Do You Want to Build a Snowman?: Gayle Forman's signing in Manila (01/18/14)

It's an unquestionable fact that January 18th of 2014 has been a glorious day for the bookish and we all have National Bookstore to thank for the opportunity of meeting Gayle Forman, the New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay, Where She Went, Just One Day, and Just One Year! I don't know how they managed to bring the bajillion awesome authors that had been here for the past two years, seriously, the guys from NBS are awesome, we can't say thank you enough!

During the day of the signing, Celine and I, along with a couple of friends, agreed to meet up somewhere at specifically 7 o'clock. And, taking our being Filipino in mind, we got to the meeting place at around 8 and went straight to Glorietta where Gayle was set to sign books. Much to our surprise, when we got there, there were loads of other people lined up outside National Bookstore! Since we still had a lot of time, my friend and I decided to buy doughnuts from the store nearby, and while we were about to eat, the line moved so fast and I thought the experience was so funny because I was literally reaching for a doughnut when the line started moving and yeah.. LOL.

Anyway, after getting our number, we went shopping because all of the stores there were having a sale! Yay! Having said that, we got to the forum at Powerbooks (Thanks for the invite, JB!) a little late because we got lost. (I applaud myself for having such a great sense of direction). And after the forum, we went back to National for the formal signing and LOADS of people were there, sitting on the chairs, on the floor, and even on the stairs because a total of 573 people came to the event and it was fun as it was chaotic. Well, not really chaotic. I was just having fun thinking I was a tribute and the other people were tributes from other districts trying to get food (in this case: Gayle Forman's the food) Please don't judge me. LOL

Here are some of the photos from the event:

A small part of the crowd during Gayle's signing.

Our books at the signing (Mine, Celine's, and Zaira's)

Xandra Ramos of National Bookstore speaking at the forum.

Gayle sitting on the infamous "hot seat"

The trio: Louisse of The Soul Sisters and JLA Fans PH, Elyssa of Two Ends of a Bookshelf and Gayle Forman PH, and Lois of Shatter Me PH.

Celine with Hazel Ureta of Stay Bookish

Gayle Forman and I at the Bloggers' Forum.

All the bloggers with Gayle at the forum. 

*Photos are from Hazel Ureta of Stay Bookish

Fun facts about Gayle Forman:

1. Nick, her husband, is a musician and the inspiration for Adam Wilde.

2. She has a new book entitled "I Was Here" coming out in 2015.

3. She isn't good at karaoke, but I beg to differ. 

4. She was very much involved in the movie adaptation of If I Stay. She cried four times while reading If I Stay's script.

5. It's her second time here in the Philippines, the first was in 1998. She came her to write an article for a magazine.

6. While writing Just One Day, she had to revisit Paris.

7. Apparently, the hardest part of writing Just One Year wasn't its setting, but its POV. She said she found it hard to write in a Dutch's POV.

8. Gayle likes writing contemporary and plans to stick to the genre.

9. Her favorite song from Where She Went is Bridge and second is Hush.

10. The biggest misconception is that Gayle's a musician because of If I Stay and Where She Went. The catch, though, is that she's not. But we love her anyway! 

So that's it for our first ever Event Recap! We would like to thank the awesome guys at National Bookstore. Thank you for bringing such amazing authors here. We love you guys!