Book Beginnings and Friday 56 – Optimists Die First (May 26)

For this week’s Friday meme combo I have chosen a book I recently received from LibraryThing for review, Optimists Die First by Susan Nielsen. I also received her previous book for review and enjoyed that one, so I’m looking forward to getting into this one soon. GoodReads has the following description:

Life ahead: Proceed with caution.

Sixteen-year-old Petula De Wilde is anything but wild. A family tragedy has made her shut herself off from the world. Once a crafting fiend with a happy life, Petula now sees danger in everything, from airplanes to ground beef.

The worst part of her week is her comically lame mandatory art therapy class. She has nothing in common with this small band of teenage misfits, except that they all carry their own burden of guilt.

When Jacob joins their ranks, he seems so normal and confident. Petula wants nothing to do with him, or his prosthetic arm. But when they’re forced to collaborate on a unique school project, she slowly opens up, and he inspires her to face her fears.

Until a hidden truth threatens to derail everything.

Now for this week’s excerpts:

Book Beginnings is hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader, who invites anyone to join in, saying: ‘Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.  Please remember to include the title of the book and the author. Leave a link to your post.  If you don’t have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.’

The beginning of Optimists Die First:

The first time I saw the Bionic Man I was covered in sparkles.

I don’t remember the first time I saw the Bionic Man, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t covered in sparkles!

The Friday 56 is a book meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are as follows:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.

It’s that simple.

From page 56 of Optimists Die First:

I marched over and grabbed the scrapbook from his lap. It was open to my most recent page.

Woman Dies from Minor Cut on Finger

A mother of two contracted necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as flesh-eating disease, after receiving a minor paper cut at work…

I’m not sure what kind of scrapbook we are talking about here, but I look forward to finding out soon. I hope to make a start on it this weekend anyway.