TITLE: Glimpses of Me
GENRE: YA Contemporary
Senior class president and valedictorian, Asmah has a dark secret. Last year she fell for a teacher, narrowly escaping his predatory grooming. He’s arrested for assaulting her friend. Asmah’s guilt forces her to confront her shame and Muslim faith as she grapples with whether to come forward and testify.
EVEN WHEN YOU LIE TO ME meets SAINTS and MISFITS
Miss Snark's First Victim
This book isn't my brand of vodka, but it's good. Some of the sequencing and phrasing seems a bit off to me, but it didn't curb my interest at all.
ReplyDeleteI really like this pitch and it has lots going for it but maybe try condensing the phrasing a little more. Also what MORE is at stake for her to testify? Maybe emphasize her friend's suffering.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to focus on what incites the story here and that should never be backstory. It sounds like it's incited when the teacher is arrested for assaulting her friend (but please specify if it's assault or an illegal relationship with a minor because these are not the same thing). After that, she needs a goal which is probably to help her friend by testifying (but this would make more sense if the friend knew her secret but no one else believed the friend because the teacher was super well-liked or something). The internal struggle with her shame and religion will seem like much higher stakes and will make more sense if you've set up this conflict right from the beginning. We need to see exactly what she needs to do to help her friend and exactly why it will be so hard.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Holly
I love this! My take from the pitch is that the stakes are that if Asma testifies, she will have to face her shame of perhaps being complicit in what happened to her and everyone finding out she is not as perfect as she seems (her arc might be to discover that it actually was not her fault, but that wouldn't need to be in the pitch) and that if she doesn't testify, she will continue to carry the guilt that perhaps keeping this secret has allowed it to happen again. Is that how you wanted it to come across? My only, and perhaps personal, note would be that the short middle sentence is a little jarring, so maybe the last two sentences could be reworked for better rhythm/flow.
ReplyDeletePlease send query and first 10 pages to Info@thebentagency.com. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteJenny Bent
The Bent Agency