Book beginnings is a meme set up by Rose City Reader. Every Friday post the first line of the book you’re reading along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Then add a link to your post on Rose City Reader’s blog.

My Book Beginning

13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough

Ophelia. She was young. No more than eighteen. Probably less. Her hair could be blonde or brown, it was hard to tell, soaked wet in the gloom. She was wearing white, bright against the dark river, almost an accent to the fresh snow that lay heavy on the ground. Her pale face, blue lips slightly parted, was turned up to the inky sky. She was snagged on twigs as if the bent branches, bare of leaves and broken by winter, had grasped to save her, to keep her afloat.

What an opening! This is the best opening to a novel that I’ve read in a really long time, I just want to keep reading right now! The short staccato sentences at the very beginning, and then the longer ones that are almost like a list are wonderfully intense and give so much information. I want to know who this girl is and how she got in the river. Did she drown? Was she murdered? Has there been a terrible accident? The description is so vivid, and I can’t stop thinking about the branches that appear to have tried to save her. How beautiful and how tragic at the same time. I cannot wait to read more of this book and I’m certain it’ll be one I read in one sitting.