A Book's First Sentence

[Milena]

I love this topic! Can't wait to contribute.

[Sarah]

"Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things"

The Fifth Season

[Johanne]

@Tracy, every time you mention that book all I can think of is 'If I Could Turn Back Time' by Cher.

[SarahKat]

"The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't go nothing much to say."

I loved this as a first sentence.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

[Lizzy]

The first annoying thing is when I ask Dad what he thinks happened to Mom, he always says “What’s most important is for you to understand it’s not your fault.”

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.

[Deena]

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy byDouglas Adams

[Laura, Celestial Sphere Mod]

"On the day I turn seventeen, there is a meeting to decide whether I should have the baby or if sneaking me to a clinic for an abortion is worth the PR risk."

The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir

[Joan]

"Susan Scott is a Wonder"

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Kinda hard to do with this one since it's epistolary so I just used the first sentence of her letter.

[Tracy]

Emily wrote: ""There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."

DUN DUN DUNNN.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman"

😂😂😂.. This should go on the list of best opening sentences. And I just heard my girls in my head saying " DUN DUN DUNNNN"....they love to say that Lmao.

[Tracy]

Johanne wrote: "@Tracy, every time you mention that book all I can think of is 'If I Could Turn Back Time' by Cher."

I see an annoying song theme going on here LOL.....

[dalex]

"What kind of maniac travels in time?"

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn

[Sarah]

"MY FIRST CLUE THAT COLIN was somewhat angrier than he had let on came when the Bowie knife landed next to my right ear."

You Know Who I Am by Diane Patterson

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Laura wrote: ""On the day I turn seventeen, there is a meeting to decide whether I should have the baby or if sneaking me to a clinic for an abortion is worth the PR risk."

The Book of Essie by ..."

YES Laura! So glad you're reading this one!

We have some amazing first sentences going on over here.

[Beth]

EDIT: Of course I didn't read the directions before I posted... Here is a first line from one of the books I am actually reading now:

"The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it."

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

[Beth]

Milena wrote: "Diana wrote: ""Ove is fifty-nine."

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman"

What's funny to me about this is that there is a perception that Ove is old. I myself had that book slotted..."

I am also reading this now and had this slotted into that prompt before I started reading it. My almost 50 year old self is offended that so many people had suggested it. But I also might leave it there because I don't know where else I would want to put it! 😬

[Cendaquenta]

"All was still in the valley of the dragons."
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke

[Tracy]

Beth wrote: "EDIT: Of course I didn't read the directions before I posted... Here is a first line from one of the books I am actually reading now:

"The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of ..."

Is it awful that I want to read this right now?? I mean.... I want to know what happened.

The first sentence of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume is

*Drumroll, please*

"Are you there God? Its me, Margaret."

[WVrambler]

SOME YEARS AGO there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

From Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

[Tracy]

"The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!"

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin


"Mitch was smiling so big his back teeth shone in the soft light of the solar-powered lamp we'd scavenged from someone's shed."

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

[Ann]

"They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide."
The Sea

[Kathy]

"It was lying between the coal dump and the goods wagons under some bits of wood and it was a miracle that no one had found it before me."

first line of the first story, "The Stone" from A Winter Book by Tove Jansson

[Lizzy]

I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

"But first, Roo was born."

- This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

[Allegra]

"November 1853; a blustery night somewhere in the middle of a long week."
--From Ahab's Return: or, The Last Voyage by Jeffrey Ford, which I finished this morning but is still sitting within reach.

Not the best, but not bad. And, P.S., the book didn't let me down.

[Cendaquenta]

"By the first Sabbath after the festival of Simchat Torah, Rav Krushka had grown so thin and pale that, the congregation muttered, the next world could be seen in the hollows of his eyes."
- Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

[Joan]

Death Cast is calling with the warning of a lifetime - I'm going to die today.

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

[Jody]

“On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of the Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it.”

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

Not such a great first line. Way too wordy.

[Pam]

“It was in those days when I wandered about hungry in Kristiania, that strange city which no one leaves before it has set its mark upon him....”
Hunger by Knut Hamsun

[Hilde]

«Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,» grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

Little Women, Louisa M. Alcott

[Milena]

"We came to Birchwood Manor because Edward said that it was haunted."

The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

[Marina]

"When you first disappeared, your mother warned me that finding out exactly what had happened to you would be worse than never knowing."

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

I'm hooked!

[Karen]

"My beloved aunt, Sara Harrison Shea, was brutally murdered in the winter of 1908."

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

[Pam]

“Someone tickled me behind my ears, under my arms.”
Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada

[Steve]

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Always and forever my favorite opening line to a novel. Nineteen-Eighty Four's is up there, too.

[Sarah]

"Being a court dwarf is no easy task. I know because I failed at it"

Jepp, Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh

[Ann]

"Riley Moon stopped struggling to make sense of the spreadsheet in front of her." This feels like me.

Dangerous Minds

[Allegra]

"It was my eleventh birthday."

Sleeping Giants

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

Emily wrote: ""Guilt is a hunter."
- Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

My first read of 2019, and of course it's a WWII book 🤦🏻‍♀️"

I love this book : ) and author. Enjoy!!!

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

Tracy wrote: "Emily wrote: "Ann, that is so very 84, Charing Cross Road of you!"

Speaking of which.....

"Gentleman,
Your ad in The Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-..."

I don't re-read books very often but seeing this first line makes me want to. Another favorite book : )

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

Emily wrote: ""There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."

DUN DUN DUNNN.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman"

UGGGHHHH!!! I remember this one :( I just can't read this author. I have tried 3 or 4 books by him and didn't like any of them. I gave up LOL

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

Laura wrote: ""On the day I turn seventeen, there is a meeting to decide whether I should have the baby or if sneaking me to a clinic for an abortion is worth the PR risk."

The Book of Essie by ..."

OHHH I have this on my TBR. After seeing this I think I need to read it real soon : ) How are you liking it?

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

Karen wrote: ""My beloved aunt, Sara Harrison Shea, was brutally murdered in the winter of 1908."

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon"

Another one on my TBR that maybe I should move up the list. LOL I am thinking I need to stay out of here cause my TBR may start growing larger than it already is OR I am going to have more books started than finished : )

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

The only light struggles from the few gas street-lamps that remain unbroken, and from pots of fire suspended above the cobblestones, tended by old men selling boiled sea snails outside the public houses.

The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer

[Courtney]

The king stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

[Cendaquenta]

At the height of the long wet summer of the Seventy-Seventh Year of Sendovani, the Thiefmaker of Camorr paid a sudden and unannounced visit to the Eyeless Priest at the Temple of Perelandro, desperately hoping to sell him the Lamora boy.
- The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

[Peter]

Cendaquenta wrote: "At the height of the long wet summer of the Seventy-Seventh Year of Sendovani, the Thiefmaker of Camorr paid a sudden and unannounced visit to the Eyeless Priest at the Temple of Perelandro, desper..."

YES! One of my favourite series!!

[Tracy]

"The baby is dead"

(OMG!!) from The Perfect Nanny

[Milena]

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Mrs. Dalloway

[Robin (Saturndoo)]

Tracy wrote: ""The baby is dead"

(OMG!!) from The Perfect Nanny"

YIKES!!!!! I have looked at this book several times and keep passing it by. Now with that first sentence I will have to go back and look at this book again LOL

[Ann]

"I'm fine," said the woman. "There's nothing wrong with me."
Nine Perfect Strangers