Books at Comic-Con

Last weekend I attended Comic-Con and since that's like a long time ago now, I debated whether or not to write anything about it, but hey why not?

This was my fourth Con, and I love it every year though this year I thought they were mean and too strict and don't even get me started about their new pre-registration policy, it was terrible. Even so, I manage to be amazed that there's never too much violence on site, as EVERYONE is exhausted and has waited in line, etc. and probably skipped eating and emotions are high and you have no personal space, and you might end up bitterly disappointed, etc. I mean I always feel like slugging a few people over the course of the weekend.

But it's also really lovely because people are super easy to talk to and where else can you geek out over things like books and TV shows? I mean for me it's FAB because I can have an at length conversation with people about The Vampire Diaries that I just met two minutes prior, or discuss amazing YA books with book bloggers I had no idea existed previously. (You know book blogging is a THING when you go to an event and meet bloggers you don't know!)

Anyway there are always a ton of genre panels and I usually enjoy making it to a few of them. And once again I made it to a few this year but they were pretty underwhelming sadly. Book panels are always hard because they depend so much on whether or not the authors have interesting things to say and if the moderator is dynamic with really great questions.

Even so I enjoyed the panel on writing the apocalypse and hope to eventually read all the books by the authors there. I also enjoyed the various YA panels. One thing an attendee noted that I also thought was interesting is that on the YA panel one day there were all women panelists and on a middle grade panel following it nearly all men. Why would this be? It was interesting because I had been chatting with my sister about my niece who is ten years old and what she likes to read. She loves fantasy and she loves to read really big books, otherwise known as chunksters. But she also loves to read books with a girl main character. (who can blame her? not me) The problem is there just aren't very many books like that or if there are they are hard to find. I got some good recommendations on Twitter the other day, but I ALWAYS welcome more.

There were no real answers given to why female authors might dominate YA and male authors middle grade fantasy. I'm not going to pretend to know about this stuff, but it IS interesting to think about. I certainly welcome your thoughts!

I did learn a few other things watching these panels. Kiersten White is super bubbly and awesome to have on any panel. Apparently Laini Taylor's new book Daughter of Smoke and Bone is AMAZING. Taherah Mafi is completely gorg. Gene Luen Yang is funny. I need to read Anya's Ghost.

And I got some books, too! Yay! But overall I enjoyed the TV aspect of the Con a lot more this year...don't kill me!