Friday Firsts

The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? Participating in this weekly book meme is extremely easy, so bring it on! (And don’t forget to link back to Well-Read Reviews!)

*Grab the book you are currently reading and open to the first page.

*Write down the first sentence in the first paragraph.
*Create a blog post with this information. (Make sure to include the title & author of the book you are using.) Did this first sentence help draw you into the story? Why or why not?
*Link back to Well-Read Reviews in your blog entry.
*That’s it!

My Friday Firsts is from: The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer

When Isaac Amin sees two men with rifles walk into his office at half past
noon on a warm autumn day in Tehran, his first thought is that he won’t be able
to join his wife and daughter for lunch, as promised.

Wow. It’s interesting that his first thought isn’t, “Why the crap are there men with rifles in my office?” This is the thing that blows my mind about some parts of the Middle East. Men walking around with rifles are not surprising, maybe even commonplace. It seems the people there almost expect things like this to happen because, I guess, they so often do. I’ve been on the wait list at my library for weeks for this book, so I’m excited to dive in. It puts me in mind of ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘Land of 1,000 Sons’ by Khaled Hosseini . I hope it is just as good!

Synopsis: (Taken from Amazon.com)
Sofer's family escaped from Iran in 1982 when she was 10, an experience that may explain the intense detail of this unnerving debut. On a September day in 1981, gem trader Isaac Amin is accosted by Revolutionary Guards at his Tehran office and imprisoned for no other crime than being Jewish in a country where Muslim fanaticism is growing daily. Being rich and having had slender ties to the Shah's regime magnify his peril. In anguish over what might be happening to his family, Isaac watches the brutal mutilation and executions of prisoners around him. His wife, Farnaz, struggles to keep from slipping into despair, while his young daughter, Shirin, steals files from the home of a playmate whose father is in charge of the prison that holds her father. Far away in Brooklyn, Isaac's nonreligious son, Parviz, struggles without his family's money and falls for the pious daughter of his Hasidic landlord. Nicely layered, the story shimmers with past secrets and hidden motivations.