This was YA-day april 4th 2026
A bookevent for readers, mostly Dutch speakers but also international. A place to mean with readers, writers and make new friends.
This year Selina Mae was present, she used to write Draco Malfoy fanfictions ( Potter? is one of her most famous ones). Now she writes real book, her first one is called Lessons in faking.
We got a free goodiebag when we arrived and went straight to the shop to see which books were there, normally you can't find the book fearless in paperback here in Belgium so I was surprised to find it there as a limited edition with painted edges. We did a quest to spin a wheel and win something, my sister and mother got a small price and I got a 10% on a purchase in the shop (only valid in that shop) .
There were acotar costplayers so that was fun. But there wasn't much decoration around the event, last year we had a place to make bookmarks which wasn't there this year. There were a few places to take photos but nothing with themes of bookcharacters like we had last year with the hunger games.
And for the amount of people my age, a few but much less than last year probably because Lynn Painter was there then. Most people were in their 20s or older.
Also a big no for me was the AI used in the quest and the AI bookcovers that were in the shop, AI doesn't belong in creative and artistic spaces like bookevents because let's not support people who replace real human being with a computer for art or things that are supposed to come from the heart.
Overall it wasn't as great as last year and I hope they upgrade it and never use AI for it again.
Xxx nenaeverhart99
