Summary,

Before, Larissa Alvarez only cared about magic because it could make her look thinner. Then her parents died and left her with only a few runes to make her hair shiny and her waist smaller, and being thin doesn't pay bills.
But a late electricity bill is nothing compared to a healer who tortures those who receive his healing, a witch in a cheerleader’s body who was sent to spy on Larissa, and scariest of all… a seventeen year old boy with the ability to walk through walls.
If she’s going to make sense of all of this… okay, maybe not all of it, (who really understands seventeen year old boys?), then she’s got to try to steal back her mother’s notebook from the strongest witches in the world, the Grandmothers. The only way she can do that is to make friends with the new kid, Joe Penrod. But she doesn’t know yet that they are on opposite sides of the war that killed her family, and by falling in love with him, she's heading toward heartbreak. Or, less tragically, treason.

First Thirteen,

I’m not supposed to say anything about what happened. I promised. However, I never promised I wouldn’t write it all down. Don’t worry, Giara. No one will ever read this. Once it’s all down, I’ll light it on fire. I just have to get it out of my head.
No one would believe it anyway.
But in case it does get out, in case someone decides that this pile of paper might mean something, it never happened. None of this is real. Nothing like this is even possible.
That cover it, Giara?
My name is Larissa Alvarez, and right now I am sitting in a mental hospital. I know, cliché, right? If I was making up this story I would have started it in a better place, but that isn’t where the story starts. That’s where it ends. Try not to forget

Thanks!
~Sheena
 

I have a novel that is done. I can e-mail you info about it if you want to an idea of what my story is about before you commit. Just let me know.

If it is okay, I'd like to wait until after Christmas before we start. Things are a little crazy right now.
 

If I didn't dislike the device, I'd say this is really well done. The voice is great and it flows well, and I do want to know who Giara is, why she doesn't want the MC to tell the story, and how the MC got into a mental hospital.

 

Believe me, Sheena does a good job at keeping the suspense in this story. She promises me a happy ending, but the story keeps foreshadowing doom and gloom.
 

I read it this way because the narrator tells me she would have liked to start the story in a better place. I think removing that phrase also removes the interpretational ambiguity in that section: "...cliché, right? But that isn't where the story starts. That's where it ends. ..."

You sound like you've read the whole draft, or substantial portions of it, and that's lovely, but the reader browsing for a new book hasn't, and the beginning is all she has to go on in deciding whether to buy or pass over.

That said, this is only a minor niggle that would not prevent me from reading the rest of the page and the next page to make my buy-or-not decision. As a reader, I'm looking for good writing, so I know I can trust the writer to give me a fulfilling read. Based on these first thirteen, I can trust this writer.

[This message has been edited by Grayson Morris (edited January 14, 2011).]
 

I see your point, but I think it is very clear that she is writing the story while in the mental hospital, so that is where the story ends. Maybe that line you quoted is a little misleading, but I didn't read it that way.

I thought it was very clear from the first thirteen that the story ends with her in the mental hospital which is not a good place to be, IMO.

[This message has been edited by MAP (edited January 14, 2011).]