Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry
BY Joya goffneyHARPER teen2021Query Letter
You may be interested in contemporary young adult novel, Days I’ve Ugly Cried (and other lists), written, as you may have guessed, around a compilation of lists. Complete at 70,000 words, Days I’ve Ugly Cried is the story of a compulsive list maker who is blackmailed into completing a to-do list of all her fears.
Quinn keeps track of everything, from all the days she’s ugly cried, to all the boys she’d like to kiss. All of her lists are organized in a sectional red journal that unfortunately looks a lot like Carter Bennett’s. When Carter comes over after school to work on their history project, Quinn, distracted by his good looks, doesn't notice when their notebooks are switched.
Not only does Carter read her entire list journal, he comes up with a to-do list of his own, and if she doesn’t complete every item by the end of the month, he threatens to expose her most personal lists to the whole school. Through facing Carter’s to-do list, Quinn finds the courage to do what most people are too afraid to--change the way she’s living her life.
Readers of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Kristina Forest’s debut I Wanna Be Where You Are will enjoy Days I’ve Ugly Cried for the juicy secrets, the blackmail, the enemy to lover romance, and the list formatting.
After graduating with a B.A. in psychology and an honors thesis focused primarily on black social psychology, I found my passion to join the #OwnVoices movement. I have not been published yet, but I am submitting Days I’ve Ugly Cried to multiple agencies for representation. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.
About
Age Range
Young Adult
Genre
Romance (Contemporary)
Word Count
80,000
Book Link
Agent
Rachel Beck at Liza Dawson Associates
Query Stats
Year Queried
2024
Number of Queries Sent
4
Number of Full Requests Received
1
Number of Offers of Representation
1
Number of Months Spent Querying This Novel
2 months
Years Spent Writing Before Getting an Offer
3
Number of Manuscripts Queried Before This One
1
Publication Status of The Book Queried
Published (Big 5)
Years Spent Writing Before This Book was Published
2
Note to Querying Writers:
My book was bought at auction with a strong consensus that the plot would need a major change in the fact that the love interest was originally the MC's blackmailer. I'm much happier with the final product :)