First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?  The rules are as follows:

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

First Lines

When I was five years old, back when my old man was still sort of around, I watched a promotional video for Disneyland that my mom got in the free box of VHS tapes at the library. Basically, the video was a virtual tour of the Disneyland grounds.

Do you know what book this is?

Still guessing?

Well, the book reveal is…

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

From Bookshop.org:

For Mike Muñoz, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work–and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew–he’s smart enough to know that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how? He’s not qualified for much of anything. He has no particular talents, although he is stellar at handling a lawn mower and wielding clipping shears. But now that career seems to be behind him. So what’s next for Mike Muñoz?

In this funny, biting, touching, and ultimately inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man determined to achieve the American dream of happiness and prosperity–who just so happens to find himself along the way.

Quick Thoughts

I actually finished this book this week. Given there’s so much controversy about it I thought I’d form my own opinion about it. In short, I enjoyed this book a lot. In my opinion, it’s definitely geared toward the adult reader. Even the author stated as such when the controversy about this book was at its peak. I thought it was a great book. I found it amusing and also frustrating for Mike, the main character. Give it a go! If I have time I’ll write a short review about it, but I’m way behind on reviews, so don’t hold your breath!