17 Fantasy And Sci-fi Novels You’ll Want To Read Based On Their First Line Alone
The Fireman by Joe Hill. “Harper Grayson had seen lots of people burn on TV, everyone had, but the first person she saw burn for real was in the playground behind the school.”
Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury. “There’s something about lounging in a bath of blood that makes me want to stay until my fingers shrivel enough to show the outlines of my bones.”
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. “Yadriel wasn’t technically trespassing because he’d lived in the cemetery his whole life. But breaking into the church was definitely crossing the moral-ambiguity line.”
This Savage Song by V.E. Schwab. “The night Kate Harker decided to burn down the school chapel, she wasn’t angry or drunk. She was desperate.”
Forget Her by Holly Riordan. “An announcement cuts into my movie marathon uninvited. ‘You can’t change your past, but you can cleanse your memories,’ it says in messy, mismatched fonts. Like a ransom note.”
Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth. “The drain looked the same every time, with all the people screaming as they ran away from the giant dark cloud of chaos but never running fast enough.”
The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. “Aliens are stupid. I’m not talking about real aliens. The Others aren’t stupid. The Others are so far ahead of us, it’s like comparing the dumbest human to the smartest dog. No contest. No, I’m talking about the aliens inside our own heads.”
Replica by Lauren Oliver. “On very still nights sometimes we can hear them chanting, calling for us to die.”
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. “By the time Alex managed to get the blood out of her good wool coat, it was too warm to wear it.”
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. “Look, I am aware that you’re here for an epic tale of intrigue and mystery and adventure and near death and actual death, but in order to get to that (unless you want to skip to chapter 13—I’m not your boss), you’re going to have to deal with the fact that I, April May, in addition to being one of the most important things that has ever happened to the human race, am also a woman in her twenties who has made some mistakes.”
Here And Now And Then. “No pulse beat beneath the skin.”
The End of the World Running Club Kindle Edition by Adrian J. Walker. “Beliefs are strange. Things of certainty about things uncertain. Take mine, for example. I believe there are graves in the field next to the house where I live.”
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. “The woman who discovered the comet, Yumiko Sakamoto, age twenty-eight, was an amateur astronomer in Okayama Prefecture, in the town of Kurashiki.”
Oona Out Of Order by Margarita Montimore. “Oona stopped trusting the mirror years ago. After all, it told only a sliver of the story.”
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. “Patricia was crying. Wallace Price hated it when people cried.”
14 by Peter Clines. “He ran. He ran as fast as he could. As if Hell itself were chasing him. As if his life depended on it.”
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. “I hate first Friday. It makes the village crowded, and now, in the heat of high summer, that’s the last thing anyone wants.”