#138

Dear Query Shark:

All the attention Molly Brennan's boyfriend, Jake, pores on her

and here's where I stop reading. Nothing makes me put down a query more quickly than incorrect word usage. Pore is to study carefully or a hole in your skin. You mean pour as in inundate. Words are tools. Using them incorrectly is like hitting a screw with a hammer. Don't do it.


blinds her to the fact he’s unscrupulous and manipulative, just like her father. Molly has no car, no real family to go home to, and to make things worse; (this is an incorrect use of a semi colon) after she’s gained the courage to break up with him, she discovers she’s pregnant.



The youngest of four children—everyone told her what to do: what to eat, what to wear, what to read, what to watch on television, or not watch—she rarely made a decision of her own. Faced with making one of life’s most irreversible choices, Molly finds comfort in a new friend, Kyle.



In the aftermath, Molly realizes she needs to recover a sense of self in order to move on with her life and maybe, just maybe, she might find love, too.

Aftermath? Move on with her life? I think we're missing a crucial piece of information here. Did she have a baby or not?

The Education of Molly Brennan is a work of fiction for the edgy young adult genre. It is complete at 60,000 words.

I'm sorry, but dealing with a pregnancy is not edgy. And the genre is young adult, not edgy young adult. No one stops reading a query based on getting the category wrong, but you want to get it right. This is YA.


I hope you find my query of interest and look forward to hearing from you.


There's not enough here to pique (not peak) my interest. I've been reading books like this since MR & MRS BO JO JONES (published 1968!). You need to focus on telling the story with a fresh approach, or a new twist.

Form rejection.