Fierce Reads Comes to Provo

On Tuesday, the amazing Provo Library hosted Anna Banks (Of Poseidon), Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone), Jennifer Bosworth (Struck), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14), and Marissa Meyer (Cinder) as part of the Fierce Reads Tour.

Emily organized a little blogger get together with the authors before the signing, and she and Suey have some fun pictures on their blogs. In fact Emily is giving away all five books, so click on her name to go to her giveaway post.

I confess I hadn't heard of any of these authors/books except for Marissa Meyer's Cinder, but had such a good time! Three things stuck out to me:

• all five of those ladies were really funny. Emmy Laybourne used to act, and she even showed us some of the characters she played. I wish someone had gotten a video of it.
• it takes a lot of work to write a book. Or, it takes a lot of work to rewrite a book. Sometimes I think all you need is a good idea, but that's just the beginning.
• they all agreed that YA books can encompass any topic/genre/etc. so they have a lot of freedom in their writing. There are no YA romance, or sci-fi, or fantasy distinctions like there are with adult fiction. They can use a lot of different elements in one book.

We got to watch the trailers for each of the books, and then the authors talked about them a bit. And I went from having five books I'd basically never heard of to having five books I'd really like to read. Even the ones that are from genres I don't usually like!


Here are the trailers for the ones I'm most excited for: