YALC 2019 | Access is Important!

Last year I did a general review for YALC which included looking at the best things about YALC 2018, some problematic panels, and then a whole rant about the awful accessibility. I returned this year for YALC 2019 and although I am pleased to report that there have definitely been some improvements, there are still access issues for disabled attendees and some downright awful behavior towards disabled attendees from able-bodied ones.

Rather than doing one huge post for YALC 2019, I decided to split them up into my 2019 haul and this accessibility post to allow for more space for each thing. Accessibility is quite often an individualized experience, although some things are common across different disabled people, so I would encourage you to check out other attendees posts. So far, I’ve only seen a great one from Jenn but if you know of any others please free to point me in their direction so I can include them here as well!

August TBR | First-time NEWTs

Like my O.W.Ls earlier in April, I hadn’t intended on studying for the N.E.W.Ts, mostly because my dissertation is due in early September and I didn’t think I would have time! Fiction reading is giving me a nice break from reading academic books all-day though and there are a few books I’d love to read before Dublin 2019 (World Con) so a structured TBR would definitely be helpful for keeping me on track.

The career that I chose back in April was ‘Magizoologist’ as it is the career I would most love to do in the Potterverse. I passed all of the O.W.Ls I needed to progress onto the N.E.W.Ts for the Magizoologist career so I’m ready to sit my N.E.W.Ts. I need to achieve an O in Magical Creatures, an E in Charms, and an E in Herbology. For each N.E.W.T, I then need to pass the prompt for each grade so I will need to read 3 books for Magical Creatures, 2 for Charms and 2 for Herbology. In total, I will need to read 7 books this month in order to pass my N.E.W.Ts and become a Magizoologist ❤

YALC 2019 | Book Haul

Hey friends, it’s been a while!

I’ve been absent for pretty much the entire month for various reasons which I’ll go into another time, in another post. The weekend just gone through was YALC weekend, one of my favourite times of the year, and I had an amazing time. I’ll be doing a follow-up post talking about the actual event itself like I did last year for YALC 2018, but for now, I wanted to start with something joyous – my YALC 2019 book haul!

This year I got a little bit wild with my book acquisitions despite promising my partner I wouldn’t be getting many books due to financial constraints. However, I was lucky enough to get a good amount of books via the wonderful book swap area as well as win a few in the giveaways run by the publishers. That coupled with the incredible deals (I mean, could you really turn down a 3 for £5 deal?!) meant that in total I acquired 21 books at YALC this year (and still came in under budget)!!! I got about 3-6 books a day which then got taken back to our hotel room so I didn’t realize just how many books I had until I had to pack them all up to transport home. Thankfully my lovely partner was able to help me carry them home and I spent a good few hours yesterday rearranging my bookshelves to make them all fit.

Here’s a look at the books I got from YALC 2019 ❤

YALC 2019 | Reading List

Last year was my first ever YALC, Young Adult Lit Con, and I was hopelessly under-prepared for it. I had no idea what to expect, hadn’t really prepared for it other than picking potential panels to go to, and hadn’t read many books by authors who were attending. Whilst it was great because I got to discover lots of new-to-me authors through hearing them speak on panels, I felt that creating a reading list in advance of YALC 2019 would be a great way to prepare for this year so that I can scope out any potential authors I might want to meet!

Before we talk about YALC 2019, we need to talk about my books from YALC 2018 because I am an awful book monster who was fortunate enough to get some wonderful books through YALC via gifts from friends and giveaways but then never got round to reading them. I can’t believe that I have had some of these books for almost a year now, so it’s good that YALC is coming up again soon as it will force me to catch up with them (at least, that’s the plan…).

So far, I’ve read The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James, who attended YALC last year and will be back again this year, and these are the books I still have to read:

YALC 2019

Part of the reason that I didn’t have to do any prep reading for YALC 2018 is that there were already a fair amount of authors going whose books I had already read such as Akemi Dawn Bowman, Sara Holland, Dhonielle Clayton, Tomi Adeyemi, and Becky Chambers. This year though, a lot of the authors going are ones whose books I haven’t read so I feel like I have quite a lot of catching up to do so that I can enjoy YALC 2019 to the fullest.

As I already have quite a lot of books to catch up with from last year and given how many new-to-me authors there are this year, I’ve divided my reading list up into priority reads and optional reads as I don’t think I could get through 16 books in the next month and a half!

Priority reads:

Optional reads:

 

Given my reading speed and the fact that I’ve got a lot of uni work to do over the summer, it’s unlikely that I will be able to read even half of the books on this list, but it’s good to be optimistic! There are a lot more authors at YALC than the books that I’ve included here, but these ones are the books that piqued my interest the most. You can check out what authors will be attending YALC on the website if you want to join in with YALC reads too.

Let me know if you’re coming to YALC 2019 as well, and tell me which books you’re most looking forward to reading/have read.

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Wrap Up | May 2019 + the unintended hiatus

Hey friends!

Some of you may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve been absent for pretty much the entirety of May. I had planned to take a little step back from blogging anyway as this summer is going to be really busy for me on my Master’s degree, but then I managed to catch/develop gastroenteritis – a nasty contagious stomach bug – which completely knocked me out for almost 2 weeks. Then I had to return to work, start planning my long summer of uni work, and celebrate my partner’s birthday on Sunday. Before I knew it, I found myself at the end of May? I feel like I blinked and missed it.

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about my concerns around being able to manage book blogging alongside starting my PhD in September (not to mention squeezing it in amongst all my Master’s work this summer) and I’m still not sure what the outcome of my ponderings will be. It’s definitely something I’m planning on writing a discussion post about so that I can talk about it more in-depth and speak to other book bloggers who manage their blog alongside busy lives. What I do know though, from having my unintended break this month, is that I feel a lot less happy when I’m not blogging and I felt so isolated from my book blog friends. Writing this post is already beginning to lift my low mood but I’m also anxious about how much work I have to do. Anyway, that’s not a decision to be made right now – instead, I want to share with you all what I did manage to get up to during Moody May ❤