This is something new for me. I love to read book reviews, but shudder at the thought of writing them. They send me into that swirling toilet flush of memories of book reports … which remind me of school … which remind me of homework … which is to be avoided at all costs.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved school and certainly did my share of homework — enthusiastically, I might add, because I was one of Those Kids — but there was always something a bit sinister in the dreaded Book Report. How could I possibly report on something I found so moving or that spoke to me in a new voice or that opened my mind to new ideas?
So, I’ve decided to break Book Report’s hold over me and create a format I can support. There’s no rhyme or reason to the books I read and choose to review, but I’m calling them First Page Reviews, because they’re just that. A review of the first page. Any book you hear about here definitely gets two thumbs up … or five stars … or the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval … or whatever fabutastic books get.
This speaks to me as a writer because first pages are how editors and literary agents judge us. We struggle for months, sometimes years, for the best opening for our novels.
Sometimes They give us as many as three pages before They make a judgment about our writing, but I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard industry professionals say if the first sentence doesn’t grab them, then that’s all they read. Not EVEN one page. So I’ve become a student of first pages and thought you’d like to hear about excellent books with great openings.
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First Page Review — HARLEY LIKE A PERSON by Cat Bauer
First Page:
I’m under the bed. They don’t know it. They think I’ve run away again. And I have. Only this time I’m under the bed.
I can see their shoes as they walk around my room. There are my mother’s small fat feet squished into a pair of blue K-Mart specials. My father’s cowboy boots stampede across the linoleum floor. In the corner, my tiny sister, Lily, flutters her pink ballet slippers against the metal bed frame. She whispers “row, row, row your boat” over and over.
Read the rest of the review and the interview with Cat Bauer.
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First Page Review — FORGED BY FIRE by Sharon Draper
First Page:
If you don’t sit your stinkin’ useless butt back down in that shopping cart, I swear I’ll bust your greasy face in!” she screamed at the three-year-old in front of her. He studied her face, decided she was serious, and put his leg back inside the cart. He was standing near the front end of the cart, amidst an assorted pile of cigarette boxes, egg cartons, and pop bottles. He didn’t want to sit down anyway because of the soft, uncomfortable load in his pants, which had been there all afternoon and which felt cold and squishy when he moved too much. He rarely had accidents like that, but when he did, Mama sometimes made him keep it in his pants all day to “teach him a lesson.”
Read the rest of the review and the interview with Sharon Draper.
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