{"id":21985,"date":"2017-06-22T07:30:37","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=21985"},"modified":"2017-06-22T07:30:37","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:30:37","slug":"fabulous-first-lines-of-2017-round-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=21985","title":{"rendered":"Fabulous First Lines of 2017 (Round 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By now, halfway into the year, we booksellers have seen hundreds of advance reading copies for books, all of which try\u00a0to stand out in a crowded field.\u00a0We can’t read them all, so those opening lines can have a big impact. Obviously, we don’t choose books only based on first lines, or even first pages, but a great opener is like a promise to the reader: enter and ye shall be entertained.
\nWhat makes first lines exceptional? I admit that, for me, a not-young reader with thousands of books in my rear-view window, anything that takes me by surprise has special\u00a0oomph. I appreciate\u00a0freshness and authority, and style that stands out from less distinctive writing,\u00a0and I appreciate first lines that\u00a0immediately reveal character or situation or mood, or offer me surprise, dread, suspense, or humor.\u00a0<\/span>
\n
\nWith several thousand new books out in 2017, I’m sure I have missed many fabulous\u00a0first lines. This is compounded by the fact that we have a more efficient galley-donation system, so I don’t have as many stacks\u00a0from the early months of this year to go through. However, I already have fifteen fabulous first lines socked away for the upcoming Round 2 post, so stay tuned!
\nHave favorites of your own? Please add them to the\u00a0Comments section below. (Psst! Editors, I\u2019m especially talking to you. You know which opening lines made your seasoned editorial hearts beat faster.)
\nHere are some terrific openers, arranged into arbitrary categories of why I like them:
\nFIRST LINES THAT HOOK WITH\u00a0SURPRISE<\/strong>
\nPrologue – Our world did not end the way you might expect. It wasn’t caused by any of the things you hear so much about today: the wars, the unrest, the changing climate. It wasn’t our arrogance, our pride, our selfishness. No, in the end, it was our creativity and brilliance. We thought we were making history by changing the future. Turns out, we did both.
\n\u2014Timeless: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic<\/em> by Armand Baltazar (Katherine Tegen Books)
\nIt was my dad who gave me the idea of using quantum physics to find my mum.
\n\u2014The Many Worlds of Albie Bright<\/em> by Christopher Edge (Delacorte)
\nAt the end of August before sixth grade started, Cheetah broke my bed.
\n\u2014Finding Mighty<\/em> by Sheela Chari (Amulet)
\n“You’re a brave lassie.<\/em>” That’s what my grandfather told me as he gave me his shotgun.
\n\u2014The Pearl Thief<\/em> (prequel to Code Name Verity<\/em>) by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion)
\nI’m officially resigning from love. Time in a cell will do that to a kid.
\n\u2014The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora<\/em> by Pablo Cartaya (Viking)
\nOne day I sank to the bottom of the pool and died.
\n\u2014You May Already Be a Winner\u00a0<\/em>by Ann Dee Ellis (Dial)
\nFIRST LINES THAT WORLD-BUILD WITH A BANG<\/strong>
\nAlthea-310 waited for class to begin, sitting in a neat row with her nine sisters.
\n\u2014Your One and Only<\/em> by Adrianne Finlay (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
\nWe had just started over the bridge, toward my party, when the famously cheerful “Don’t Jump” ad clicked on. This had never happened to me before. The billboard’s advertising systems scanned me, analyzed my age, my style, my pulse, and calculated I was in need of a friendly reminder not to kill myself.
\n\u2014All Rights Reserved<\/em> by Gregory Scott Katsoulis (Harlequin Teen)
\nMy parents used to fight a lot.
\nWait. No. Not with each other. They used to fight other people for a living.
\n[Art shows two characters facing a masked grimacing figure in a dark alley, saying to each other, “Why can’t we ever fight in a well-lit alley?” “What happens in the dark stays in the dark.”]
\nYup. My parents are supers. Supervillains, to be exact.
\n\u2014How to Be a Supervillain<\/em> by Michael Fry (Jimmy Patterson)
\nLYRICAL FIRST LINES<\/strong>
\nMy name is Crow.
\nWhen I was a baby, someone tucked me into an old boat and pushed me out to sea.
\nI washed up on a tiny island, like a seed riding the tide.
\n\u2014Beyond the Bright Sea<\/em> by Lauren Wolk (Dutton)
\nPrologue: The Child in the Curds
\nOne dark season, Grandible became certain that there was something living in his domain within the cheese tunnels. To judge by the scuffles, it was larger than a rat, and smaller than a horse. On nights when hard rain beat the mountainside high above, and filled Caverna’s vast labyrinth of tunnels with the music of ticks and trickles and drips, the intruding creature sang to itself, perhaps thinking that nobody could hear.
\n\u2014A Face Like Glass<\/em> by Frances Hardinge (Amulet)
\nPrologue: On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky.
\n\u2014Strange the Dreamer<\/em> by Laini Taylor (Little, Brown)
\nI shall speak of love… and of hate. It is truly a marvel, but I tell you, hatred and love may live cramped together, crouching in the same heart.
\n\u2014Yvain: The Knight of the Lion<\/em> by M.T. Anderson, illus. by Andrea Offerman (Candlewick)
\nLINES THAT SET THE STAGE<\/strong>
\nBefore I tell you what Charlie Fisher saw, the incredible and beautiful thing he witnessed, and how it would set into motion a series of events that would change his life in a very dramatic way for a very long time, I should first explain to you who Charlie was and how he came to be sitting there in the Place Jean Juares in Marseille, France, on a warm Tuesday morning in April 1961.
\n\u2014The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid\u00a0<\/em>by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis (Balzer + Bray)
\nIt was a bloody great hotel.
\nThe minibar in Jule’s room stocked potato chips and four different chocolate bars. The bathtub had bubble jets. There was an endless supply of fat towels and liquid gardenia soap.
\n\u2014Genuine Fraud<\/em> by E. Lockhart (Delacorte)
\nWelcome to Ocean Wonders, the realm of Neptune, god of seas and storms! All life began in the watery depths, where I reign supreme. Everything you see here obeys my command. Behold! In every room of this house, you see the most amazing creatures of my kingdom. I have gathered them from across the oceans and seas for you to gaze upon!
\n\u2014Fish Girl<\/em> by David Wiesner and Donna Jo Napoli (Clarion)
\nIf you ever find yourself on the road to Dullsville, you might encounter an unassuming house. In it reside the Bland Sisters, Jaundice and Kale.
\n\u2014The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters\u00a0<\/em>by Kara LaReau, illus. by Jen Hill (Amulet)
\nSUPERIOR\u00a0SHORT\u00a0STARTS<\/strong>
\nIt’s a lot of pressure to pick a good elf name.
\n\u2014”Secret Samantha” by Tim Federle in\u00a0Flying Lessons & Other Stories<\/em>, edited by Ellen Oh (Crown)
\nLynet first saw her in the courtyard.
\nWell, the girl was in the courtyard. Lynet was in a tree.
\n\u2014Girls Made of Snow and Glass<\/em> by Melissa Bashardoust (Flatiron)
\nBlame my uncle Kenneth. Everybody else does.
\n\u2014”Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains” by Tim Tingle\u00a0in\u00a0Flying Lessons & Other Stories<\/em>, edited by Ellen Oh (Crown)
\nYou can hear a miracle a long way after dark.
\n\u2014All the Crooked Saints\u00a0<\/em>by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press)
\nSmith Fearfall was a scavenger.
\n\u2014The List<\/em> by Patricia Forde (Sourcebooks)
\nOnly eight people at breakfast today, which feels weird.
\n\u2014The Lotterys Plus One<\/em> by Emma Donoghue, illus. by Caroline Hadilaksono (Arthur A. Levine)
\nI spend a lot of time looking up.
\n\u2014Short<\/em> by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Dial)
\nFIRST LINES WITH CHARACTER<\/strong>
\nNani wears a fur coat to the beach.
\nIt’s my second clue she doesn’t plan to go swimming.
\n\u2014”Flying Lessons” by Soman Chainani\u00a0in\u00a0Flying Lessons & Other Stories<\/em>, edited by Ellen Oh (Crown)
\nI’m not a particularly good daughter, but I sat through a month of therapy for my parents’ sake. I like to think they got more out of it than I did.
\n\u2014Nice Try, Jane Sinner<\/em> by Lianne Oelke (Clarion)
\nThis is taking too long. I just want to pay for the shit and go. It’s not like I’m breaking the law or anything\u2014except it totally feels like I’m breaking the law.
\n\u2014Dreadnought<\/em> by April Daniels (Diversion Books)
\n“This gonna be one of them years,” Mama says to me as we watch the ball drop on New Year’s. She doesn’t look at me when she says it, just stares at the TV.
\n\u2014”The Beans and Rice Chronicles of Isaiah Dunn” by Kelly J. Baptist in\u00a0Flying Lessons & Other Stories<\/em>, edited by Ellen Oh (Crown)
\nSartre said hell is other people, but he obviously never experienced a winter heat wave in the Georgia Lowcountry.
\n\u2014Rebels Like Us<\/em> by Liz Reinhardt (Seventeen Fiction from Harlequin Teen)
\nDON’T NOBODY
\nbelieve nothing
\nthese days
\nwhich is why I haven’t
\ntold nobody the story
\nI’m about to tell you.
\nAnd truth is
\nyou probably ain’t
\ngon’ believe it either
\ngon’ think I’m lying
\nor I’m losing it,
\nbut I’m telling you,
\nthis story is true.
\nIt happened to me.
\nReally.
\nIt did.
\nIt\u00a0so<\/em> did.
\n\u2014Long Way Down<\/em> by Jason Reynolds (Caitlyn Dlouhy)
\nThe stepmonster is at it again.
\nRaffles, discount coupons, and magazine sweepstakes lay strewn across the kitchen table. My stepmom sits straight-backed in one of the creaky wooden chairs, delicately cutting out another coupon, dyed blonde hair piled on top of her head in perfect ringlets, lipstick the color of men’s heartblood.
\n\u2014Geekerella<\/em> by Ashley Poston (Quirk Books)
\nNothing made me want to get hit by a bus more than Tuesday night\u00a0happy pill<\/em> (see: Zoloft) runs.
\n\u2014Definitions of Indefinable Things<\/em> by Whitney Taylor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
\nWhere are we going?\u00a0<\/em>Dixie would ask.
\nThe forest,<\/em> I’d say. Or,\u00a0space.
\n<\/em>She never questioned me.
\n\u2014Gem & Dixie<\/i> by Sara Zarr (Balzer + Bray)
\nLINES THAT LET YOU KNOW YOU HAVEN\u2019T READ THIS BOOK BEFORE<\/strong>
\nWhen I was little, a kid pointed at me on the playground and shouted, “Her arms fell off!” then ran away screaming in terror to his mom, who had to cuddle him on her lap and rub his head for like ten minutes to get him to calm down. I think, up until then, I hadn’t thought about the idea that my arms must have\u00a0actually<\/em> fallen off at some point in my life. I had never really thought about not having arms at all.
\n\u2014Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus<\/em> by Dusti Bowling (Sterling)
\nHis mother met his father in Liverpool on a frigid night in 1907. She was not a prostitute but in times of need, short of other forms of employment, she would sell herself to men. She never spent the proceeds frivolously.
\n\u2014Beck<\/em> by Mal Peet (Candlewick)
\nWhen I was sold to the Li family, my mother let Mrs. Li take me only after she’d promised that I would be taught to read.
\n\u2014”The Difficult Path” by Grace Lin in\u00a0Flying Lessons & Other Stories<\/em>, edited by Ellen Oh (Crown)
\nLINES WITH SUPER KID\u00a0OR TEEN APPEAL<\/strong>
\n“When you live in a motel,” I told my audience, “you never know when your neighbors might be fiendish jewel thieves!”
\n\u2014Welcome to Wonderland: Beach Party Surf Monkey<\/em> by Chris Grabenstein (Random House)
\nThere’s not a person in the world who hasn’t heard of Hideo Tanaka, the young mastermind who invented Warcross when he was only thirteen.
\n\u2014Warcross<\/em> by Marie Lu (Putnam)
\nThe funny thing is this: people think that dorky geeks who read all the time are the kinds of kids who don’t get into trouble. But they’re wrong. We do.
\n\u2014One Mixed-Up Night\u00a0<\/em>by Catherine Newman (Random House)
\nIN MEDIAS RES: FIRST LINES THAT PLUNK YOU STRAIGHT INTO THE ACTION<\/strong>
\n“Hey, you kids!” Mr. Schmitz yells up at us. “Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you. The movie’s over. Go home!”
\n\u2014Saturdays with Hitchcock\u00a0<\/em>by Ellen Wittlinger (Charlesbridge)
\nLINES THAT ARE SIMPLY FUN TO SAY<\/strong>
\nOnce upon a not too long time ago, there was a couple named Snorkel.
\n\u2014Lilly and Fin<\/em> by Cornelia Funke (Random House)
\nBefore he was called the Wonderling, he had many names: Puddlehead, Plonker, Groundling, and Spike, among others.
\n\u2014The Wonderling<\/em>\u00a0by Mira Bartok (Candlewick)
\nImogene! Hasten down from that tree! Her Majesty the Queen requests your presence!
\n\u2014All’s Faire in Middle School<\/em> by Victoria Jamieson (Dial)
\nFIRST LINES THAT ALREADY\u00a0MAKE YOU ROOT\u00a0FOR THE MAIN CHARACTER<\/strong>
\nEliza Mirk is the kind of name you give to the creepy girl who clings to her ex-boyfriend for weeks after he’s dumped her because she refuses to accept that he hates her guts. Eliza Mirk is a low-level villain with a secret hideout in the sewers. Eliza Mirk belongs in a comic book.
\nBut Eliza Mirk is me.
\n\u2014Eliza and Her Monsters<\/em> by Francesca Zappia (Greenwillow)
\nArcher was dreaming again, and in the dreams he had no name. He didn’t remember when he’d lost it, but now the men called him\u00a0boy\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0bootlicker<\/em> or nothing at all.
\n\u2014Sea of Ink and Gold: The Speaker<\/em> by Traci Chee (Putnam)
\nHONORABLE MENTIONS<\/strong>
\nHonorable Mention\u00a0for Best Section Header in a Novel<\/strong>
\nPart the First: On the Mysterious Origins of the Wonderling & His Arduous Life at Miss Carbunkle’s Home for Wayward & Misbegotten Creatures
\n\u2014The Wonderling<\/em> by Mira Bartok (Candlewick)
\nHonorable Mention for Promising\u00a0Title<\/strong>
\nLongburrow: Podkin One-Ear – The Legend Begins\u00a0<\/em>by Kieran Larwood (Clarion)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not easy to begin novels in fresh and interesting ways, but these writers managed it in style.<\/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-21985","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\/21985","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=21985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}