I wanted to share with you some of my favorite first lines from various novels. By definition, the first line of a book is the first thing we read. From them we can get a hint about the story and the feeling of the book. They’re the kind of thing that can be SUPER impactful if done well, but never hurts the story if they’re not a “blow-you-away” kind of line.

Some of them I like because they are funny, others because they are jarring, and others because they’re just damn beautiful.

If you’ve been reading my posts until now, then you might know I love the Red Rising series (by Pierce Brown). If you didn’t know or are new to the blog then here it is: I LOVE THE RED RISING SERIES!!!! It’s an epic science fiction series that is about a dystopian society that has class hierarchies described by color, with Golds being the top of society. Each color has a type of job that they’re allowed to do, and everything is very restrictive – you can’t marry outside your class (each color is genetically modified, some with special enhancements but also so that you can’t conceive children outside of your own color). Anyway it’s brilliant and brutal and gut-wrenching and you all gotta read it.

The fifth book in the series was released at the end of July, and Pierce went on tour to promote it. I am lucky to live close to New York City, so I was able to attend his even there on the 7th at the Barnes and Noble Union Square.

I wanted to share with you my experience of the event and meeting Pierce! I’ve included a lot of the stuff I could remember from Pierce’s discussion and Q&A session which will hopefully those of you who wanted to see him but couldn’t will enjoy 🙂 Sorry in advance, this is kind of a long one! But it’s worth it 🙂

P.S. There may be slight spoilers for the original trilogy + Iron Gold! But most of it is pretty tame.

Somehow we’ve made it halfway through the year. How?? is that?? possible? I have no idea. Naturally, this means I’m looking forward to the second half of the year to see what exciting books are coming up. Let’s not think about the books I acquired in the first half of the year that I still haven’t read LOL. Here are some upcoming books that I’m the most excited for!

Thank you to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting/organizing Top Ten Tuesday!

Okay guys. THESE COVERS. I just. Cannot. They’re all so beautiful and I love them so much!!! Also it’s funny how the two covers with the black snake line up with one another 😂.

I have to say, of these I’m MOST excited for Angel Mage. Garth Nix is one of my favorite authors ever, and I’m super excited for him to be writing a new fantasy novel!!!! It sounds incredible.

Here are the summaries of the books from Goodreads! For some of them, they’re later books in a series so I’ve put the summary of the first book instead since I don’t want to spoil the series.

Firstname Lastname is a no one with nowhere to go. With a name that is the result of an unfortnate clerical error and destined to be one of the only humans on an alien space station. That is until she sneaks aboard a ship and joins up with a crew of repomen (they are definitely not pirates).

Now she's traveling the galaxy "recovering" ships. What could go wrong?

Have I talked about how much I love heist stories? Because I do. Both in books (think Six of Crows) and movies (Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, etc). Earlier this year I read Patrick S. Tomlinson’s novel Gate Crashers and loved it, so when I saw he had a new novel coming out that was more heists in space, how could I resist?

Starship Repo actually takes places in the same universe as Gate Crashers, but rest assured you don’t need to read that one first at all. There are some small callbacks for those who did, but you could read them completely separately. It follows a human teenager named, hilariously, Firstname Lastname (she goes by First). Ridiculous, right? But also amazing. There was a clerical error somewhere along the line, and since she’s a runaway she just stuck with it. At first she makes her living as a small time pickpocket, aircar thief, and con lady. She eventually gets kinda forcibly recruited into a crew of “repo men”, who repossess ships from rich beings who haven’t kept up their payments, and return them to the banks/owners for a fee. Basically, legal space pirates. What’s not to like??

If that didn’t convince you to read it, here is the cast of characters (aside from First) in the author’s own words: “There’s a transgender crab alien, a brain in a jar, a communal organism, and a hentai tentacle monster living in the sewers with strong opinions about music piracy.” Seriously though, the characters make the book. Each one is so unique, and has an amazing personality. I’m majorly impressed with Tomlinson’s creativity, since all of the characters is a different species of being, and all the different species are so COOL. I’m also a sucker for found family stories, and this is definitely one. First is like their semi-rebellious child that they adopt along the way and I loved seeing the bonds develop between her and the rest of the characters.

There’s plenty of action and lots of heists in the novel, which keeps it going at a great pace. The only thing that brings it down to 4.5 from 5 stars is that I wanted a tad more of a larger plot. There is a background overarching plot through the whole novel, but it was pretty light. The plot focuses on a handful of different heists, which was awesome! I just wanted a bit more cohesiveness. But on the plus side one of the heists involves a high speed space race, so that’s pretty awesome.

The writing is also really fun to read, and the science part of the science fiction is never overwhelming. I noted this in Gate Crashers and I’m pleased to see it here as well – Tomlinson has clearly done his homework with space/physics/science/etc. The reference to Lagrange points killed me!! My astrodynamics loving heart.

There is also so much humor! Not the laugh out loud kind, but the kind that keeps you smiling and brings out the occasional snort. More so than Gate Crashers in my opinion, or maybe it just flows better in this one. There are also funny little pop culture references that are amazing and well done. For example:

“Yippee ki-yay, motherfu—”

“Language, young lady,” Hashin said from his own seat as he applied some sort of medicated patch to his upper arm.

“But how did you even know . . .”

“We’ve all seen Die Hard. We have Christmas out here, too, you know. It’s mostly a retail-driven holiday, but then, what holiday isn’t?”

Patrick S. Tomlinson, Starship Repo (quote taken from eARC, subject to change)

Anyway, I truly enjoyed this and highly recommend it to everyone!! Especially if you’re a scifi fan, or a found families fan, or a heist fan.

Thank you SO MUCH to Tor Books for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley for review!

Well apparently I’m not very good at doing this more than once a month haha. The past few books that I’ve read have been amazing and fun and it feels good to be on this streak of great books. I’m gonna include a selection from the past month or so. Maybe you’ll find something to add to your list!