Top Five Tuesday – Opening/First Lines in Books and a Challenge

First lines aren’t always that great. It usually takes a good fifty pages to determine the quality of a book or measure your potential enjoyment. Nonetheless, after combing through my Goodreads ‘Read’ shelf, I managed to find six I loved and one I had to cut.

And, okay, so it’s not technically Tuesday but in a few years down the line, nobody will really know, will they? Oh, wait. They will because I’ve just specified it’s not Tuesday. In that case, I hope I will be remembered as a rebel. *uhhhh-winkety wink.*

Anyway, Top 5 Tuesday is hosted by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm and I know that I normally do not participate in Top Ten’s and Top Five’s but when I saw this opening line theme, I just knew it would be good fun! So, for the first time, here are my top 5 opening lines:

*** Trigger Warning: this post covers a section which persons may find distressing. Please proceed with caution or do not continue if you are sensitive about topics on suicide. ***

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”

Best. Opening. Line. Ever…. For me. Actually, this is the first and only line I thought of without having to go through my Read shelf. Did I know that it would becomeone of my faves? Yes. Mitchell had me hooked from the very beginning and managed to leave me wanting more even after a 1,000 or so pages.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

“I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.”

I am currently reading this beautiful and wonderful book which I never want to end and not just because I know what the ending is but because I dearly relate to Anne. I understood her completely within the first few pages and moved this way past most of the other books on my TBR.

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

“Is today a good day to die?”

I did warn you. I know it’s not the “best” line to hear but I knew I had to listen. The opening line is grim but it’s also a line that echoes throughout the book and can resonate with a lot of people who have to deal with the grim realities of mental health on a daily and fluctuating basis. This is also my favourite YA book ever and I find Finch easily relatable which is a huge contributing factor as to why I love this book. I am so disappointed to hear that Elle Fanning may be cast in the rumoured film adaptation as I am trying to avoid films with actors and actresses who’ve worked with Woody Allen and haven’t apologised for it or tried to make amends.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.”

Mistress Mary, quite contrary is really not that contrary after all. Don’t bail on a disagreeable-looking and disagreeable child, okay?

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.”

For those of us who have read it, we know what happened during that day. For those of you who don’t, please read it and I will warn you beforehand that if you have experienced trauma, please take caution before proceeding.

What are your favourite opening book lines?

Samaritans hotline (UK): 116 123

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US)

List of suicide crisis lines

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A Challenge

Thank you to Denny @ Theceaselessreaderwrites for tagging me for this, I can assure you it was no easy feat to settle on an author and I debated long and hard between Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain. Denny challenged me to name my favourite 19^th century author, share some of his or her works, a few quotes and provide biological details and challenge some other bloggers too! Denny featured Thomas Hardy and I’ve read Tess of the D’urbervilles which was written by Hardy. Although, I will admit the language was way above my comprehension level, I still appreciated his commentary on class divisions and thoroughly sympathised with Tess.

Although Little Women is a book I’ll love and remember forever, I’ve decided on Mark Twain because in terms of viewpoints, I definitely agree with many of his beliefs.

Mark Twain: 13/11/1835 – 21/4/1910, an American writer, humourist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer.

He is one of my favourite authors as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of my favourite books and definitely one that I would take with me on a stranded island. This book screams fun, fun, fun and resourcefulness!

I, also, greatly appreciate his stance on anti-imperialism and, in addition, he was a huge advocate of women’s rights and a supporter of the abolition of slavery. Basically, he was a good man.

Although, I did not enjoy The Adventures of Tom Sawyer because there was a significant lack of a plot, I admired Tom Sawyer’s entrepreneurialism and I’m eagerly looking forward to reading The Prince and the Pauper, another book (thanks to Goodreads previews) that I’ve pushed up on my TBR list.

Mark Twain quotes:

“I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.”

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

I Tag:

Baking Thad Books

Curious Hart

In Her Books

No pressure to do the tags! Tags aside, who is your favourite 19th century author? Or do you have a couple of favourites?

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And before you go, I’d quickly like to add that I’ve finally gotten around to updating my About Me page. I can’t believe I only had a single line up which was “you can’t tell me what to think.” Blame it on the anti-social side of me, my reserved Gemini twin must not have been in the mood to share information, it was in the Terrible Guest mode. I’ve now updated it to at least four or more paragraphs which hopefully gives you a little more insight. I experienced a SLIGHT problem trying to create an About Me page as it won’t seem to feature on my homepage, so I would appreciate some help from you as well as with the grammatical errors as I’m sure you’ve noticed some pages begin with lower caps and I can’t seem to change it! I’m thinking it’s a theme issue.