Unpopular opinion: the first 50 pages of a book should be read twice

I used to just plow through the start of any novel and hope I caught everything. Then my Toronto book club had a debate about The Goldfinch where half of us missed a key detail about Theo's mom. So I started reading the first 50 pages twice before continuing, and my comprehension of characters and plot threads jumped way up. Has anyone else tried a different approach to the beginning of a book?

2 comments

2 Comments

lee_bailey6510d ago

Ngl, I tried that once and ended up rereading the same 50 pages for three days because I kept getting distracted by my own phone. It's wild how much stuff you miss when you're just rushing through to "get to the good part." Might actually give this a shot with my next book since I always feel lost by chapter 3 anyway.

lily36010d ago

omg that phone thing is SO real, it's like your brain just gives up after three paragraphs and suddenly you're deep in a Twitter spiral. I've done the exact same thing with re-reading chapters over and over because I was half-paying attention while scrolling. It's kind of ridiculous how much detail you pick up when you force yourself to slow down, even the boring parts that seemed skimmable. Plus, by the time you get to chapter 3 you actually remember who that random side character is (you know, the one that always matters later).