The Tangrens

On Friday the 16th I went to a book signing for Stephenie Meyer's The Host with my cousin Hillary who got us the tickets. It was a ticketed event that included a copy of the book. The day before she brought the book over to me and I tried like crazy to finish it but with a very active trying-to-run one year old I was only able to get half way through it. I wanted to finish it because they were going to have a question and answer section to the evening ( before she signed all the books ) and I didn't want to hear any spoilers and I was hoping to make some intelligent questions. I'd never been to a book signing much less a ticketed discussion and book signing so I didn't know how it all worked. But I found out pretty quick. There were a thousand tickets available for this event and they sold out in 45 minutes. It started at 7 so I figured "Derek gets home at 6 so I'll head on down oh say 6:45 ish" Oh no! People were waiting in line to get in at 10 in the morning and earlier. One person who was in our group was one of the few waiting from 10 in the morning saving our place in line. So when I wised up and got there around 4 we were one of the first in line. Some of you may be thinking..." What's the big deal about this author? " Well she was the one who wrote the Twilight series. Some of you are probably thinking "Um, still what's the big deal?" Well that series has taken young adult genre by storm. People are calling her the next J.K. Rowling. She was voted one of the 100 most influential people in America by Time magazine. All of the books thus far in the Twilight series have been number one on the New York Times best sellers list. And The Host just went number one this last week. There are probably hundreds of fan sites dedicated to her Twilight series in NINE different languages. She started writing Twilight in the summer of 2003 and come December of this year it will be a major motion picture. And she's a lowly BYU grad and mother of three. So you know that the folks here in Utah claim her as their own and support her as such. Thus long lines and crazy fans.

The doors opened at 5 and we got seats in the second row! So when she came out we were pretty up close and personal. :)
They told us no posed pictures or pictures taken on the stage so we had to work things out to get pictures of ourselves getting our books signed.

Don' t look too close because I have a crazy look on my face for some reason. I hope I didn't look that crazy when I met her. Hillary gave her a thank you card for her family thanking them for sharing their wife and mother with us. She was missing her sons kindergarten graduation for his book signing tour.
This gives you a little visual of the rock star status Stephenie Meyer has in Utah. It was a fun time and now I have my very first book signed "To Sunny" and signed by the author.

* The title of this post refers to characters in the book called "Souls" that are aliens that take over human bodies. Don't get a headache Holly. But it's more about a love triangle ( actually more a love square) than aliens. It's a slower starting book the Twilight series It took me longer to get so sucked in to the point that I felt like I couldn't breathe until I finished it. But it did suck me in.