First Line Friday No. 28

Because I recently won the Beautiful Creatures series, I thought today we'd take a peek at the first page.  It's most intriguing.

"There were only two kinds of people in our town.  "The stupid and the stuck," my father had affectionately classified our neighbors.  "The ones who are bound to stay or the ones too dumb to go.  Everyone else finds a way out."  There was no question which one he was, but I'd never had the courage to ask why.  My father was a writer, and we lived in Gatlin, South Carolina, because the Wates always had, since my great-great-great-great grand-dad, Ellis Wate, fought and died on the other side of the Santee River during the Civil War.

Only the folks down here didn't call it the Civil War.  Everyone under the age of sixty called it the War Between the States, while everyone over sixty called it the War of Northern Aggression, as if somehow the North had baited the South into war over a bad bale of cotton.  Everyone, that is, except my family.  We called it the Civil War."

--from Beautiful Creatures by Kami Marcia and Margaret Stohl

My reasons to keep reading:

1.  What is the character's relationship with their father like?
2.  What does their father write?
3.  Was the greatx4 relative a Northern soldier (dying on the other side of the Santee)?
4.  What is the family's feeling on the Civil War?
5.  Why are they the only family to call it that?

Another interesting thing about this story is that the two writers wrote these books on a dare.  They wanted to prove to their kids that books could be interesting without vampires or werewolves.

And now the first book is a feature film!

I can't wait to start reading these.

Happy weekend!