Monday, December 17, 2012

Hangover Round 1 Entry #24

Title: My Life and Troubles as a Teenage Assassin
Genre: YA Thriller
 
When 17-year-old Mikaela infiltrates her parents’ assassin organization to save her boyfriend's life, she risks becoming a fulltime killer like her mom and dad when circumstances force her to murder in the name of justice.

Please don't let my parents kill my boyfriend this time, I prayed. I had avoided this moment for as long as I could, but of course, it had to happen.

“Mikaela?” Cory’s voice broke through my thoughts. I could feel his eyes watching me from where he sat in the passenger’s seat.

“Yeah?” I clutched the steering wheel and stared out the windshield, even though I’d already parked the car and cut it off. We had arrived at my gray suburban two-story house. An ordinary home that made my parents appear normal to the outside world.

“Are you okay? I know you’re nervous about this, but you look pale.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Riiight. It took us fifteen minutes to get here, and it’s a ten-minute ride from my house to yours. And now look at you. Geez, we’re just having dinner with your parents.”

“It’s not just dinner. It’s a boyfriend-meets-the-parents dinner.” I swallowed.

“Yeah, and everything’s going to be fine. So why do you look scared to go inside your own house?”

If only he knew. No, scratch that. If he knew, he would’ve hightailed it out of this relationship a long time ago, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

Like how you might end up at the bottom of a river, courtesy of my parents. “Nothing really. Just…stuff that happened last year.”

5 comments:

  1. I really like this! Great job! I don't really have more to say than that...I'd totally keep reading.

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  2. I like the writing and am intrigued by the premise. I love thrillers and good spy stories. What I don't understand is that if she has to kill for "justice" does that mean her parents are good guy assassins? Because if they are, why in the world would they even consider killing her boyfriend? I'm not even sure if they ARE bad guys that they would do that because the death of a teenager last seen with their daughter would draw too much attention to them.

    But she says "this time" and she's thinking about "stuff that happened last year." So if they did kill her last boyfriend (which is pretty horrifying), I really think she would keep this one a secret and NOT bring him home. If they didn't, then I feel like you're drawing me in under false pretenses and as a reader I'll be upset when I find that out.

    But you DID draw me in and I would definitely keep reading to find out why she's so worried but doing it anyway. Good job! (I would love to hear your thoughts on my YA Contemporary #29. Thanks!)

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  3. Okay, I totally love this! Premise, 250 and all! I guess my only critique would be that there's only the first 250 words, and I want to read it all!

    I tried to find something and this is all I came up with:
    "my gray suburban two-story house". I think, but don't quote me, there could be a comma in here somewhere. I forget the rules on how many things you can list before a comma is necessary. I go by feel, but I know there are rules somewhere. Nit-picking, for sure!

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  4. Love this one! I read the above comments and totally see where Stephanie is coming from. I had assumed that maybe there were also bad forces at work in her parents agency, and maybe it was other people doing the killing, too. Like her boyfriend is targeted by someone else, maybe? If her parents really are killing her boyfriends, that might be difficult to to overcome for a reader.

    But, this one felt alive for me. I would absolutely keep reading. I adore how the first scene is nothing out of the ordinary, with so much tension and completely-out-of-the-ordinary going on underneath. Great.

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  5. Love the premise. I just want to know why she thinks her parents might kill her boyfriend - just cuz they're over protective or because of something he's done or knows or is?

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