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December 20, 2019

Top 10 First Lines of 2019

The first line(s) of a book is the reader's first impression. It sets the tone. Some are famous. Most are meh. Others cause a gasp. A good first line solicits an immediate reaction: Ooh🤩 Do tell🧐 Aww😍 Whaaaaat😳 Well damn😵 Oh my🤭  And so, below are the best first lines I've read this year. 


10. "My last marriage was made in heaven." ~ Even the Stars Look Lonesome by Maya Angelou

9. "Everyone hated a fat woman, but none more than she hated herself." ~ Waisted by Randy Susan Meyers

8. "I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition." ~ A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum

7. "I was pregnant at thirty. Divorced at thirty-one. Lost at thirty-two." ~ Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

6. "My trial starts the way my life did: a squall of elbows and shoving and spit." ~ The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

5. "She's sitting at the bus stop checking the likes on her Instagram feed and doesn't even notice the man with the gun until he's almost next to her." ~ The Chain by Adrian McKinty

4. "For many Democrats and African-Americans alike, 2020 just can't come soon enough. It's not merely a 'Dump Trump' sentiment, but also about the deep hope for new and improved policies that affect Black lives." ~ Talking Politics and Black America by Melissa Knowles - Ebony July 31, 2019 Issue

3. "Four months from now, on a secluded beach in Turkey, Davis Winger, who came thousands of miles to start over, will drop his towel and paperback on the sand, wade into the sea, and end up under the tire of a Hyundai that has just come screeching over an embankment. He will be trapped under that car, pinned to the seabed with one final breath crowding his lungs." ~ A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall by Andy Abramowitz

2. "The day I came squealing and squalling into the world was the first time someone tried to kill me." ~ Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

1. "When the boy was four, he asked his father why people needed sleep. His father said, 'So God could unfuck all the things people fuck up.'" ~ The Travelers by Regina Porter

 

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