We try to not judge books by their covers, but first lines? Well, that’s a different story. In a world of so many books (and so little time!), we have to be selective…and a great opening can make the difference between “want to read” eventually and “want to read” now.
Check out how the winners of this year’s Goodreads Choice Awards hooked readers below. Which first lines make you want to read more?
“Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.”
“There was something you wanted to tell me, wasn’t there?”
“My story begins on a sweltering August night, in a place I will never set eyes upon.”
“Dougal—you settle down now, please.”
“I have an impressive collection of trophies that I did not win.”
“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.”
“Regardless of how you got here, I’m so glad you did.”
“This is my story of what happened.”
“The scientist had forgotten all about the radium.”
“In recent years, no more than a week goes by without news of a cosmic discovery worthy of banner headlines.”
“When I was in my early twenties, I thought I was busy.”
“I shouldn’t have come to this party.”
“The buzzing flies and screaming survivors had long since replaced the beating war-drums.”
“‘Try it again,’ Percy told me. ‘This time with less dying.'”
What’s your favorite first sentence of 2017? Share it with us in the comments!
By Hayley
Source: Goodreads
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