Welcome to Book Opening
I love a good book opening, and I hope you do too. A strong opening grabs the reader right away and shows them there’s a story here worth their time.
After reading the first page of hundreds of books, I can tell you most of them don’t quite nail it. What hooks one reader might push another away, sure. There’s a personal element to it. But if the opening honestly represents the book, it will find its right readers on page one.
As a writer, I’ve always spent more time on the first page than any other page in a manuscript. And I think it’s a fair assumption from a reader’s side too. If the first page has been polished more than anywhere else in the book, and it’s still weak, that tells you something about what’s coming after.
How the reviews work
Every review here breaks down into three parts:
- The Opening Line. The very first sentence. Does it earn the second one?
- The Opening Paragraph. How does that first line hold up once the next few sentences arrive?
- The Opening Page. By the time we reach the end of page one, are we in this story?
I’ll leave my honest thoughts and a rating from one to five stars. You’re welcome to leave your own review and rating too. Every reader’s stars count the same as mine, and the averages will sort themselves out.
One last thing
This is a review of book openings, not of books. A rough opening might belong to a masterpiece. A brilliant opening doesn’t guarantee the rest of the novel delivers. What we’re rating here is just the first page (or less) that I’ve posted, and nothing beyond that.