I'm sure you all know by now just how excited I was to get the chance to go the first annual Teen Read Awards just over a week ago, so I finally had some time to write a post about the experience! In one word, it was AMAZING! I had a fun night with my sister and it was such a cool experience getting to celebrate some of our favourite books with other readers and authors!

My sis and I began to line up around 5:30 p.m, a half hour before the red carpet actually began, outside a club called Six Degrees... which also happened to be practically across the street from Indigo Yonge & Eglinton, where I attended the signings earlier.

We had a pretty good spot, probably among the first 30 or so attendees, but because we were all lined up along the sidewalk, we didn't actually get to see any of the authors arrive on the red carpet. We did hear a little shout when Richelle Mead arrived, but other than that, everyone was entertained by the magician and mime hanging around. There were was even some trivia questions for the Books-to-Film nominees and I ended up winning 4 Cineplex movie passes for answering a couple questions correctly! 

And then before we knew it, 7:00 p.m. had arrived and we got to go inside. As we walked upstairs to the club, we were greeted by the hosts, Jessi Cruikshank and Dan Levy, plus Becca Fitzpatrick! (The picture may be slightly blurry because I took the pic quickly while I was walking by...) When we reached the top steps, were greeted again by the organizers, handed TRA bracelets and then our eyes kind of bugged out at the sight of the TRA swag bags to be given out later.


Soon enough, the place was packed with over 500 people! People were dancing, taking pics at the instant photo booth, checking out the free drinks and snacks (from Mac and Cheese to spring rolls), chatting away, and basically having a good time. There was just so much excitement in the atmosphere that it was hard to contain it! A girl walked away with a new laptop after winning the dance-off, a couple Kobo eReaders were given away to parents, and I even managed to catch a Hunger Games t-shirt after several were thrown out into the crowd!

The TRA's were finally kicked off with the appearance of surprise guest Emily Osment, who happened to be in town to promote her new album. You know how on Hannah Montana she can't sing? Well, in real life... she sure can. Her voice is sort of deeper in person, and she definitely had the crowd cheering her on! After she sang a few songs, the hosts of the night, MTV's Jessi Cruikshank and Dan Levy came on stage! 



Soon, the winners were beginning to be announced but in between, there were also a couple more performances as well! Alyssa Reid and Alex Lacasse took to the stage to perform some of their singles, and once again, the crowd loved them! I still don't really know who they are except that they are both Canadian and that their singing skills were pretty good... though I still think Alex sounded like he couldn't make up his mind between singing like Jesse McCartney or being in a boy band, lol. As well, to introduce the novels nominated for the biggest award of the night, Best Read, Monster Factory made some videos to share their 'interpretation' of each novel.



And the night was still not over with more awards to be given out! 

I didn't want to make one super-long post, so I'm going move on to Part 2 where I share more pics of the night and announce which novels won in their respective categories (in case you still don't know...).