Fresh New Voice of YA- Anna and the French Kiss Excerpt Vlog

Today, I'm reading from Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Hope you all enjoy!



Anna and the French Kiss is out in stores now!

I figure I might as well do my recap here of the Stephanie Perkins event I went to in Salisbury, NC this past weekend. I woke up early, drove down, had Wendy's for lunch, then went to the bookstore. For parking, I found a spot right around the corner, but I had to parallel park, which is hard for me to do. It took me like 10 back-and-forths, but I got in without hitting either car and being close to the curb. I totally pwned that parallel parking spot.

Anyway, I got out and walked to the store. I had no idea where the event was going to be held. I didn't think it'd be a problem, but it turned out this indie store had several floors. So I wandered on the main floor since I arrived early, looking around for where Stephanie would be. I came to the end of the aisle and, lo and behold, there was a cat.

Sorry for the bad picture, but I snapped it quickly cuz I felt weird taking a picture of a cat. Anyway, obviously I pet it for a while and talked to it. It reminded me so much of my cat Hershey at home, which made me miss him even though I'd just seen him that morning.

After that, I wandered off, went downstairs, and there was the children's section where the signing would be held. I browsed around and enjoyed looking at all the books. Once I'd finished though, I had nothing to do, so I started reading Anna while I waited for Stephanie to show up.

Stephanie was a tad late because she'd missed her exit by 15 miles due to getting distracted by the audio book she was listening to. Her cute husband was also accompanying her (also, I found out Carrie Ryan wanted to come but for some reason, she couldn't; I would have died if she came- I've been wanting to meet her for so long!). Stephanie said hi to everyone, chatted a bit about the book, did a QnA (more on that later), read the first chapter, then signed books.

I got in line and there was this girl behind me who looked familiar who had been snapping pictures with a big camera throughout the signing. But I wasn't entirely sure who she was, so I didn't want to introduce myself and find out that it's not actually the person I thought it was. Too embarrassing. I got up to Stephanie and introduced myself and as soon as I did, she got up and hugged me which I thought was so sweet. She sat back down and started to sign my book and I mentioned how I felt bad not buying a copy especially after hearing the woman in front of me go "I read this for free, but I'm buying three copies to give to my daughters/nieces/gay nephews and/or sons/friends of my children/grandchildren (I wasn't paying enough attention to see who she'd gotten them for)." Stephanie said it was okay and that she understood. We also talked about when I got the book and tweeted about it and all that.

Then, of course, we got the picture. I asked the girl behind me if she'd mind taking a picture (she had ended up taking the picture for the woman in front of me) since she was what I called "the Camera Lady of the day". She took two pictures in case one was bad or didn't take or whatever. Here's the fruits of her labor:

I thanked Stephanie and the Camera Lady, grabbed my book, said goodbye, and headed out, though I did stop to pet the cat some more. I did want to take a better picture but the bookstore employees were looking at me with suspicious eyes, so I just left. Which reminds me- there was actually another cat! Downstairs while Stephanie was talking, an all-black cat came out and wandered around the space. After a few minutes, it started meowing in a lonely/scared way, but kinda low, though we all heard it. No one seemed to point it out though. I thought it'd be funny if the cat hopped up on the table in front of Steph and just meowed at her since it was QnA time.

Oh and by the way, when I posted my IMM the other day, that girl at the signing left a comment! She had recognized me too, kinda, and wrote about the signing on her blog. This is where the QnA section comes up- she kept notes on what Steph said, so there's some fun tidbits there (and much better photos). Check it out!