The 52 Book Club: 2026 Challenge discussion

INDIVIDUAL SPORTS: Bronze

7) BOXING: A strong opening hook

Watch out for your opponent’s right hook! It’s time for the individual sports and we’re starting with a boxing match. For this prompt, we’re looking for a book with “a strong opening hook.” A hook is a sentence or two that piques the reader’s interest and compels them to keep reading. (Think of it like an elevator pitch!) The hook may be written on the cover, it may be the first sentence in the book blurb or summary, or it may be the opening sentence in the book.



Here is the link for our Goodreads List, feel free to add your suggestions to it!

Found my choice at the list, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

The Pushy by Ashley Audrain

If I wasn't already using it for "flames" I'd say Fahrenheit 451. He dives right in to the story.

Peter pan is on the Listopia and is my classic book club's July pick, so that's the one I'll use here.

Rory is an antihero for the ages. Like Shakespeare’s Richard III, she confides in her audience, telling us exactly the lengths she’ll go to to secure the leading role in Bosworth Academy’s senior musical, confessing without shame that she is charming and conniving and brutally ambitious, that we will watch and root for her even as she manipulates and endangers those around her. And we do.

Made Glorious

I can't not pursue this.

I read The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life, which starts with the story of harpooning (which one might say is a big hook) and getting pulled under because of the rope caught on the leg of one of the fishermen.

Interesting look at culture of the Lamaleran people of Indonesia.

Dark Truths by A.J. Cross was a library loan that I'd waited a while for, & I loved it. Also the first in a new to me series, so several more books to enjoy. Don't you just love finding a new series?

I read The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel. I was invested right from the first sentence.

My pick for this prompt is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, right now. It has one of the all-time great opening lines:

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.'

It says so much, in so few words.

I read The Husbands by Holly Gramazio. I just couldn't put it down. https://cdnbookworm.blogspot.com/2024...

Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook by Christina Henry. So very brutal, but so very good.

I'm choosing A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The first line is "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

Hard to beat that!

I read End of Story by A.J. Finn, a thriller that I enjoyed very much. If you ever need a book with an unreliable narrator, this is definitely one!

Started reading Animal by Lisa Taddeo and I knew I had to use it for this prompt.

Listened to the audiobook of The Imitation Game. Not only a strong opening hook, with a setting during the Second World War, but strong read overall. Heartbreaking and interesting story.

I read Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, 3.5 Stars

I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. It was okay, but the first paragraph ending in "Everyone else in my family is dead" def draws you in.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena