{"id":12920,"date":"2014-04-18T08:23:29","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T12:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=12920"},"modified":"2014-04-18T08:23:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T12:23:29","slug":"fabulous-first-lines-2014-round-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=12920","title":{"rendered":"Fabulous First Lines 2014, Round 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last week, I posted<\/a> some of the best, most fun, striking, and otherwise notable opening lines from this year’s middle grade and young adult novels. This week, intrepid Flying Pig staffers Sandy and David helped me gather the next round. And at the end of the post are lines offered last week by alert ShelfTalker readers. Keep ’em coming, folks!
\n“Okay. I got one. Would you rather live every day for the rest of your life with stinky breath or lick the sidewalk for five minutes?” Noodles asked.<\/em> \u2014<\/span>When I Was the Greatest<\/strong><\/em> by Jason Reynolds (S&S \/ Atheneum)<\/span>
\nThere is an uneasiness that remains after your best friend tries to kill you.<\/em> —The School of Good and Evil: A World Without Princes<\/strong><\/em> by Soman Chainani (Harper)
\nI never set out to pose nude. I didn’t, honestly.<\/em> \u2014A Mad, Wicked Folly<\/strong><\/em> by Sharon Biggs Waller (Viking)
\nThere are six teams today in the Eastern Shore Baseball League. Tomorrow there will be none.<\/em> \u2014The Right Fight (World War II, Book 1)<\/strong><\/em> by Chris Lynch (Scholastic)
\nMy art teacher says that a real artist bleeds for her craft, but he never told us that blood can <\/em>become your medium, can take on a life of its own and shape your art in vile and gruesome ways.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014Unhinged<\/strong><\/em> by A.G. Howard (Abrams \/ Amulet)
\nGrandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.<\/em> \u2014Bird<\/strong><\/em> by Crystal Chan (S&S \/ Atheneum)
\nThe empty cafeteria table snapped in half at the middle and shot up off the ground.<\/em> \u2014The Quantum League: Spell Robbers<\/strong><\/em> by Matthew J. Kirby (Scholastic)
\nThe crackle and hiss of the flames devouring our house couldn’t block out the screaming and wailing of those who were still alive.<\/em> \u2014Defy<\/strong><\/em> by Sara B. Larson (Scholastic)
\nThat’s the trouble with milking french fries\u2014slippery elbows.<\/em> \u2014Zits: Shredded<\/strong><\/em> by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman (HarperTeen)
\nListen\u2014I was alive once and then I wasn’t. Simple as that. Now I’m alive again. The in-between part is still a little fuzzy, but I can tell you that, at some point or another, my head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado.<\/em> \u2014Noggin<\/strong><\/em> by John Corey Whaley (S&S \/ Atheneum)
\nThe first thing we had to do was catch the Tralfamosaur.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014The Eye of Zoltar<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>by Jasper Fforde\u00a0(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
\nThe problem, or thrill, depending on how you choose to look at it, was that our relationship was practically based on an enthusiastic mendacity.<\/em> \u2014little blue lies<\/strong><\/em> by Chris Lynch (Simon & Schuster)
\nJ. Rutherford Pierce smiled as the six mercenaries filed into his London office.<\/em> \u201439 Clues Unstoppable Book 2: Breakaway<\/strong><\/em> by Jeff Hirsch (Scholastic)
\nI was raised to marry a monster.<\/em> \u2014Cruel Beauty<\/strong><\/em> by Rosamund Hodge (HarperCollins \/ Balzer + Bray)
\nIn musicals, characters break into song when their emotions get to be too big.<\/em> \u2014Five, Six, Seven, Nate!<\/strong><\/em> by Tim Federle (Simon & Schuster)
\n\"\"Of all the items that can clog your plumbing, an overweight Arctic mammal is probably the worst.<\/em> \u2014Timmy Failure: Now Look What You’ve Done<\/strong><\/em> by Stephan Pastis (Candlewick Press)
\nThe night heat melted over me, the quiet unsettling since the laughter had stopped.<\/em> \u2014The Lure<\/strong><\/em> by Lynne Ewing (HarperCollins \/ Balzer + Bray)
\nOutlaws have too many feathers in their hats.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0by Christopher Healy (HarperCollins \/ Walden Pond)
\nThe natural and the supernatural inhabit the same world, intersecting but largely unseen to one another, like lodgers who share a house but keep different hours, only occasionally passing on the narrow stairs<\/em>.\u00a0\u2014When They Fall, So Do We All<\/strong> <\/em>by Charlie Fletcher (Little, Brown \/ Orbit)
\nI’m having my favorite dream again\u2014the one where I’m about to be crowned Greatest Underwater Wrestling Champion of the World, Ever.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014Shark School: Deep-Sea Disaster<\/strong><\/em> by Davy Ocean (Simon & Schuster)
\nLucia was sure that the white-haired gentleman reclining on the dining couch before her would make a delightful grandfather. As a future husband, though, he left a great deal to be desired.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014Curses and Smoke<\/strong> <\/em>by Vicky Alvear Shecter (Scholastic \/ Arthur A. Levine)
\nPresumed dead does not mean dead. They didn’t find his body.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014Swim That Rock<\/strong> <\/em>by John Rocco & Jay Primiano (Candlewick)
\nThe man in the fog was watching her<\/em>.\u00a0\u2014Ore: The Foundry’s Edge<\/strong> <\/em>by Cam Baity and Benny Zelkowicz (Disney-Hyperion)
\nIf there was one thing worse than seeing a giant’s head rise from the ground, it was seeing <\/em>two giant heads<\/em>.\u00a0\u2014Odin’s Travels (The Blackwell Pages)<\/strong><\/em> by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr (Little, Brown)
\nEpigraph from Part One: A Girl of Wax: Nothing is more enjoyable than educating a young thing\u2014a girl of eighteen or twenty, as pliable as wax.\u00a0\u2014Adolf Hitler\u00a0<\/em>\u2014Prisoner of Night and Fog<\/strong> <\/em>by Anne Blankman (HarperCollins\/Balzer+Bray)
\nDeep in the black mountains, deep in the Romanian night, deep beneath the cold, dark waters of the ancient Olt, the river witches sang<\/em>.\u00a0\u2014Deep Blue<\/strong><\/em> by Jennifer Donnelly (Disney Book Group)
\nShelfTalker reader Deb Marshall contributed this marvelous entry:
\n\"\"Twelve\u2013year\u2013old Dorothea Barnes was thoroughly un\u2013chosen, not particularly deserving, bore no marks of destiny, lacked any sort of criminal genius, and could claim no supernatural relations. Furthermore, she\u2019d never been orphaned, kidnapped, left for dead in the wilderness, or bitten by anything more bloodthirsty than her little sister. \u2014Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand <\/strong><\/em>by Jenn Swann Downey (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky)
\nThis dryly funny line comes from ShelfTalker reader Michelle Weeks. Amen, sister!:
\nIt wasn\u2019t that Jinx didn\u2019t like people. It was just that sometimes he had to get away from them.<\/em> \u2014Jinx’s Magic<\/strong><\/em> by Sage Blackwood (HarperCollins \/ Katherine Tegen)
\nAnd these goodies are from ShelfTalker reader Summer Laurie (who also noted the line from The School for Good and Evil<\/em> above):
\nDespite my mother\u2019s best efforts, I never forgot the day my grandmother taught me how to tie the winds.<\/em> \u2013Salt & Storm<\/strong><\/em> by Kendall Kulper (Little, Brown)<\/span>
\nFor the body, you go to the mortuary<\/em>. \u2014 Six Feet Over It<\/strong><\/em> by Jennifer Longo (Random House)
\nOn the day Liz Emerson tried to die, they had reviewed Newton\u2019s Laws of Motion in Physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road.<\/em> \u2014 Falling Into Place<\/strong><\/em> by Amy Zhang (Greenwillow)
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new passel of excellent opening lines from 2014 MG and YA novels. <\/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-12920","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\/12920","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=12920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}