Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm not sure how I heard about this book, Minding Ben by Victoria Brown. Maybe it was the bright green cover that caught my eye.
The blurb on the cover says 16-year-old Grace goes from Trinidad to Brooklyn. She ends up working for an upper middle class family that baffles her and slowly reveal their secrets.
Here's the first couple paragraphs:
The whole thing, from start to finish, from first talk to walk off the plane, took about ten weeks total. That was it. Ten weeks and I went from a small village on a small island to the middle of New York City. Well, to Brooklyn, but still, can you imagine?
On the morning I left, my mother came into the room I shared with my sister, Helen, and placed her hand on my shoulder. I didn't move, I just lay there feeling her cold fingers through the thin fabric of my nightie, thinking how this would be the last time my mother would come into my room and wake me with her touch.
I like the conversational tone of the writing in these first few graphs.
What do you think? Would you keep reading?
9 comments:
I like this intro a lot. It would hold my interest.
Oh yes, I would read this (and I have it too -- so maybe I should get to it huh? LOL).
Sounds like it will be an interesting book...
I would keep reading.
This is a great first paragraph and totally grabs my attention. This is a book I want to read. I hoipe you review it :o)
I like the conversational tone too...sounds like it would keep the reader involved:)
♥ Melissa @ Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf
Well, having just sent my only daughter off to college, I think the opening paragraph hit a little too close to home (you know how sensitive I am about these things!). Maybe I'll read it at another time.
Looks good to me.
I read this one last year, and found it be a somewhat uneven read. I most enjoyed the parts dealing with the playground politics of the West Indian nannies and Grace's struggles to provide for her family at home, but I found some of the other characterizations very one-dimensional, almost to the point of caricature.
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