Greetings, bookish friends! As y’all have probably figured out, one aspect of a book that I often love is a well-crafted sentence. You can look for examples of my language level obsession throughout my blog, including, but not limited to, here, here, and here. (Shameless plug over…for now.)
So, I feel like it was only a matter of time before I made a whole post just celebrating incredible examples of language. So that’s what today is. A celebration of first lines that were so well written, so well crafted, that I was sucked into the narrative from the first moment.*
*This post contains affiliate links. If you make purchases after using these links, I will earn a percentage of your purchase without any further cost to you.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Bantam Classics, 1983 (1818). Ah yes, Pride and Prejudice. How could I not start with one of the more iconic lines in literature, and also one of my favorite books of all time? Much of Austen’s work is witty and well written, but there’s something about the beginning of Pride and Prejudice that just draws readers in. I. Love. Jane. Austen.
“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.” Ng, Celeste. Little Fires Everywhere. Penguin Press, 2017. Well that sure escalated quickly. As someone who grew up in Ohio, I loved Little Fires Everywhere for all the Ohio geography and lore it included. But that line. Let me tell ya - it’s hard not to be intrigued when a book starts with a house fire caused by a child.
“It was an ordinary spring day in Istanbul, a long and leaden afternoon like so many others, when she discovered, with a hollowness in her stomach, that she was capable of killing someone.” Shafak, Elif. Three Daughters of Eve. Bloomsbury, 2017. This book is honestly one of my favorite books of all time. While I haven’t talked about Three Daughters of Eve much on this blog (yet), when I read it a few years ago, it became an instant favorite. This line is like a kick in the stomach - shocking and unexpected. And the rest of the novel develops in a literary whirlwind, with Shafak’s signature use of lyrical language.
“It was the first day of my humiliation.” Smith, Zadie. Swing Time, Penguin Press, 2016. If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you may know that I am absolutely obsessed with Zadie Smith (okay, so maybe I wasn’t totally done with the shameless plugs yet). And Swing Time is absolutely the source of that obsession. This book was an instant favorite of mine, in large part because I was drawn in from the start. Who is this narrator? Why are they humiliated? I. Am. Intrigued. And the book didn’t disappoint.
“I unlocked the safe beneath my desk, grabbed my old service automatic, and crept toward my bedroom doorway, stealthy until I was brought to grief by a Lego Duplo that stung the sole of my foot.” Wilkinson, Laren. American Spy. Random House, 2018. American Spy is a brilliant example of how spy novels and thrillers can also be literary at their core. And that is demonstrated from line one. Wilkinson creates a dichotomy from the start - gun versus toy, that leads readers to wonder what could have led the character to this point.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past fifteen years, it’s this: that murder is really no big deal.” Harris, Joanne. Gentlemen and Players. Harper Perennial, 2006. I love dark academia. In my own writing (which I hope will one day see the light of day), I am hoping to fit myself into this subgenre. And Gentlemen and Players was really the first novel I read that fits into that category of dark academia. And what’s more dark academic than a little bit of murder?
“Even in death the boys were trouble.” Whitehead, Colson, The Nickel Boys. Doubleday, 2019. I first read The Nickel Boys based on a poll held over on my Instagram page, and I was obsessed from the start.
“My sister, Greta, and I were having our portrait painted by our uncle Finn that afternoon because he knew he was dying. Brunt, Carol Rifka. Tell the Wolves I’m Home. Dial Press Trade Paperbacks, 2012. I read this book in college (so years ago), and it has stuck with me since. This might be one of the first books I read to realize that I loved books that made me cry because crying can be so cathartic. Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a study in tragedy, loss, and coping with AIDS at the height of the AIDS epidemic - when shame and alienation were part and parcel with the declining health that many AIDS patients suffered.
“The first time we have sex, we are both fully clothed, at our desks during working hours, bathed in blue computer light.” Leilani, Raven. Luster. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. Luster was the first book I reviewed on this blog, and there’s a reason for that. It’s a great book. It balances detail with action, and puts on display the self-destructive behaviors of the protagonist. And this beginning demonstrates all of that, right from the start.
“We didn’t believe when we first heard because you know how church folk can gossip.” Bennett, Britt. The Mothers. Riverhead Books, 2016. So, I started this post with an iconic quote and I’m ending it with one as well. Britt Bennett is one of the most talented contemporary writers and her ability to craft a sentence is unparalleled. Read more about my Britt Bennett fangirling here. And she begins her first novel, The Mothers, with so much intrigue that readers can’t help but keep reading.
So what are your favorite first lines in literature? Share below!
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