First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this weekly meme. The idea is that you post the opening paragraph (sometimes maybe a few ) of a book you decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s).

I am posting the intro from Perla by Carolina De Robertis

Sometimes, to hide your sadness, you have to cut yourself in two. That way you can bury half of yourself, the unspeakable half, and leave the rest to face to the world. I can tell you the first time I did this. I was fourteen years old, standing in a bathroom stall holding the last note I would ever receive from my friend Romina, a note consisting of a single question in furious capital letters.

We had been in class together for years, but did not grow close until we were thirteen, when Romina began to have her experience. That was her own word for it, experience, spoken in a hallowed tone that gave it an aura of great mystery.

“An experience,” I repeated blankly, the first time I heard of it.

“Come over tonight, I’ll show you,” Romina said.

As it turned out, Romina’s experience was nothing more and nothing less than the philosophical and aesthetic expansion of her world. She had begun exploring her parents’ bookshelves. That was all.

We began to spend hours together after school, after homework was done, exploring books, ideas, poems, life’s great questions. We pillaged her parents’ bookcase, pulling volumes down, reading, and sharing our findings with each other.