How much do you judge a book by its opening lines? I praised P.D. James a while back for her opening lines. It is a wonderful feeling to open a new book with a great sentence or paragraph, but how much does a poor opening sink your hopes for the rest of the book? What do you think of the following openings? Do they pique your interest or leave you flat? (I picked books of similar genre released this year or last.)

1. When the rain isn’t so much falling–be it in bucket loads or like cats and dogs–but rather slamming into the car like an avalanche of stone, you know it’s time to pull over.

When you can’t see much more than the slaphappy wipers splashing through rivers on the windshield, when you’re suddenly not sure if you’re on the road any longer, and your radio emits nothing but static, and you haven’t seen another car since the sky turned black, and your fingers are tense on the wheel in an attempt to steady the old Accord in the face of terrifying wind gusts, you know it’s so totally time to pull over. (source)

2. Starjet Commander Cody Ferguson, six, turned the gears, adjusted the knobs, and jammed the joystick into hyperdrive. Starship Galaxy went into a steep climb, super thrusters whining at top speed.

Back on earth, Daddy looked angry. Mommy cried. The doctor rolled his chair over, put his head close to theirs, and smiled the sour little smile that grown-ups smile when there is nothing in the world to smile about. (source)

3. The guy’s BO made Luke’s eyes water. He had long greasy hair, an eleven o’clock shadow, jeans as brown as they were blue, and a crumpled, stain-riddled Hawaiian shirt.

“This your first time to Agua Rancheria?” He sniffed loudly, wiping his nose.

Luke gave a nod and looked out the bus window, hoping to end the conversation.

No such luck. (source)

4.A dead man spoke to her from the shadows. “Seven o’clock,” his voice rasped, barely audible over the wind tumbling through the dry heat of late summer. “The Mint.”

Even as the wind carried it away, she began telling herself it was an illusion, a ghost speaking to her from the shadows of her own mind rather than the shadows of this pothole-laden street.

Still.

She put down the garbage can and glanced at Steve on the other side of the garbage truck. He was bending down to pick up a couple of clipped branches; if he’d heard the voice, it hadn’t stopped him. (source)

Some dictionary people have a little book of words they say “Every High School Graduate Should Know.” Lenore Skenazy writes about it.

The thing about actual word books — and the whole “Boost Your Vocabulary” industry — is that however fascinating it is to study etymology (unless that’s the study of bugs), some words are just plain old obscure. While delightful in and of themselves, there is really no reason to program words like “perspicacious” into one’s personal database. And yet on just such words hinge the SAT scores (and possibly futures) of many young people.

No reason to learn words like “perspicacious?” How else would a career-minded young lad quote Thomas Hardy, as do all the nigh successful lads in Harvard Square, by referring to “the perspicacious reddleman” who would have “acted more wisely by appearing less unimpressionable?”