Rate the first sentence above you

6/10 Nobody knows why, but I am scared of air bags, so it works perfectly to set the mood of dramatics, but perhaps not for everyone.

"To be born again in these broken hills, lost to their fates the children tried to run, away from the cycle that drew them ever in."

9/10 I’ve heard it said that the grass is never greener on the other side, but I beg to differ.

8/10 It gives a new twist to that old saying =P

"But nothing will ever scare me as does the view of this tarnished beauty, nothing like this tower without life, nothing like this would without light."

6/10; it's poetic and I like it, but it's a little unwieldy and it feels like a mid-paragraph sentence in the wrong place (the dreaded But Opener strikes again!) Again, though, it's nice.

"The first thing Ihaka knew was the Sound."

(probably not the most original opener ever, but I wrote the first draft of this chapter more than a year ago and I felt like changing it would throw the rest of the chapter off, so there it is)

oh that's good, i like how Sound is proper, it intrigues me and makes me want to learn about it.

9/10

i wrote this for my short story nemesis but scrapped it.

In retrospect, he realized that the perfect storm of tragedy and circumstance had culminated in the final showdown with his nemesis.

I like the combination of 'tragedy' and 'circumstance' being 'the perfect storm' in 'culmination'. I also like that not only you start off with a 'showdown with his nemesis', but that it's also their 'final'. So, there's history here that piques interest. However, 'in retrospect, he realized that' seems like an odd started for me and doesn't seem to add more than any of the other words do. I see the attempt to bring some of the character's wit into the line, but it doesn't seem to work effectively as is.

Grade: 7.5/10.

It had been brought to her attention, at least once by anyone who caught her in private conversation, that Peter Talwin was a man of admirable charm and upbringing that should not be forsaken.

9/10 for certain reasons

I look around to see the mist rolling in, making it hard to see the bloodied demon that has followed me without my knowledge.

7/10

Eh, okay. I vote its a tad over the top.

The town was coated every which way in mist, every bronzed pipe hissing and wheezing, every roof top wet with a fine layer of fog; it was a city of steam, powered by the invents of a mad old grandpa.

6/10

Too long and repetitive for me.

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This wasn’t how a Promised life was supposed to begin.

5/10 I wish there was more action.

"It was me who cut the cheese, alright!"

Around a 6. If the next line is amazing, an 8. If the next line doesn't immediately answer the question "why is admitting you cut the cheese so important it's the opening line?" then it'll drop down to a 4.

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People call me Jasmine Ghost.

7/10 I actually quite like that line... but normally opening with someone telling me their name... well, it just isn't all that interesting- however; it's said so 'matter a factly' that it makes you wonder how it's relevant.

Erm, here's mine...

There's something terribly wrong with dying in a hospital.

3/10

This line needs a blurb to say what the context is, because considering how many terminally ill and elderly patients die in a hospital, this line just doesn't hit me.

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This wasn’t how a Promised life was supposed to begin.

Interesting foreshadowing!! 6.5

I am actually going to put my first few lines....sorry.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All I could do was stare at the stony, death - ridden features of the woman's macabre looking face. The most terrifying thing about it? The thing that made me turn my head the other way in total disgust? The most truly gruesome fact about these features? These death - ridden, stony features… they were my own.

I'm going to say 4/10 for the whole thing. It's cliche -- I've seen it before -- and the sentences are too long and not interesting enough from first sight to catch me. The rhetorical questions don't really grab the reader, and you'd probably do better to scrap them. Your repetition is bad to the point of redundancy.

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The stranger lurched in at half-past eight.