First Lines from the Best Books of the Year

"Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore."

-The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne!!
(Everyone, they hype is real: read this book..)

Into the water better than Two kinds of truth (Michael Connelly)??? LOOOL

The "Try again, this time with less dying" got me shook...

"'Try it again', Percy told me. 'This time with less dying.'" This just grabs you and makes you have to find out about repetitive dying! Besides, I like the sarcasm in it as well!

The Ship of the Dead's first lines are certainly the most intriguing

A Court of Wings and Ruin honestly piqued my curiosity the most. I can't help but wonder about the obvious battle that took place.

Rick Riordan just always pulls you in with the randomest first lines where you stop reading for a second and go "what?" and then you just read it over again to make sure your eyes aren't wrong.

I will always remember "the end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of my car"

Lindsay wrote: ""Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star..."

Yes, yes, yes! Brilliant choice and stunningly great book!

"When I was young, I collected postcards" American War by Omar El Akkad.

I just dnf'd Into the Water. I'm pretty sure another novel should have won for best fiction.

Red wrote: "A Court of Wings and Ruin honestly piqued my curiosity the most. I can't help but wonder about the obvious battle that took place."
Third book in the series. The series is fantastic if you haven't read it.

Latanya (CraftyScribbles) wrote: "I just dnf'd Into the Water. I'm pretty sure another novel should have won for best fiction." Paula Hawkins completely over- rated. Doubtful I will ever waste my time with another of her books. Ugh.

The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan was the only one that actually made me click the Want To Read button. And yes, the first line was what had done it . . . and then the cover picture.

Looks like the first line for the Horror winner is missing, yet you used their image in your email ad (one of the reasons why I clicked on the ad to begin with)...hmmm...clever marketing or an accident?

Also, you list "Humor" twice when How to Be a Bawse
by Lilly Singh won for Nonfiction. Another error.

And, The Radium Girls won for History & Biography, not Autobiography. That was Hillary's book.

So many errors so little time...

Laurie wrote: "Latanya (CraftyScribbles) wrote: "I just dnf'd Into the Water. I'm pretty sure another novel should have won for best fiction." Paula Hawkins completely over- rated. Doubtful I will ever waste my t..."

I agree. I read "Girl on the Train" when it came out. It was okay, but didn't stand out to me as anything special. I wasn't even intrigued enough to see the movie, even with Emily Blount.

I'm in the middle of reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.

It was definitely reading the first line that had me hooked. Then, as I finished the first chapter while standing in the aisle blocking the path to the toiletries, I knew I had to own this book. No choice.

Eleanor Olophant is completely Fine. The title got me and I was hooked from the first line...though I can't remember what it was. Bittersweet.

"I'm pretty much fucked."

-The Martian by Andy Weir

One of my favorite first lines..."That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry."

A Clockwork Orange

“Here is something I learned when I was eleven years old: Pain has a flavor.“

Touch and Go by Lisa Gardner

I liked this one, the beginning of the first story in the short story collection The Liars' Asylum:

“Aunt Jill had been courting Mitch W. at the Citarella fish counter for eight relentless months, stockpiling our freezer with pompano filets and hand-sliced sable, when the giraffe painter swept her off her swollen feet.”

“Everyone loves Venice except at low tide.”

I'd like to edit some of these first lines. Trim them, smooth them, streamline them.

Any of their authors looking for an editor? ;)

Kalin wrote: "I'd like to edit some of these first lines. Trim them, smooth them, streamline them.

Any of their authors looking for an editor? ;)"

The whole point is that these lines are perfect. You may want them streamlined, but the writers and readers don’t. I’m an editor too. They are beautiful the way they are. The categories that GR puts them in are a little messed up, as one commenter says. You could ask for a job with them.

Debbie wrote: "The whole point is that these lines are perfect."

This one included?

If you'd asked me back at the beginning of my career to guess which character I was most likely to return to, fifteen years after I'd played her for the first time, there would have been only one answer.

She was the rest of my life in a long white dress.

Latanya (CraftyScribbles) wrote: "I just dnf'd Into the Water. I'm pretty sure another novel should have won for best fiction."

Totally agree!

"Young adult" classification should be changed to "middle aged women".

Evelyn wrote: "Laurie wrote: "Latanya (CraftyScribbles) wrote: "I just dnf'd Into the Water. I'm pretty sure another novel should have won for best fiction." Paula Hawkins completely over- rated. Doubtful I will ..."

Yep, I thought the book was highly over-rated.

Th Magnus Chase one by Rick Riordan. Just reading that first sentence makes me want to start reading the book!

Debbie wrote: "Kalin wrote: "I'd like to edit some of these first lines. Trim them, smooth them, streamline them.

Any of their authors looking for an editor? ;)"

The whole point is that these lines are perfect...."

I'm not looking for a Twitter version......

Fluffy Unicorns wrote: "Rick Riordan just always pulls you in with the randomest first lines where you stop reading for a second and go "what?" and then you just read it over again to make sure your eyes aren't wrong.

I ..."

What book is this? Sounds like my kind of read? And exactly the kind of first line I love!

Not a 2017 book, but hands down, my favorite first line is from Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth: "The small boys came early to the hanging."
Hooked me right then and there. Still have to say one of the best books I ever read.

Suppose truth were a woman. What then?

Rick Riordan writes the best opening lines 👏

"There was something you wanted to tell me, wasn't there?" totally got my attention

I've read more than 170 stories in 2017. This is my favourite first sentence:
"Tsolde threw an apple over her shoulder."
Book of Never: Volumes 4-5 by Ashley Capes

"There's a monster in the forest"

Barefoot on the wind