{"id":12185,"date":"2013-12-05T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=12185"},"modified":"2013-12-05T06:00:46","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T11:00:46","slug":"fabulous-first-lines-2013-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=12185","title":{"rendered":"Fabulous First Lines (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best opening lines to books may be one of several things: they may startle and surprise, they may amuse, they may set a scene, establish the strong voice of a narrator, or introduce an alien milieu. The one thing they have in common? Making a reader want more.
\nIn 2011, I collected fantastic first lines<\/a> for a ShelfTalker blog post. It was a really popular post — who doesn’t love to start a few dozen novels in five minutes? — and I’ve been toying with doing a reprise of it with this year’s crop of books. When I read the following first line, I knew I had to do it:
\nApplying butt glue to my sister’s backside is, without question, not the first way I’d choose to spend a weekend.<\/span> \u2014Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality<\/em> by Elizabeth Eulberg
\nThat is a galvanizer of an opening line. Who wouldn’t read on, even if only to learn what nefarious modern-day product is “butt glue”?
\nSo, dear readers, here are the best first lines I’ve found in the 2013 ARCs and finished books stacked around my home.\u00a0Some are quiet and some start with a bang, but all of them offered readers the promise of something compelling ahead.
\n*****<\/span>
\nIf I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more.\u00a0<\/span>\u2014Prisoner B-3087<\/em> by Alan Gratz
\nNo one noticed the soldier.<\/span> \u2014The Whatnot<\/em> by Stefan Bachmann
\nI grew up in what some people would call a mobile home and what other, snobbier people might call a manufactured home, but I was always fine with calling it a trailer. That’s right, I said I grew up in a trailer. Fuck you.<\/span> \u2014Gorgeous<\/em> by Paul Rudnick
\nI had arrived early for my own assassination.<\/span> \u2014The Runaway King<\/em> by Jennifer A. Nielsen
\nEvery time a human walks out of a room, something with more feet walks in.<\/span> \u2014The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail<\/em> by Richard Peck
\nWhen I was eight, my papai took me to the park to watch a king die.<\/span> \u2014The Summer Prince<\/em> by Alaya Dawn Johnson (This also makes me think of one of my all-time favorite first lines, from Quest for a Maid<\/em> by Frances Marie Hendry: “When I was nine years old, I hid in a corner and heard my sister kill a king.”)
\nSophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped.<\/span> \u2014The School for Good and Evil<\/em> by Soman Chainani
\nIt’s the first day of summer, and I know three things: One, I am happy. Two, I am stoned. Three, if Lukas Malcywyck’s T-shirt was any redder I would lean over and bite it like an apple.<\/span> \u2014Wild Awake<\/em> by Hilary T. Smith
\nThis story starts in a hospital, but don’t freak out.<\/span> \u2014Elvis and the Underdogs<\/em> by Jenny Lee
\nIt was the bitterest, meanest, darkest, coldest winter in anyone’s memory, even in one of the forgotten neighborhoods of Chicago.<\/span> \u2014Hold Fast<\/em> by Blue Balliett
\n“Hey, dance boy!”<\/span> \u2014 Panic<\/em> by Sharon M. Draper
\nIf it were up to my dad, my entire life would be on video.<\/span> \u2014Openly Straight<\/em> by Bill Konigsberg
\nI used to practice leaving my body.<\/span> \u2014Under the Light<\/em> by Laura Whitcomb
\nSweet Mother of Teen Vogue\u00a0<\/em>magazine, I’m model-marvelous in this new outfit!<\/span> \u2014The Laura Line<\/em> by Crystal Allen
\nFrom the rooftop of Information Headquarters, Bingo and J’miah stood on their back paws and watched Little Mama and Daddy-O trundle away; their stripy gray and black silhouettes grew smaller and smaller in the deepening dusk.<\/span> \u2014The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp<\/em> by Kathi Appelt
\nThe front door was painted black, with a shiny brass knocker that made a satisfying noise when Alfred used it. <\/span>Rat-tat-tat.<\/span> \u2014How to Catch a Bogle\u00a0<\/em>by Catherine Jinks
\nSophronia intended to pull the dumbwaiter up from the kitchen to outside the front parlor on the ground floor, where Mrs. Barnaclegoose was taking tea.<\/span> \u2014Etiquette & Espionage: Finishing School (Book the First)<\/em> by Gail Carriger
\nPoppy set down one of the mermaid dolls close to the stretch of asphalt road that represented the Blackest Sea.<\/span> \u2014Doll Bones<\/em> by Holly Black
\nIn the Urwald you grow up fast or not at all.<\/span> \u2014Jinx<\/em> by Sage Blackwood
\nIt usually took the new kids two weeks to dump me, three weeks at the most.<\/span> \u2014Rogue<\/em> by Lyn Miller-Lachmann
\nThis is how Kyle Keeley got grounded for a week.<\/span> \u2014Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library<\/em> by Chris Grabenstein
\nIt was the first day of second grade and Billy Miller was worried.<\/span> \u2014The Year of Billy Miller<\/em> by Kevin Henkes
\n[The first page is a letter accepting a pirate applicant. The header reads:] The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates, Servin’ the High Seas for 152 Years, Membership Division.\u00a0The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates<\/em> by Caroline Carlson\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nI’ve seen Steelheart bleed.<\/span> \u2014Steelheart<\/em> by Brandon Sanderson
\nKouun<\/em> is “good luck” in Japanese, and one year my family had none of it.<\/span> \u2014The Thing About Luck<\/em> by Cynthia Kadohata
\n“Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass.”<\/span> \u2014<\/span>Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass<\/em> by Meg Medina\u00a0<\/span>
\n“Mama, why do we have to live in a cage?” Flora dug in the dirt at something hard and rusty.<\/span> \u2014The Adventures of a South Pole Pig<\/em> by Chris Kurtz
\nWhen you’ve drawn breath for nearly a hundred years, not much surprises you.<\/span> \u2014The Last Present<\/em> by Wendy Mass
\nIf you were a high school quarterback, a Texas<\/em> high school quarterback, this was the moment you imagined for yourself from the first time somebody said you had some arm on you.<\/span> \u2014QB1<\/em> by Mike Lupica
\nNovember dusk slips into Moscow like a spy; you don’t know it’s there until it has stolen the day and vanished into the dark.<\/span> \u2014Dancer Daughter Traitor Spy<\/em> by Elizabeth Kiem
\n***
\nHave I missed any humdingers? Please feel free to add them in the comments section!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year’s best first lines from MG and YA books. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}