You've Got Five Pages, Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson, 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! We've got another delight here, my friends! Now I know Sanderson's a big name in fantasy writing, but I wasn't expecting a Jane Austen-style cover for one of his books. Apparently, Tress of the Emerald Sea was to be something for his wife, so its voice, characters, world, etc. are not meant to be connected to anything else he's written. This is fine, as I'm one of those heathens who's never read Sanderson. :) I do hope his other books have such a playful narrative voice! That's what hooks you in these first few pages, honestly. The first chapter is almost entirely exposition about where protagonist Tress lives: a putrid island where nothing can grow and only salt can save you from the cosmic spores raining from the sky. I was keenly reminded of Tolkien's asides to readers as I went, though this narrator's tongue is a bit more, shall we say, barbed: "Ships sailed that dust like ships sail water here, and you should not find that so unusual. How many other planets have you visited? Perhaps they all sail oceans of pollen, and your home is the freakish one." We learn more about the world than we do about Tress in this opening chapter, but it's enough to keep us going. For a girl who insists she's happy on an island where the government orders the residents to remain until death, she still collects cups decorated with things that can't survive where she lives. For a girl who does her best to tame her hair and be socially presentable, she never seems to succeed. For a girl with a family name like Glorf ("don't judge," says the narrator), she deserves a chance to be more. And hopefully, we'll read on to see just that. What will you learn from these opening pages? Let's find out! Cheers!