March 2022 Pass or Pages Entry #2

 

It's time for the Pass or Pages feedback reveal!  We're so thankful for our awesome agents Annalise Errico and Rebecca Podos for taking the time to critique these entries.  And a shout out to the brave authors whose work will be on the blog this week.  You are awesome!

Entry 2: Swallows of Mostar

Genre: Contemporary YA

Query

I’m querying with my contemporary YA novel, SWALLOWS OF MOSTAR, a story of a friendship that blossoms into love between two girls as they fight to break into the sexist world of competitive cliff diving. Complete at 80,000 words, this Slavic version of “ICEBREAKER” by A.L. Graziadei meets “SHE DRIVES ME CRAZY”, is a standalone novel with dual POV. 

Two years after she moved from Atlanta to Mostar, a historical town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, eighteen-year-old biracial Franka Garcia still struggles with loneliness, language barriers, and terrible grades. All she wants is to get into her dream school of pharmacology, but she flunked her entrance exam! After she accidentally falls off the famous Old Bridge into the river Neretva, Franka is rescued by Mirna, a wickedly intelligent, but exasperated teenager obsessed with cliff diving. 

Despite training all her life and frequently besting her peers, being a girl means Mirna can never participate in the centuries-long tradition of diving off the Old Bridge. But stubborn and determined Mirna won't give up so easily. 

After Franka’s near-perfect accidental dive, Mirna reluctantly takes on the challenge of teaching her all she knows about cliff diving, and tutoring her until she passes her entrance exam. Feeling alive for the first time in years, Franka discovers she’s a natural at the sport. If she and Mirna want to compete, they must juggle the academic workload with their unorthodox plan to take down the patriarchal system forbidding them from diving. The girls grow closer, but strange new feelings growing between them, combined with Franka’s desire to return to the U.S. and Mirna’s inability to deal with her emotions, threaten to ruin the friendship forming between them. 

SWALLOWS OF MOSTAR is a story about breaking traditions and the legacies we leave behind, set in a unique and memorable location I’m closely familiar with. Growing up as a queer teenager in Bosnia and Hercegovina, I’ve always yearned for a light-hearted and passionately optimistic novel with a focus on a sapphic relationship.

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Annalise's comments:

None 

 

Rebecca's comments:

None  

 

First 250 Words

"Mirza, idiote, ne naginji se na ogradu, neki kreten ju je jučer razvalio!"

The sight of a tall young woman in a traditional Bosnian costume yelling at a teen in a Speedo made Franka smile. Partially at the absurdity of it, but mostly it was because she finally understood her fully. How awesome was that!? 

Some jerk busted the fence of the Old Bridge yesterday and Mirza, the teenage boy now running past Franka with a grin on his face, was an idiot for leaning against it. What a lovely sentence. 

Croatian was needlessly complicated, in Franka's humble American opinion. So was Bosnian. And Serbian. Mostly because they were the same language, no matter what the native speakers would like to argue. Declinations, verb changes, grammar cases and not to mention genders, it was all entirely unnecessary. Who decided "river" was female and "bridge" was male and can Franka make their descendants pay for causing her to flunk her entrance exam[AE1]? 

To be fair, it was partially on her for being a recluse for two years since she moved here. And on her mom for never teaching her her native language properly when her brain was younger and more prone to linguistic acquisitions. Blame was plentiful; solutions, not so much. 

It was what it was. Franka was stuck in the city of Mostar. 

"Franka, I just heard, from a reputable source, that it is summer outside. Can you believe it?" her mom asked last night.

~~

Annalise's comments:

[AE1] I would stop here, but I would probably send a R&R request based on the next few paragraphs.While I love the concept, the writing style reads a little bit unpolished to me. This can happen when the first few paragraphs are really expository, or even when its been over-polished. Too, it could be a case that I, personally, might just not jive with the writing style! That’s why I like to give queries a little time to get into their rhythm.This is why I love R&Rs. I send out quite a few because often a concept will grab me (sapphic romance about sports? yes, please!), but the writing isn’t quite where I like my projects to be when I acquire them. R&Rs gives both me and the author a second chance for acquisition.

Rebecca's comments:

I’m definitely intrigued by the synopsis, and I would love to read more queer and sapphic stories set outside of the US! But I did get tangled up in the opening lines; something about the description of what’s happening was confusing to me, and I wasn’t sure what or who I was looking at. We also jump around so quickly, from the dialogue to Franka’s musings about Croatian to the entrance exam and into flashback, so I don’t feel grounded in the scene.

I would have like to stay in the moment longer, to see who is on this bridge and why. So I would likely pass after this, as I would worry I don’t quite click with the writing style.
 

Results:  [If you receive a "Pages!", click on the agent's name here or at the top of this post for submission instructions.]

Annalise: Pass 

Rebecca: Pass