about the book and writing it made us want to get in line at her signing later that day. THEN, we saw the cover – and we are completely in love with it. Quite possibly, this is the “surprise” book and the one we most want to read.

And that’s it from us! What books do you have on your radar?

Hello there!

As you probably know by now, we are getting ready to leave for NY on Tuesday in order to attend Book Expo America and The Book Blogger Convention.

We are super-ultra-excited about everything: about the events we are going to attend, the (FREE!) books we are going to get and the people we are going to meet. It is going to be AWESOME and we simply can’t wait.

Above all, we can’t wait to see EACH OTHER. I case you didn’t know, we only ever met ONCE in these 4 years we’ve known each other. The first and only time we did, this is what happened:

So, who knows what is going to happen this time?

This is also the first time ever since we started the blog that both of us will be away at the same time – usually when one of us goes on holidays, the other one is around to do stuff. But FEAR NOT. We not only have a few things lined up already but we will also be taking our laptops to post our adventures on the go!

For now, this is what we have planned –

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

On Monday, Ana posts two reviews: Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep and Ten Things I Love About You By Julia Quinn

On Tuesday, Grace Coopersmith, AKA Marta Acosta, talks about writing her new novel Nancy’s Theory of Style and we will giveaway one copy of the book.

On Wednesday, our monthly column, A Dude Reads PNR will be posted, with Harry’s review of Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil by Barbara Monajem

On Thursday, our Guest Daree of the month, Erika of Jawas Read Too, posts her review of The Girl with Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron

Then, finally on Friday….we have nothing planned for Friday. Which is actually TERRIFYING (Ana totally has the shakes right now) not to have anything planned but also a bit..liberating as well. We will think of something though!

EDIT: Thea wasn’t able to take the stress of not having something planned, so on Friday she will be reviewing Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress Hero by Perry Moore. *NINJA VANISH*

We’ve got our suitcases packed (with about 30 books each to exchange with the other) and our week planned to the last, minimalistic detail (you can ask us what we will be doing on Thursday at 2:46pm and we would be able to tell you). If you are going to attend, and see us walking around (possibly sequeeing over meeting a favourite author or blogger) don’t be shy, come and say hi!

It is goodbye for now but we remain….

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers