First Lines Friday

It’s Friday again and after my long search for new books – saved in my WWW Wednesday post, I have decided to try out different books I may read in the future by analyzing the first paragraph. I will, as always, cite the first lines, then write down my thoughts and reveal the book at the end!

We were all villains in the beginning. For hundreds of years, prodigies were feared by the rest of the world. We became hunted. Tormented. Feared and oppressed. We were believed to be witches and demons, freaks and abominations. We were stoned and hanged and set afire while crowds gathered to watch with cruel eyes, proud to be ridding the world of one more pariah.

Oh, my goodness. How can any beginning be so gripping? I have to admit, I couldn’t stop right there, I had to read two more pages before I could stop myself. This is one hell of a way to start a book. And it only gets better from there.

The first sentence alone is a WOW factor. That statement is just powerful and the following sentences are playing with emotions just as much as the first one. I love the fact that the author uses anaphoras to underline the message and meaning – that just makes it more powerful as it already is. What I also love are the short sentences of only one, two or three words and then the long enumerations what happened and what they were feared for.

Okay, I think everyone who has read this book will most definetely recognize this first paragraph as it’s one you don’t forget easily. Let’s not talk more, here’s the book:

Renegades by Marissa Meyer! What a surprise. I have been ogling this book for a while after loving The Lunar Chronicles and now I think it’s settled – I am definitely reading this series. A lot of people loved this series and I think it’s pretty safe I will too, as the writing is incredible. I immensely enjoyed Meyer’s writing style while reading her other books and so that is, also after just reading the first two pages, already a contributing factor.

A thing I am really excited to explore is the fact that the protagonist is the “bad” person, so to say. That’s what it said on the back of the book anyways, but let’s not have prejudice thinking, it’s probably going to be different in the book anyway. However, I am really eager to try that concept and am very happy to have chosen this book as my next project!

I hope you enjoyed this tiny post and have a great Friday!