You've Got Five Pages, Horse by Geraldine Brooks, To Tell Me You're Good.

The first chapter can make or break a reader's engagement with a story. We as writers must craft brilliant opening pages in order to hook those picky readers, so let's study the stories of others to see how they do it! The first chapter of Horse by Geraldine Brooks leaves me with...mixed feelings. On a technical level--scene execution, prose, and such--Brooks is stellar. The very word choices the protagonist makes in those opening pages say a lot about the protagonist's nature; in fact, some of the word choices made me feel like I lack the intellect to fully appreciate the language utilized here. Still, the memories the protagonist recalls of family bereavement while interacting with a racist neighbor also experiencing grief speaks volumes as to the power of upbringing and culture in our lives. I just wish it was clearer as to where this story is intending to go. I don't want it broadcast and/or spoonfed to me, but I do need *something.* Brooks' last line of the chapter does promise there will be a *something* when Theo discovers "the horse" in the neighbor's discarded items on the street. But when I see Chapter 2 is not going to continue with this momentum but will instead change over to a new protagonist with a new point of view, I worry that we'll be stopping and starting several times before the plot can truly find its groove. I am likely assuming too much here, but as a picky reader, I am just not a fan of hopping among the characters, especially when we've barely gotten to know even one of them. And what will you, fellow creative, learn in the first five pages? Let's find out!