Pride Picnic / Our Favourite Queer Novels

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018 The YA Room1 Comment

Yesterday, we hosted our very first Pride Picnic! But no, this wasn’t our first ever picnic – we’re strong believers in catching up for any occasion at all to eat cake. Cake truly is the best invention in the entire world.

But as June is Pride Month, we thought we’d take our rainbow flags out of the closet, bake some cupcakes and cookies, and gather a bunch of awesome Melbourne YA readers to chat all about our favourite queer YA novels.

It was such a lovely afternoon at Fed Square. Our highlights definitely included hearing all about some upcoming queer novels we can’t wait to get our hands on, what everyone’s favourite queer books are (#sorrynotsorry TBR), and trying everyone’s incredible rainbow food.

Autumn Picnic

April 3, 2017 The YA RoomLeave a comment

Hi friends! If you haven’t already seen, we’re holding another picnic this Sunday! We’ll be meeting in the same place as last time, where we’ll be sharing sweets and talking about everything bookish.

If you’re thinking of coming, please grab a free ticket through our Eventbrite link so we know how much food to bake – and bring something for us to share! We hope to see you there! ❤

WOW… What a month!

February 1, 2017February 1, 2017 The YA Room4 Comments

January, as it would be expected, has been a month of firsts. And not just in the calendar sense. It was the month we officially launched this amazing thing we’d been planning for months, and it was the month we realised just how exciting this adventure was going to be. We’d always hoped that The YA Room would be a success, for both us and you all, but we never expected to receive the abundance of love and support that we did – so thank you.

We started off the month searching for a venue for our very first Book Talk, which was equally frustrating and relentless, but all our efforts ended up paying off in the end! But even though we didn’t know if or when we would have a proper venue to host our monthly meet-ups at, we still organised not one, but two fun afternoons. Thank goodness the Melbourne weather was on our side.

The first of these meet-ups was our Inaugural Picnic at the Botanic Gardens, where we had twenty gorgeous people show up to support our first event. We sat on the grass and ate food, swapped books, and talked about the novels we loved! We couldn’t have wished for a more spectacular day, and it was the Inaugural Picnic that set the grounds for the rest of the month.

Not long after, we were lucky enough to attend the PTA Showcase in Melbourne, where we heard Shivaun Plozza, Fleur Ferris and Jodi McAlister speak about their new books, as well as hear about all the upcoming Penguin Teen releases! Not only did we get to hang out with all our favourite bookish people again, but there was cake and food and little goodie packages. It was incredible, and we’re already looking forward to the next one!

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A few weeks later we had our very first Book Talk, where we were joined by Alison Evans to discuss their new YA novel, Ida. Again, we had such a great turnout and it was amazing to have Alison there too. We asked them some questions about their writing processes, the themes behind Ida, and did a bit of fangirling too.

Here are some of our favourite reviews of Ida, written by the people that are a part of our book club!

IDA BY ALISON EVANS (+ THE YA ROOM JAN BOOK TALK)

Lissa’s Reviews – Ida

I-Dan’t Have Many Complaints // Ida Review (Terrible Pun But Great Book)

You should also totally check out Sarah’s review on her blog, Written Word Worlds. Spoiler: She adored reading Ida!

The same evening as our Book Talk, Caraval by Stephanie Garber was announced our February Book Of The Month, as voted by almost 250 people! We’re looking forward to reading this much-anticipated novel and discussing it at our next Book Talk. We’re also currently figuring out some exciting things that will make our next Book Talk even more phenomenal than the first!

And then yesterday, as if our month couldn’t get any better, we got a very exciting email back from Dymocks! We’re thrilled to announce that our next Book Talk will be held on Sunday 26th February from 2.30 – 4pm at Dymocks 234 Collins Street, in the heart of Melbourne. We hope to see you all there!

The Inaugural Picnic – wrap up!

January 19, 2017 The YA Room2 Comments

Last Sunday, we hosted our first event as an establishing YA book club at the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. To say we were excited about meeting all the people we’ve talked to online and fangirled with over the months would be an understatement! Despite the countless individuals who found themselves getting lost as they tried to find us in the massive gardens, we were absolutely amazed with how much support (and food!) we received on this beautiful sunny day.

The picnic took off to an amazing start as more and more people kept arriving and conversations continued to grow. Not only did we speak about the books we were excited about and the events we couldn’t wait for — but we also spoke about our lives outside the bookish community. This relaxed setting allowed us really to get to know each other, which we thought was the perfect inaugural meet-up. We began the meet-up sitting in a circle where we introduced ourselves and where we blog about books, as well as our current reads, favourite genres, as well as our most-adored books, which provided the perfect platform to start new conversations.Read More »

Inaugural Picnic – 15th January

January 1, 2017January 1, 2017 The YA Room1 Comment

Hi friends! If you haven’t seen already from our Twitter page, we’re having a picnic to celebrate the official launching of The YA Room! The picnic will be held on Sunday the 15th of January from 2 – 5pm at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. We’d love to see you there! There’ll be tea, cakes and sweets, as well as book-swapping and bookstagram opportunities!

To make this afternoon the best it can possibly be, here’s what you can do to help:

Tell everyone you know to come and have fun with us!

It just wouldn’t be a bookish picnic without all of you lovely people there. We want to see as many of your faces as possible and get to know you! As this will be our first official meet-up before our regular monthly book club sessions, this is a great opportunity to meet some like-minded fangirls and fanboys and get all the inside goss about the year ahead with The YA Room.

Bring food to share!

We’re going to be doing a lot of baking in preparation for the day, but the more cakes and cookies the better! It’s no secret that the bookish community loves sweets. So if you have the time to bake something or even bring something that you’ve bought to share with other people, that would be much appreciated!

Bring a book to participate in our book swap!

We’re planning on doing a fancy book swap, so if you’d like to be involved with that, please bring along one book that’s in good quality and you think others might not have already – and wrap it up! Everyone who brings a book will receive a book and we don’t want you to miss out! We’ll tell you the rules on the day, but it will be fun and involve some sneaky stealing too… but that’s all part of the game!

If you have any questions about the day or anything The YA Room-related, please leave them in the comments! And you can find a map of where exactly we’re meeting so you don’t get lost down below. Thanks, everyone!