YALC 2019 Haul

It’s that time of year again bookish friends!

The last weekend in July is the time all nerd and bibliophile’s descend on London because it’s London Film and Comic Con and the Young Adult Literature Convention aka LFCC and YALC!

This was my third year in a row attending YALC. I’ll admit, the vibe felt different this year. I’m not 100% sure what it was but it just didn’t feel the same. However, I’m going to leave that for another post for later in the week.

YALC is a long and tiring weekend no matter how many days you go for and the heat only made it more so. But it was still good to spend time with my fellow bibliophile’s and meet some amazing authors!

So, onto my haul…

YALC & LFCC Haul:

Firstly my samplers. Usually I just pick up samplers randomly to see what I can find and if there’s anything I’d like, but I didn’t see that many samplers this year. Last year there were loads.

I instantly went for the Havenfall sampler from Bloomsbury. I enjoyed Sara’s Everless duology so obviously I’m going to be checking out what she’s doing next. I’m so intrigued by The Evil Queen so when I saw the sampler I had to pick it up to see if the first few chapters interest me any further. I hadn’t actually heard of Monstrous Heart but I really like the cover so I thought I’d take a look. There seems to be a lot of pirate/ocean settings appearing in YA at the moment.

Now for my books. I tried to make a list of the books I wanted prior to going to make sure I didn’t over-buy like I did at my first YALC. It was a little difficult to do since I wasn’t 100% sure what books were going to be there, but I did have Seafire, Sherwood and The Beholder on my list and Olivia Twist has been on my TBR for a while so I was definitely getting those.

I’m going to try The Light Between Worlds. I’m not 100% sure of it but I bought it on Sunday when prices were being reduced so I thought it wouldn’t hurt. I’m slightly intrigued by Moondust. I read a little bit before I bought it, but it’s not like I have a huge expectation for it so we’ll see.

There were a couple of books I wanted that I never saw. I’ve also noticed a lot of books in haul pictures on Twitter that I never even saw. Clearly a lot of books go on the first day.

Proof time. There were a lot of raffles this year and I didn’t win any. Chicken House had a deal on Sunday, buy two books get one free and The Loop was included in that deal. I had a ticket for the raffle on the Saturday and didn’t win so I took the opportunity on Sunday when I bought Moondust and The Light Between Worlds.

I acquired Reverie on Saturday thanks to Fairyloot. They placed toadstools with coloured tops around YALC and if you found them you got the corresponding proof. I found mine at the Waterstones stand on one of the bookshelves.

Now we’ve got the Funko pops! I had a good weekend for pins and Funko pops. Fawkes is a summer con exclusive limited edition and it’s fuzzy! I love it! Scooby-Doo I bought on Sunday and it was only £10 I was so shocked. My Mum surprised me with Pongo and Purdita and I couldn’t be happier with them! They’re so cute!

Everyone knows how much I love Alwyn Hamilton. I’ve practically stalked her three YALCs in a row now. Her new series The Notorious Virtues was announced last week and on Saturday we got an exclusive Invitation! Which I obviously got signed.

I also got some fun stuff from LFCC. My pokemon obsession has come back in full force over the last year and I couldn’t not get this Pikachu fridge magnet when I saw it. It was calling me! Plus, I found this awesome Jurassic Park bookmark from Abiyx Creations.

A good weekend for pops and pins. I always end up with some Disney pins from LFCC and I can no longer fit all my pins on one board so I once again need to go pin board shopping. There’s a large Disney pin stall that I got the Bambi pin and the three kittens from the Aristocats pin. It’s the third year I’ve got pins from them but I do not know the name of the stall. I also don’t know where Marie was from.

My two bookish pins, the locket from Harry Potter and Shades of Magic pin are both from Illumicrate and Fable and Black. Now, I’m not crazy about Fox and the Hound, but this pin was too cute to not get and the Spirit pin! I’ve loved this movie since I was a child and I’ve never seen merch for it. Both are from Sophie Eyes Illustration.

It was a good weekend. As I said I will be doing another YALC related post later in the week and it will likely not be as positive, but I didn’t want to drag down this post with it and make it seem like I had a horrible weekend because I didn’t. It was definitely a better weekend for me in regards to LFCC over YALC. But I’ll still probably go again next year and hopefully have better luck.