First Line Fridays: 22nd May 2020

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers 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?

• 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!

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The first lines of today’s book are:

‘You tell me that women are weak-willed! You tell me that women are weak-spirited, and foolish, and ignorant, and only fit to stay at home and raise the children.’ The woman on the orange crate paused, then added, ‘Hardly seems fair on the children, does it?’

And the book is….

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Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls

Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells and the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote.

Evelyn is seventeen, and though she is rich and clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, and vows to pay the ultimate price for women’s freedom.

May is fifteen, and already sworn to the cause, though she and her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who’s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together and in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place.

But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May and Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice?

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Have you read this book? If yes, what did you think of it?

Tell me your thoughts in the comments!

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