Why I won’t be attending YALC this year

I’ve attended YALC for the past three years and I thought I’d be attending this year, but I’ve made the decision to give it a miss. I’ve been conflicted about this because I will have extreme FOMO, and I’ve made so many great friends in the bookish community who I’d love to catch up with over the YALC weekend. I’ve had some great times at previous YALCs, finally meeting twitter friends and making new friends over the weekend.

If you’re interested in my previous YALC posts, here they are:

YALC 2016: Day 1!

YALC 2017: The Wrap-Up

YALC, ARCs, and other Acronyms

 

1. Cost

I mentioned this as one of my YALC hang-ups last year – it’s not cheap attending YALC. The biggest cost for me would be hotels (over £100 a night) and once you’ve added in train tickets and the ticket to the event itself, I’d be looking at over £500 for a weekend. I think I’d be happy to pay this if I didn’t have other problems with YALC, but I do (and I will discuss them below). 

It’s important to also factor in the cost of food and eating out (it’s lovely to have a meal after a long day at the convention, but it can still be expensive or awkward on a tight budget) and the fact that I cannot control myself when it comes to buying books. I bought a few books on recommendation of friends, and also got a few books pre-release (last year it was Loneliest Girl by Lauren James). The atmosphere of YALC can make it very difficult to stop yourself from buying books, and some events will have you running to Waterstones as soon as the event has finished to pick up the entire backlist of this inspiring author you’ve just discovered.

I’m not entirely sure what could be done about reducing the cost of YALC – potentially moving from a central London location, not being part of London Film and Comic Con… I’m not sure there’s an easy answer.

For me, I’ll hopefully be moving back to London at the end of this year and so next year’s YALC will be cheaper for me to attend. The money saved from not going to YALC I’m sure will come in handy too. 

2. Accessibility/comfort

From my experiences last year, YALC needs to be a lot more clued up around making the event accessible. My main concern is around proof drops being announced on Twitter and expecting attendees to run for ARCs, but there are also issues around long queues for authors and a lack of comfortable seating.

The seats last year for the panel events really hurt my back, and so I went to very few panel events. There’s a general lack of seating (and it’s even worse at LFCC) around the floor, and so I spent a lot of time sitting on a very hard floor, making my back and legs hurt. I’d love there to be more comfy chairs for people to sit around and get to know each other better.

3. ARCs

This is a big one for me – I’ve written previously about how the distribution of proofs and ARCs at YALC can be ableist, anxiety-inducing and I actually think they can ruin the spirit of YALC. Pitting bloggers against one another ruins the community spirit. Last year, I experienced pushing, shoving, long queues for proofs, and embarrassing challenges. The saddest part for me is that I had some bad first impressions of new bloggers, especially those who fought for (sometimes multiple copies of) proofs just to trade them away on Twitter days later.

So many publishers announce their giveaways on Twitter and often during popular panels which leads bloggers to have to decide between seeing their favourite authors and possibly getting their hands on a favourite new book. I shouldn’t have to carry around my phone all weekend, using up my data plan and running low on battery, just to be able to take part in YALC. 

On the ARCs themselves – I am overwhelmed with the number of books on my TBR pile, and some of the ARCs I got from YALC last year I didn’t end up reading because they were inundated with bad reviews. There have been some real gems that I’ve loved, but I don’t think it’s a particularly great idea this year for me to supplement my book shelves with another stack of books just before the big move (and also I think my bookshelves may actually collapse).

4. Attendees

At this moment in time, 75% of authors attending have been announced – and honestly, I have met and loved most of the list. It’s not a bad thing to have authors who have previously attended on the list, but no-one has been announced who I just have to go and meet because this will be my only opportunity. A lot of UKYA authors will be touring the UK with their future books, and there is plenty of opportunity to meet them at other times – and you’ll probably get to spend a little more time talking to them. 

I’m hoping to discuss this more in a later blog post, but I haven’t been impressed with the diversity of authors announced so far – for example, there are only a handful of BAME authors attending. I don’t want to comment on this fully now until the entire author list has been announced and the timetable has been confirmed. I’m also hoping to address soon the fact I’d love to see YALC better facilitated to introduce bloggers and inspire bloggers and vloggers to collaborate and create content, rather than the focus being on meeting authors, but again, I will address that once the full programme has been released.

5. Exploitative/uncomfortable atmosphere

I wasn’t sure whether to mention this, but LFCC is built on fans paying good money to buy a signed photograph and talk to their favourite star (quite often, but not always, a woman they’ve seen scantily clad on TV). 

It’s a majority male (but not exclusively male) event, with many popular fandoms represented (Doctor Who, Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic Universe, etc.). Cosplay for women (from a quick Google Image search) is often typified as tight-fitting with a heavy focus on boobs – that’s not to say that all women who cosplay dress that way, but that cosplay for women is almost expected to be overtly sexy, in a way that men’s cosplay just isn’t. 

Contrast this with the mainly young female audience of YALC.

I (and many other YALC attendees) have ventured down onto the lower floors of LFCC to see the stars of TV and Film, to look at the Funko Pops and to purchase a few choice items from the well-stocked market stalls on offer. I’ve never felt threatened or uncomfortable, but it’s easy to see why someone could. 

There are also sometimes awkward interactions between publishers and bloggers and this is mostly around ARCs and proofs and bloggers desperately wanting to get their hands on them. This is exonerated when publishers make bloggers perform silly challenges like dancing, lying on the floor, taking part in a game, etc. 

 

 

If you’re attending YALC this year, please don’t worry about my reasons for not attending – it is a great event where the whole YA community comes together for the weekend and I’ve made so many friends attending YALC in the past. 

Please let me know what you think, either in the comments or over on Twitter @annalisebooks x

Review: You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour

You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publication date: 7th June 2016

Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really?

Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed.

That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.

When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other — and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.

Told in alternating points of view by Nina LaCour, the award-winning author of Hold Still and The Disenchantments, and David Levithan, the best-selling author of Every Day and co-author of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn) and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green), You Know Me Well is a deeply honest story about navigating the joys and heartaches of first love, one truth at a time.

Disclaimer: Received from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t really know where to start with this review, so here goes…

You Know Me Well is a story told over the background of Pride Week, told in the alternating views of Kate and Mark. Kate and Mark happen to have sat next to each other in calculus for an entire year, until one night, at Pride, when Mark loses his inhibitions and dances in his underwear on a bar, and Kate spots him, while she hides from the girl she can’t stop thinking about – but has never met.

The characters, especially Kate and Mark, are realistic, and both dealing with their own issues. Mark, in love with his best friend Ryan, deals with his unrequited love and Ryan’s new boyfriend, the older, tattooed Taylor. Kate, enamoured with her best friend’s cousin Violet, shies away from the girl she loves, despite having never met. When Kate and Mark run away from their problems to a party, they are photographer and Kate’s artwork is thrust into the limelight.

I loved the other themes in the book – the juxtaposition of Ryan, still closeted, and Mark, openly gay, proud and accepted was one – and Kate’s worries about going to university, despite already having accepted a place, were reminiscent of the wonderful Radio Silence by Alice Oseman.

There are a lot of pop culture references throughout the book, but I liked the musical references – they didn’t feel dated, and they added to the atmosphere of the book.

At first, this book reminded me a lot of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, also by David Levithan, and both books take place over a short period of time. There’s perhaps a little insta-friendship between Kate and Mark, but I think we all find friends we feel like we’ve known for years.

A realistic, relatable tale of friendship, love and embracing not only both, but accepting yourself in the process.

I’m also looking forward to seeing both authors at YALC, where there’ll be a You Know Me Well poetry slam!

View all my GoodReads reviews

Have you read You Know Me Well? Are you planning to? Let me know by commenting below or tweeting me at @annalisebooks!

Annalise x

Review: Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield

Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Release Date: June 30th 2016

My review for Lisa’s debut novel, Seed, can be found here.

Disclaimer: Review copy received in exchange for an honest review.

Paper Butterflies is the story of June, over a period of about 12 years. The story is split between ‘Before’ and ‘After’, with these two time streams intertwining as the story progresses. (I genuinely loved this format – it’s engrossing and clever.)

June’s mother died when she was six, and quickly her stepmother and stepsister moved in. Kathleen, her new stepmother, is the epitome of evil. She force-feeds June, making her overweight, she forces her to vomit and pee herself at school, and she’s an all-round horrible woman. To make matters worse, she plays June’s dad like a fiddle, and June has no-one to turn to – she’s also being horribly bullied at school.

Then June meets Blister (real name: Jacob), and his family. Mr and Mrs Wicks have two biological children (Jacob and Maggie) and five adoptive children, all of whom they teach at home. June has a special bond with Blister’s younger brother, Tom, who has cystic fibrosis.

Paper Butterflies, I think, deals with the difficult topic of child abuse in a good way, although some of the things that happen during the course of the novel are a little unbelievable or illogical (not particularly the abuse June suffers at the hands of Kathleen, but the way June and the other characters act or what happens to her later on in the book).

As the book covers such a long time frame, it doesn’t actually go into too much depth. Themes that start at the beginning of the story (e.g. bullying at school) seem to disappear later on, despite the fact June should still be attending school. Whilst we do have parental figures in this book , they’re pretty relaxed about where June is most of the time (‘cause it’d make a pretty boring book if she was locked up the whole time!). YA has its flaws – and I think one of them has to be that YA novels don’t tend to be long enough to really delve right into the heart of an issue. This means great superficial romances (they’re not long enough for fighting and break-ups), but with some, more serious books, such as this one, I wish they were a little longer, a little more in depth.

I didn’t see the twists and turns coming (in fact, I was completely thrown off course), and I did like the ending, except it suffers massively from what i’m going to call from now on THE GHOST ENDING. Ambiguous endings sometimes (very rarely) work well – they leave you thinking about the issue at hand whilst feeling like the story has come to an end. And then we have the Ghost Ending. This is where the writing just kind of fades away, and you realise there’s not really been a huge conclusion. And you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen next. And you’re never going to find out. I like big, clear endings. With an epilogue, if possible. I like my endings spelt out in big letters – usually HAPPILY EVER AFTER, if we’re talking about YA romance. I don’t like things being left to the imagination, especially when an ending could go any which way and where.

Another thing I dislike in YA novels is the compulsory romance – but I don’t think the romance in this novel felt forced, and the relationship had its flaws. It wasn’t your typical YA insta-love, which is always a bonus.
One thing you should probably think about before diving into this novel is whether you want to read a novel about child abuse. This isn’t your typical YA romance that ends happily ever after (not a bad thing!), it’s a serious novel with a serious message. There’s no sexual abuse of any kind featured in the novel, but there are some pretty haunting scenes, so I’d read this book with that in mind.

Overall, I think this book features an important topic, but it falls into the pitfalls of YA – namely the Ghost Ending and a lack of depth. Other than that, the characters are interesting (they’re diverse, and I loved the inclusion of Tom’s disability), and the story is one of surprises and intrigue. I’m going to have to give this book 3 stars (one star knocked off for the ambiguous ending, and another for the overall lack of depth and realism), but it’s definitely well-worth a read if you’ve enjoyed Seed.

View all my reviews

Annalise x