Elevator Pitches

Today’s RTW question from YA Highway: You're re-reading one of your favs when someone asks the dreaded question: "What's that book about?" Give us your best off-the-cuff blurb of any book, any genre, and have your readers try to guess the title in the comments!

Sometimes it is SO difficult to summarize a book in one sentence. Can you imagine Suzanne Collin’s elevator pitch for The Hunger Games: “A group of kids fight to the death in gladiatorial-like combat while the privileged watch the battles on TV.” That doesn’t make the series sound too appealing—but, luckily, an agent and an editor and millions of readers gave it a chance and found out that the writing and the characters are so fantastic the unusual setting isn’t a turnoff.

My try at some elevator pitches for favorite books? Here’s a selection for some Harper books that I’ve worked(ish) on:

“A girl discovers she has the power to fight evil demonic reapers; luckily she has a hot guardian to help her out.”

“A teen questions her progressive lifestyle and decides to attend public school so she can ‘fit in’”

“For an average high school boy a few seemingly harmless decisions lead to horrific consequences.”

“In the future society is divided into factions—except for one girl who doesn’t quite fit.”

Any guesses to what these books are? I’ll post the answers in the comments tomorrow. J