Cassandra Clare Book Signing

You guys, I'm not dead. But I may be out of practice regarding posts.

Cassandra Clare's signing was tonight at a middle school in West Chester, Pa.  To the person who asked the question, "Why West Chester?," I couldn't agree more.

Surprisingly, my only problems on the road were traffic, which I can't control, and and getting beeped at for trying to get the E Z pass to work. To my chagrin, I had to pay the toll. FAILURE.

So, I ended up getting there like a half hour early.  In the back I sat with my invisible friends. But really, I couldn't get any friends to go with it being the night before prom.  Because prom is so important...

As the crowd started rolling in, I watched them.  Middle school girls with their poor mothers (If you're one of these people, please thank them for taking you. It was not a short night.), but all I saw were prospective people to whom I could give my books to get signed.  See, there was a 3 books per person limit. I had 5.

If I weren't a girl, I think I may have felt pedophilic.  Nonetheless, I felt old.  There were a few older women who were into the series and even a few males, but for the most part the audience was a group of hyper young girls.  They cheered and giggled at Cassandra's playful remarks. And it was really cute.

Jenny Han, author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series moderated the question session.  Cassandra talked about her current projects, The Dark Artifices and The Magisterium (written with Holly Black), and the typical questions you can find on the FAQ of her website  Then, there was the sillier portion of the session when Jenny asked her to play Kiss, Marry, Kill.  The best round of this game was Jace, Simon, Alec. She would kiss Jace, marry Simon, and have to kill herself before she killed Alec.

About 315 people bought tickets.  I don't know how many showed up, but there were a lot of people there to say it simply.  Thank goodness I don't procrastinate when I want something because the line began with who bought her ticket first:) 

And because I know you're curious, yes I did get all my books signed and now have a complete first edition set of her work because I am so artful.  I got up from my seat and didn't move toward the line until I saw someone with less than 3 books in their hands.  1 strike, but then I found the lovely Maria.  And that is how you make the system work for you.

Cassie spent a surprisingly long amount of time talking with everyone.  Of course, at these things, a long time is, what, thirty seconds? She liked my City of Bones movie tee shirt, asked me if I had already read CoHF ( I admitted I hadn't and had only just finished the fabulous City of Fallen Angels audiobook), and I talked to her about BookCon which I really should be preparing for by going to bed now.  It's going to be a long but fun day.

Overall, I'm really glad I went.  It was much better than the rushed CoB movie mall tour.  I had been associating Cassandra with that disappointing event, and I'm glad that she really is personable.

When school ends, I'm going to destroy the rest of the series.  Though, CoHF is enormous.

No posed pictures were allowed.  Only pictures taken of you talking to her.