Top Ten Tuesday #5

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish 

This week's topic: Top Ten Favorite Beginnings/Endings in Books. I've divided the two, so I have listed my top 5 favorite beginnings, and my top 5 favorite ends.

Top Five Favorite Beginnings:

"I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin." Other than the fact that this book starts out with Kat Stephenson trying to run away disguised as a boy, I just adore these opening lines. It introduces the Reader to Kat as a character so well, and they are very memorable.

"It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die." Another really memorable and attention-grabbing beginning phrase. But the whole beginning itself - when Sean Kendrick is a boy and witnessing his father's death during a Scorpio Race - is a terrific setup for the story's tone, Sean's world, and even Sean's character. It told me everything I needed to know about this book.

Entwined doesn't have a very memorable opening phrase, but I found Azalea anticipating her first ball to be intriguing; I wanted to know how it would go for her. And then, of course, her mother dies, and that leads into everything else, and I just couldn't stop reading at that point.

The world of Near is introduced with Lexi telling her sister Wren a bedtime story about the wind calling to children, beckonening them outside, and of a powerful witch who was once in the village. The opening is haunting, spooky, intriguing, and makes you feel just like a kid again in the middle of a windy winter night, with candles burning and a quiet voice calling you to come outside. With such a beginning, I had to finish the book.

"I would very much like to know why my mother named me 'Enola,' which, backwards, spells alone." This is the beginning of Chapter One. But I was hooked by the Prologue, which begins with a veiled woman in the dark streets of the East End of London in 1888. It promises mystery, maybe a murder, but mostly mystery. And of course, once Enola is introduced, I, too, wanted to find out why her mother named her that. And when her mother goes missing, I wanted to know more, and when it's revealed the Enola is Sherlock Holmes' sister - well, there was no stopping me from finishing this book.

Top Five Favorite Endings:

The climax of Ranger's Apprentice actually had me on the edge of my seat. Would the Kalkara kill Halt? Would Will continue his Ranger training? But mostly, would Halt be killed? I didn't know; I could have seen it going in either direction. And the direction it did take I liked very much.

In truth, I liked everything in this book. The beginning, the middle, and the end. But I really loved the end. It had a ton of surprises and a great setup for the sequel, and was overall satisfying. I just loved it.

Everyone knows what happens at the ball when Cinderella goes there. So the twists that this particular Cinderella ball had were really awesome. It made the story more exciting, more of a - well, a story, and it set up the sequel very nicely. There were some awesome revelations, I loved the twist on the glass slipper, and it made me want to keep reading.

I loved the beginning and middle as much as the end, but since we're talking about favorite ends, and not middles or beginnings, that is beside the point. The end was a bit abrupt, but it worked and the climax was amazing. Full of twists and revelations, I cannot wait until the sequel!

Yet again, a great climax! With twists and revelations - and of course, the promise of a sequel that I at first wasn't pleased about, but then decided that okay, it was awesome.