Last Sunday, NYT bestselling author Marie Lu came to visit here in the Philippines and had a book signing courtesy of National Book Store. Deavelle, Jello (admin of MarieLuPHIL) and I were lucky enough to attend the blogger's forum before the public signing. Before going to the venue we went first to Glorietta because Jello had to talk and meet his co-admins. It was an insane line I'm telling you, the first people who line up arrived 24 hours before the event! Talk about dedication.
After arriving at the venue for Q&A session with Marie Lu with few minutes to spare, we arranged all items that will be given by the Marie Lu PH at the public signing.
They got bookmarks, shirts and these posters designed by Aegisdea to be given to first 100 people who lined up. It was love at first sight seeing these awesome posters, such brilliant talent Aegisdea! Some of the bloggers even tried to bribe Jello to give them one poster or bookmarks (haha) but it was spoken for so we just settled for pictures of it.
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| Aegisdea |
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| Dea, Leslie of Bibliophilekid and I, practicing for our future modelling career haha! |
At 10 am Marie Lu arrived and we were ready to know more about her and her books. We were given a chance to ask her questions and got to learned so much more about this lovely author.
So without further ado here's some of the facts about her and her books:
- Before being a full time author she was an artist in the game industry and would love to do a picture book someday.
- Day street name was inspired by his optimistic view in life while his traits were inspired by Marie Lu’s favorite character like Han Solo and Robin Hood. June’s name is after the month of June and her traits of a Gemini which is known for being intelligent and ambitious like Sherlock Holmes
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| Day by aegisdea |
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| June by aegisdea |
- The plot of Legend was inspired by social climate with those of real life dystopian like Holocaust.
- Marie Lu always outline/sketch her main characters and their world before making the whole story
- She said that there isn’t anything inspired by a fan reaction through her writings.
- Champion was by far the hardest book she wrote. Marie Lu like bittersweet endings and always wanted to have that kind of ending for Champion.
- She listens to music while writing but she just listens with sounds like rain or with lyrics that she doesn’t understand.
- Her favorite place while writing would be in a train.
- Marie Lu is a very visual person and would just write what she sees in terms of making the action scenes in her books.
- Her agent didn’t like the first 100 pages she submits because the character was very bland but asked who Adelina was. Marie Lu said that Adelina was the most interesting manipulative character and is very interesting to explore, her agent like it and that’s where TYE born.
- Marie Lu actually doesn’t know what happens after the epilogue of Champion.
- In switching point of view in her characters, she said that it wasn’t really hard with Legend since she wrote alternating first person POV since high school. But it was more complicated in TYE because the POV has to all comes down with Adelina.
- Republic or Colonies: She chooses New Antarctica to live in.
- Day is the obvious rebel but June is the greater because she has to change her entire life for it.
- She was more likely like Day at the beginning of the story but more of June at the end. Marie Lu sees bits of June that is similar to her like dealing with things and being suck at romance.
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After the Q&A it was time for signing of books!
She also graciously signed the bookmarks and posters to be given away.
can we just all take a minute and look at her nails and rings? *drools*
We also get to witness her awesome artistic skills when she draw Day, June, Adelina and Enzo on books of some bloggers.
Jello's copy with June
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| Celine of Two Ends of a Bookshelf with Adelina and Enzo |
The goddess of nail arts, Nicole of Twins Read
For more of her works visit her nail art blog Novel Nails Designs
For more of her works visit her nail art blog Novel Nails Designs
And to end, a group picture! #PHYABookBloggers
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After having our lunch and getting our Mockingjay tickets--it was awesome! *cue hanging tree song*-- we then went to Glorietta 1 for the public signing. The picture doesn't give justice for all the people who went to the signing. We have to find space at the second floor to wait for Marie Lu, and while waiting we got to talk to some girls who were number 723. That's when we found out that there were 800+ people who registered! There were banners and cosplayers from Marie Lu's hardcore fans.
After waiting for an hour, Marie Lu finally arrived and the crowd was crazzzy. We actually didn't hear much of the interview because of the scream but I totally understand them, that's what fans do *wink*
Thank You again National Book Store for making all these awesome events happen and to Marie Lu!
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Before we end this recap, our friends over at MarieLuPHIL will be giving away a signed copy of Legend for everyone to enjoy this book. Don't forget to join and feel free to comment below.
Were you in the event? Did you have fun? We want to know!
PS: We'll be attending the next event. Lang Leav book signing on December 7. See you there!
For more details about the event click this link #LangLeavinPH
Marie Lu's signing recaps:
Kai of Amaterasureads
Jeselle of Lifelong Bookworm
Kai of Bookaholic Blurbs
Louisse of The Soul Sisters
Leslie of Bibliophilekid
Chyna of Lite-rate-ture
