First Line Fridays | 01 Aug 2025
Dear Bookbugs,
I am back with another First Line Friday post.
First Line Fridays is a weekly book meme hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
Here’s how it works!
- Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
- Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
- Finally… reveal the book!
Here we go,
First Lines :
Time has no borders except those people make. On this particularly cold autumn day, Ishikava Hana fashioned that border out of the thinnest layer of skin. Eyelids are useful that way. Because as long as she kept her eyelids shut, she could keep the two halves of her life apart : the twenty one years she had lived before she opened her eyes, and all that was going to happen next.
This is the first few lines from my current read. Sounds quite intriguing , doesn’t it? It is a contemporary literary fiction novel. Any guesses?
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I hope you got it!
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And the book is
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I am currently reading Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao. It is a contemporary fiction novel seeped with magical realism and metaphorical situations. I am at least 75% through the book and loving it so far.
Goodreads Synopsis :
A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.
Did you guess the book right away?
Have you read Water Moon ? If so, let me know your thoughts in the comments. Also, share your First Line Fridays posts if you have them. I would love to check them out.
Happy Reading Everyone!
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